Web3 and changes in the attention economy

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There has been a fundamental shift in the source of value within our economy.

In previous models, the source was labor. In today's knowledge economies, it is attention and the ability to act. This new model is why Web2 companies place so much importance on personal data – with knowledge comes understanding, then comes prediction, then action. By understanding the consumer, businesses can advertise and get customers to take action.

And make no mistake, customers are in a constant state of targeted marketing if they use Web2.

Social networks, apps, and even browsers are constantly collecting data to influence decisions. Every web search, every social media post, every email is mined to collect data points. Since so much of our lives have shifted to the digital world, there are now endless possibilities for data collection. Algorithms can map likes, dislikes, values, etc. to create complete virtual profiles, which are then sold to third-party data brokers. These companies often operate in a regulatory gray area, and it is difficult to opt out.

Data, identity and the "why" of consumer behavior

The implications of this are enormous. This virtual identity, or profile, is not made up of the old standard data points. It goes beyond who you are as a consumer - it defines who you are as a person. It doesn't just define what you do, it is able to quantify why you do what you do.

And what about him? Much of the so-called free will can be bought by the highest bidder. Advertisers can pay directly for the behavioral effect they are looking for because they can now measure the results. Tim O'Reilly was right that we solved the Wanamaker problem: the old adage that half your marketing is wasted; you don't know which half. But we haven't covered the natural corollary: the better the marketing, the less autonomy everyone seems to have.

This paints a very dystopian picture. In a previous article, I explained how whoever owns your data owns your decisions, and why. In a digital world, your data is you, it's your online domain. Web2 actively limits our choices by strategically limiting our options; Cambridge Analytica was not the first and will not be the last to harness these new powers of data.

This is a complex problem that goes back to the incentive structure of Web2. We've built a digital world around "you as a product". All the free, cheap and convenient apps we depend on are the perfect example of this in action. These apps have permeated every aspect of our lives, from working to socializing — and the companies behind them know it. They have no incentive to change existing systems.

Better identity control

Solving these problems, and others, is the driving force behind Web3. In a user-owned Web3, you own your data. You can control who sees it and what is done with it, but more importantly, you can start to have better control over the algorithms and better ensure that your private data is actually private >, accessible only by you, whether in emails, direct messages or stored files.

It starts with decentralized identities or self-sovereign identities (SSI). In current web models, our digital identities belong to our devices and/or third-party applications. This makes it difficult to manage our data as it is used and leveraged by many different sources. With decentralized identities, our digital identity lives in our wallet, a single source, and users control who sees what.

For example, when we sign up for anything on the web, we need to create an account. This is true for everything, whether you sign up for an email list or make a purchase. Each time you create a new account, you must provide personal data to confirm your identity. In the United States, the average email address is