Web3 and the transition to true digital ownership

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How do you think you would respond if I asked you the following question: "What do you own online?"

In real life, you own your home, the car you drive, the watch you wear, and everything you buy. But do you own your email address or your company's website? How about the images that populate your Instagram account? Or in-game purchases on Fortnite or FIFA video games or any other game you play?

My best guess is that after thinking about what you use the internet for (which for everyone is pretty much everything, social and professional), you would be hard pressed to come up with a solid answer.

Perhaps you could ask me to explain what I mean by "ownership". But that doesn't really matter. And while I don't mean it's a trick question, it kind of is. Because in the current version of the Internet, we don't have online property rights.

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To understand why we don't own anything online, we must first understand the evolution of the internet and how it gave rise to the business model that has dominated its current iteration.

In the 1990s, the decade of desktop computers and dial-up, the Internet was primarily a content delivery network consisting of simple static websites presenting information. What we now call Web1 was slow, siloed and disorganized.

Next came platforms such as Facebook (now Meta) and Google, spurred by wireless connectivity and the development of portable devices such as laptops, smartphones and tablets, which offered us free services that allowed us to modify, interact with and generate content. These platforms centralized the web, implementing a top-down structure that saw users dependent on their systems and services.

This evolution of the Internet took place in the mid-2000s and is the version we know today. We call it Web2. It is a model based on connectivity and user-generated content, reflecting the image and interests of companies like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

In this environment, Internet users are both participants and products. We subscribe to services in exchange for our data, which is sold to advertisers, and we create content that generates value and fuels engagement for these platforms. We do all of this without having any rights to anything online.

Our social media profiles may be deleted and our access to email accounts or messaging apps suspended. We do not own any of the digital assets we purchase and have no autonomy over our data. The businesses we build online are often platform dependent and therefore vulnerable to algorithms, data breaches and phantom bans.

The game is against us. Because the option of not being involved, when so much of the commerce and communication in the world is done online, is not really an option at all. And yet there is nothing we can point to and call our own. We have no authority over anything.

And it is this dynamic that Web3 is determined to change.

Web3 and "the internet of value"

Nowadays, when most people hear the term "Web3", they're probably thinking "metaverse". But a better way to think of Web3 is like the evolution of the Internet.

Today, the digital experience is very corporate and very centralized. Web3 will deliver the dynamic, application-driven user experience of today's crowd...