I've been writing about the mentality in the blockchain Web 3.0 web3 space for over five years now. And the messaging remains the same. Web3 does not need to be an all-or-nothing conversion. The industry or revolution or technological progression or whatever you want to call it does not have to act as a missionary program. Converting on ideology alone is a fools errand anyway.

The longstanding user experience problem in web3 tends to stem from the zero sum mentality. The idea that any amount of centralization means the product should not exist is both short-sighted and a near-fatal self-inflicted wound. There are exceptions, and truly decentralized applications can and do exist. They serve a niche group of people. They stand as the bastion of what is possible in the eyes of those who believe such a thing should be both possible and standard. The mentality misses the fact that conflicting ideas on how things should work can co-exist. The zero sum game is actually a positive sum game left out in the sun so long it no longer resembles its former self.

As proof of the positive sum potential of competing ideas (and to a certain extent, competing ideologies), let's look no further than fast food restaurants and traditional dining experiences. You're going to have to suspend your need for one-to-one comparisons here, though. I don't think fast food represents the web3 in this model and I don't think of traditional restaurants as the incumbents fast food intends to replace. Instead, I see the two models as two wobbly lines that try to run parallel but occasionally intersect (and this is as close as the web3/web2 comparisons will get).

In the 1940s, the interstate highways system in the United States helped propel fast food restaurants into the mainstream. The concept grew in popularity to the point where fast food now dominates the prepared food market globally. In 2022, the fast food market size was $331 billion. Does that mean that fast food toppled the traditional sit-down restaurant? Ask that of a New Yorker and watch them laugh and cuss you right out of a room. In fact, the restaurant (excluding fast food) market size in 2022 was about $289 billion.

The interesting thing about these stats and about the history of fast food is that it was never designed to replace traditional restaurants. Fast food was an alternative, and not even an alternative to which people were expected to remain committed. Fast food provided options without dictating a complete shift. Over time, because of this flexibility, we've seen hybrid restaurants arise. Combining bits of the sit-down experience and bits of the fast food experience has created and entirely new experience.

And this, my friends, is where we return to web3. Combining open data, portable media, programmable blockchains, and more traditional cloud architecture is fine. It is, I promise. Progressive web apps enable features progressively based on preference and capability. Progressive decentralization can do the same. Building something new alongside something old is a great way to gain adoption. Adoption drives change. Change brings more of the things you originally wanted.

Let's follow the path of fast food and traditional restaurants. Build alongside, not in competition.