Web3 is for everyone

Web3 is not for a special few. It is for everyone.

There’s always been a stigma that Web3 is difficult to understand, hard to use or just a fad. Not only that, believers and nay-sayers all have their unique perspective, adding more complexity for new comers into the Web3 space.

When ~3000 people were asked whether Web3 is mostly hype or the real deal, 26% of people believe it will be mainstream. There could be a couple of explanations for this:

1. Web3 is legitimately flawed, resulting in less people believing it won’t be mainstream
2. There aren’t enough awareness about Web3 in the general community
3. There is a misunderstanding about what is Web3 and what it can do

These hypothesis revolve around 3 key areas: goodness, awareness and usage of Web3. By diving into each of these areas, one can obtain a wholistic picture on what Web3 is and understand that they too can be apart of it.

Fundamental belief of “we”

Web3 is about the people

Boiling it down to its core belief, Web3 is about the people. It is about the users being in control of their content and their identity on the internet.

A prime example of this is payments in web3. Instead of doing a bank transfer to your friends, you transfer cryptocurrency to them using a crypto wallet. Cryptocurrency is just like any other currency, where it acts as a medium of exchange. And a crypto wallet allows you to send and receive cryptocurrency, similar to your bank account. 

In Web3, you do not need any personal data like your name, address or phone number to transfer money. Not only that, no one can prevent you from making payments to people. Power is given back to the users, effectively creating a decentralised community.

Anonymity does come with its downside, especially when bad actors intentionally shield their identity for illegal purpose. This creates a lot of grey areas in the legal space, where the government needs to play catch up with such a fast growing space.

Overall, Web3 is fundamentally about the users and they have control on what they can do.

Blockchain driving the belief of “we”

We often hear blockchain as a buzz word that is used very closely with Web3. Breaking it down, blockchain is just another way to store data. All the data is stored as blocks and each block links with its parent block and so on. 

What makes blockchain special is its immutability. Once data is inserted into a block, it cannot change and this is what is driving the Web3 ideology. For example, when a user makes a payment, that payment cannot be reversed, thus, the user can always trust that the transactions they made will not alter in any way.

This does come at the cost of accessibility, as interacting with blockchain requires additional software like wallet browser extension. However, anyone can learn it.

A thriving Web3 community

Web3 ecosystem is growing

The belief in web3 is only as good as the people in it and we are fortunate to have so many passionate believers who are willing to share their knowledge about Web3 to the world.

The wealth of knowledge about web3 on the internet means that each person is one click away from learning something new.

Take this youtube video of Brian Brooks explaining crypto to congress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSTNhBlfV_s&ab_channel=CNETHighlights

The more people share their knowledge with each other, the more understanding people will have about Web3. I personally started out with youtube videos about crypto and slowly made my way to whitepapers from Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana.

You can be apart of Web3, no matter who you are.

Web3 is not as complicated as people make it out to be. Web3 is simply a way of thinking in the internet where the power is given back to the users. You don’t have to be super wealthy or a crypto expert or a genius to understand Web3. So have a look at some videos and blogs about web3, try out some web3 apps, read some whitepapers. By simply learning about Web3 means that you are already part of the community!