Selling Web3 in a Freedom Rush
During my conversation with start-up founders, the underlining goal to most of the missions they are trying to fulfil is to offer end-user more freedom. Freedom of speech is probably one of the assets that is being threated today: we are not free like we used to be anymore, especially on social media.
The Web 2.0 period is best interpreted as the "era of platforms".?Platforms function as middlemen, with the primary value that they bring being the ability to link individuals with one another. As a consequence of this, they are extremely dependent on network effects, with the value of the product being directly proportionate to the amount of people who use it.
In the same vein, they tend to centralize their operations in an effort to increase the size of their user base at the expense of other businesses in the same industry. They construct their own proprietary algorithms, choose addictive design elements, and restrict users' ability to engage directly with users on other platforms in order to entice new users and keep existing ones. You can think of them as enclosed spaces with walls.
It is important not to lose sight of the fact that this reality plays a significant role in shaping the discussion on free speech. Supporters of liberal speech regulation, such as Musk, say that social media sites should not be held responsible for preventing censorship due to their disproportionate level of power.
Some users and groups believe that platforms should scale back or eliminate moderation altogether, while others believe that it should be improved upon and expanded. Most people in both circumstances don't question whether the owners and managers of highly centralized platforms should have such authority.
Web3 and Freedom of Speech
The introduction of Web3 opens the door to the prospect of a revolutionary solution. Web3's potential to free the internet from the grip of big tech is what makes it so exciting, and that includes the ability to decide what content can and cannot be shared.
This potential for democratization is fundamental to blockchain technology. Public blockchains function without the need for authorization and are completely open to everybody. They are designed to remove the need for a centralized gatekeeper, hence facilitating the possibility of group decisions that are made from the ground up.
Even if the first baby steps have been taken in this direction, the Web3 ecosystem is going to provide a wide variety of substantial alternatives to centralized moderation as it matures. A few examples are as follows:
With the help of on-chain governance, large-scale moderation choices can be reached through community consensus. Tokens that determine voting rights can be issued to users based on the amount of activity or engagement they have on the platform. This gives users the ability to influence how the platform grows in the future.
Leveraging the fact that blockchain-based systems are essentially public allows for the preservation of pseudonymity while simultaneously discouraging harassment and trolling. Token awards can be tied to the quality of contributions made.
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Users are liberated from the obligation to put up with content moderation policies with which they disagree when their ability to browse between platforms is increased to its fullest potential. Instead, consumers are able to easily switch to a platform that more closely matches their interests, and they can take all of their data with them.
A straightforward answer is obviously not going to be possible for something as complicated as the problem at hand, and there are going to be a lot of obstacles to overcome. For example, concerns have been raised about how the immutability of the blockchain could make it difficult to remove or alter offensive posts.
However, these and other Web3 developments will enable us to profoundly rethink the discussion around digital free speech. With a thriving and user-controlled ecosystem of social DApps, the web itself would become the digital town square, eliminating the need to rely on individual platforms to tailor their judgments to our tastes.
Just picture a future where you have complete access to and ownership of your personal data. Where you have control over who has access to it and where it ultimately goes. Just think of the implications for the balance of power, the flow of resources, and the way in which enterprises must now function as a result of this.
Breaking Monopoly with Web3
YouTube has banned educational web3 accounts on YouTube, including BanklessHQ, gabrielhaines, and optimismPBC. As a result, these accounts have been forced to delete their video and lose the ability to communicate information with their viewers. This is how Google handles the people who created the content that made YouTube popular.
Who in their right mind would put their faith in them? Google is extremely anti-web3, as evidenced by the tweets of the company's highest-ranking executives. Probably to a greater extent than that of any other web2 competitor. From this point forward, we are anticipating that web3 will proceed more quickly in the direction of de-platforming.
The most obvious way that web2 officials abuse their power is by removing channels at will, but it could be argued that the algorithmic games they play to get as much money as possible from the ecosystem are a bigger problem. For example, decreasing your organic reach in order to encourage you to purchase additional sponsored reach.
Because of this, it is essential to have web3 services that provide robust, up-front guarantees not only about the access regulations, but also regarding the economic rules.
A blockchain enables you to construct systems in which the governance and economics of the system are baked into the architecture of the system, in a form that anybody can audit and verify. This is one of the things that a blockchain enables.
While some web2 executives and Harvard CS grads might disagree, many users, builders, and creators see this as a pressing issue that has to be addressed.