Developing companies in web3
Developing companies in web3
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I moved from a daily to a weekly schedule to allow for more heads-down product work. The update will highlight the essential things that have happened in Web3 land during the week. Spoiler: it was slow news week event-wise, but quite fundamental in its discussions on Cryptotwitter about Web3 use cases.
Web3 use cases
The critics
Charlie Warzel's article at the Atlantic summarized what happened well:
Marc Andreessen and Packy McCormick (two proponents of the Web3 movement) failed to make a case for valid and simple Web3 use cases in interviews.
https://twitter.com/liron/status/1537186589486460928?s=20&t=oQxq6uwJYUFLrYbvyMouhw
https://twitter.com/liron/status/1533214640460574720?s=20&t=elOCwVkULzOzuaT2Vnfrpg
https://twitter.com/zachweinberg/status/1539038527534428161
The conclusion of Web3 critics: "Behind all the Web3 bluster is just hollow abstraction."
I invite everybody who's working in Web3 to read the article and to listen to the podcasts. I believe these are exactly the discussions that are needed. The reason why I quit my job to work full-time in Web3 was to: "create companies that solve real problems with clear business models, where the blockchain offers 10x advantages over the current way of doing things". And I believe it is hard to argue with my goal, as even the critics share the same sentiment:
https://twitter.com/levie/status/1540723593318830085
But, I also struggle to have conversations with people from the space about actual problems and real use cases and I hope that during the bear market we'll have more honest conversations in the industry.
The in-between
However, thus far these use cases in the market seem limited. Ben Thompson and John Gruber had a sober conversation on their podcast Dithering about Web3 use cases. "Web3 advocates are overselling and trying to recreate everything from scratch. Recreate everything on the crappiest database ever. This is just not going to work." They continue to say: "The Web3 advocates are struggling to explain use cases, as they are going too far, they are overselling it." Their case for a Web3 use case: Decentralize the components that actually benefit from the blockchain and have everything else remain the same (on Web2 that is). Erin from disco.xyz called it minimum viable centralization, which is a great term to describe it.
https://twitter.com/mictuc/status/1539707849831497734
Ben Thompson and John Gruber argue that a simple use case could be a connective layer that provides authentication between untrusted parties for content creators that have an audience on YouTube and on Instagram. A simple system, yet hard to build. John Gruber quotes John Gall: "A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work."
This is a similar notion to Alex Danco's tokengated commerce and what he is doing over at Shopify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/498S1ce1KG2Qp4H9MgYyCb?si=208701805a554bdd&nd=1
Alex Danco is very optimistic about the future of Web3 use cases and what it means for its Shopify merchants and so is Packy McCormick
The optimist
Packy McCormick responded to his own struggle to articulate Web3 use with a two part essay, which is again a must-read for anybody working in this space.
https://twitter.com/packyM/status/1539955598938308609?s=20&t=8bmwaKm9UQviAgAXLUFjuQ
Part 1 describes Web3 use cases today:
https://www.notboring.co/p/web3-use-cases-today
and part 2 talk describes Web3 use cases of the future:
https://www.notboring.co/p/web3-use-cases-the-future
We're in a summer slump news-wise. Well, other than 3AC, Cesius, Voyager and many more who have caused a mini credit crisis.
Let' see what next week holds.
Happy weekend!
I moved from a daily to a weekly schedule to allow for more heads-down product work. The update will highlight the essential things that have happened in Web3 land during the week. Spoiler: it was slow news week event-wise, but quite fundamental in its discussions on Cryptotwitter about Web3 use cases.
Web3 use cases
The critics
Charlie Warzel's article at the Atlantic summarized what happened well:
Marc Andreessen and Packy McCormick (two proponents of the Web3 movement) failed to make a case for valid and simple Web3 use cases in interviews.
https://twitter.com/liron/status/1537186589486460928?s=20&t=oQxq6uwJYUFLrYbvyMouhw
https://twitter.com/liron/status/1533214640460574720?s=20&t=elOCwVkULzOzuaT2Vnfrpg
https://twitter.com/zachweinberg/status/1539038527534428161
The conclusion of Web3 critics: "Behind all the Web3 bluster is just hollow abstraction."
I invite everybody who's working in Web3 to read the article and to listen to the podcasts. I believe these are exactly the discussions that are needed. The reason why I quit my job to work full-time in Web3 was to: "create companies that solve real problems with clear business models, where the blockchain offers 10x advantages over the current way of doing things". And I believe it is hard to argue with my goal, as even the critics share the same sentiment:
https://twitter.com/levie/status/1540723593318830085
But, I also struggle to have conversations with people from the space about actual problems and real use cases and I hope that during the bear market we'll have more honest conversations in the industry.
The in-between
However, thus far these use cases in the market seem limited. Ben Thompson and John Gruber had a sober conversation on their podcast Dithering about Web3 use cases. "Web3 advocates are overselling and trying to recreate everything from scratch. Recreate everything on the crappiest database ever. This is just not going to work." They continue to say: "The Web3 advocates are struggling to explain use cases, as they are going too far, they are overselling it." Their case for a Web3 use case: Decentralize the components that actually benefit from the blockchain and have everything else remain the same (on Web2 that is). Erin from disco.xyz called it minimum viable centralization, which is a great term to describe it.
https://twitter.com/mictuc/status/1539707849831497734
Ben Thompson and John Gruber argue that a simple use case could be a connective layer that provides authentication between untrusted parties for content creators that have an audience on YouTube and on Instagram. A simple system, yet hard to build. John Gruber quotes John Gall: "A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work."
This is a similar notion to Alex Danco's tokengated commerce and what he is doing over at Shopify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/498S1ce1KG2Qp4H9MgYyCb?si=208701805a554bdd&nd=1
Alex Danco is very optimistic about the future of Web3 use cases and what it means for its Shopify merchants and so is Packy McCormick
The optimist
Packy McCormick responded to his own struggle to articulate Web3 use with a two part essay, which is again a must-read for anybody working in this space.
https://twitter.com/packyM/status/1539955598938308609?s=20&t=8bmwaKm9UQviAgAXLUFjuQ
Part 1 describes Web3 use cases today:
https://www.notboring.co/p/web3-use-cases-today
and part 2 talk describes Web3 use cases of the future:
https://www.notboring.co/p/web3-use-cases-the-future
We're in a summer slump news-wise. Well, other than 3AC, Cesius, Voyager and many more who have caused a mini credit crisis.
Let' see what next week holds.
Happy weekend!
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