I will not bore you with the background of @jack stirring up a frenzy of web3 discussion over the past few days. If you’re reading this you are probably aware of his tweets, the response from some prominent web3 voices, and the subsequent twitter space discussions from web2 “thought-leaders”.

I’m not super interested in dumping on the people who are skeptical of web3, so long as they’re being intellectually honest. The error these folks are making is a forgivable one – they’re extrapolating from what made them successful (or powerful) in the past. This is exactly what makes it so difficult for them to see the new space for startups or technology that didn’t exist during that time.

“I’ve been on the internet for 20 years”

“I like web2 the way it is”

“People forget ads make products & services free for users”

These are the types of statements you would expect to hear from individuals who saw the vision for what the internet could be back then. Of course they like the web the way it is – they were right then, and it made them incredibly wealthy! Web2 isn’t going anywhere anytime soon either. There are incredible applications & products that exist today and will continue to exist even as more activity moves on-chain.

I do take issue with those who have never interacted with web3 yet blindly poo-poo it. Part of the intense emotion that came from cryptonatives is rooted in the fact that we are being told our stuff sucks by people who have never interacted with it. There are people with huge audiences declaring web3 a scam, yet it’s clear they’ve never set up a MetaMask or Rainbow wallet. These are people who have never bought an NFT, never joined a Discord, never used a DEX, and yet they make bold claims about what’s going on in web3. Views from the cheap seats, masquerading as thought-leaders. This is easy to do, especially if you are out to protect the social capital you earned as a technologist or journalist in web2. What’s more difficult is accepting that new technology, new primitives, and new tools may disrupt existing markets or create new ones. Embracing that is especially difficult for those with the most to lose, should these new technologies prove as transformative as the web3 community believes. We know the user experience stinks right now, but that’s not a fundamental flaw. That adoption has seen explosive growth despite this friction should be a blatant signal there’s something powerful going on here. At the same time, more choice for consumers does not mean existing choices go to zero. There’s room for both.

What I found most interesting about all of this was an underlying long-term trend that we’re grappling with as a society: control. Now more than ever, we’re uncomfortable with the lack of control we have in our own lives. I suspect this is only going to increase over time, not decrease. The pandemic has likely pulled some of this angst forward as we wrestle with a public health crisis, policy debates and unprecedented monetary stimulus. But it’s unmistakable that technology has played a key role as well. Consumers have become acutely aware of how much power a handful of giant technology company’s garner. The pushback there is only in its infancy. I suspect a not-insignificant amount of the explosive growth of Tesla can be tied back to people wanting to feel as if they are taking more control over climate issues. Could this be a stretch? Sure, but my sense is “voting” with their capital (the original PoS) for a company focused on alternative energy sources lends some psychological benefit to shareholders. The information age has made it so people are hyper-aware of how little control they have over many things in life – this is an uneasy feeling. My strong belief is that this will lead consumers to seek out tools that help them build resiliency to external factors: institutions, governments, climate issues, the banking system, etc. Blockchain technology enables this on a personal level – we can take control of our digital identities. That is unnerving for existing web2 gatekeepers because it means weaker control for them on a relative basis. Consumers, creators, entrepreneurs & investors who embrace this richer world of existing web2 applications + new web3 primitives will flourish.