What the Heck is Web3?
You might have heard of something called “Web3”. If not, don’t worry. You can read up on it here or here.
But in its most simplest terms, it means moving all of the parts of the modern web into some sort of blockchain technology - the data storage, the application logic, everything.
It’s also somewhat tied to the concept of Decentralized Autonomous Organisations, which in turn basically refers to the idea that you can use “Smart Contracts” that are programmable on the Etherium Blockchain ecosystem to implement organisational charters that are then automatically executed.
What exactly is meant with Web3 is still a bit hazy, and the idea was not very well received. A lot of people simply call it stupid, pointing out that the computing power of blockchain technologies is laughably small, that the environmental impact of “proof of work”-based blockchains is horrendous and irresponsible, or that those features already exist in current technology.
Others point out that the philosophical underpinnings of a technology that requires just a bare minimum of trust are at least interesting.
So, what’s going on?
There’s some technology (the blockchain) that is really really intriguing because it has many new features no previous technology has. But there isn’t any clear application for those features in the real world (yet).
Then there are a couple (really, just a couple) of people who own a lot of the stuff that is on the blockchain (think e.g. Bitcoin) and are very, very rich *on paper*. If those couple of people can convince the rest of the world that this blockchain-thingy also has some value in the real world, they will also become very, very rich *for realz*.
So they keep pushing some vague ideas about possible use cases for blockchain technology, hoping that some ideas will stick outside the crypto-bubble.
First, it was replacing fiat money. Then, it was logistics. And since the blockchain is simply not needed for any of those use cases (and is sometimes even simply the wrong choice), now we have Web3.
Is this any better? Doubtful. Even the initial assessment of the Status Quo is short-sighted: The problem is not that access to data and services is centralised. The problem is that it is privatised. And Web3 is not changing that. Not at all.
The Blockchain is the pinnacle of privatised, scarcity-based economy. It goes to great pains to re-introduce scarcity, which digitalisation effectively overcame. I’d argue its sole purpose is not to de-centralise trust, but to cement in scarcity at the very foundation of the technology we use. Why do I think this?
Because when someone stole access to NFTs valued at 2.2 million Dollars, OpenSea froze trading of those NFTs.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is not how decentralised trust looks like. This is a trading platform enforcing property rights, which are the legal representation of scarcity.
Blockchain - and by its extension Web3 - still is a libertarian attempt to replace the rules of our democracies with new rules written by people with the economic resources to do so - this time not the oil barons, but the people with the fattest crypto-wallets.
But then again, I never owned a Bitcoin, so what do I know?
Three Steps Into the Future
Interesting presentation by Benedict Evans about the macro trends of the tech industry. Not everything resonates with me, but it’s for sure an interesting read.
Frictionless Collaboration
We’re in the middle of a workplace revolution, and everyone gets their fair share of confusion, anxiety, and muddied waters. If you’re still struggling to find out how “Remote”, “Distributed” or “Hybrid” plays out on a day-to-day basis for you and your organisation, rest assured, you’re not alone. The rest of us is too.
Everyone’s learning when to be asynchronous, when to chat, when to video-call, when to send emails, when to use a miro board.
Here’s another take on mixing async and sync, face-to-face and remote.
I like “Have we spoken to them about this yet? Or just traded emails?”, which goes much deeper than just communication technologies. I mean, be honest: When was the last time you’ve really spoken about something to some else in the work place? Instead of communicating about it?
The Psychology Behind Meeting Overload
I don’t know about you, but on a normal week, my calendar looks like a board of chess, with most of the white tiles removed. A colleague if mine has around 30 hours of meetings in a regular week. Another colleague has up to 10 meetings a day.
This is nuts.
And since we all moved to remote or hybrid work, the meeting culture got worse. (Why? Because doing Distributed right is hard)
And insult to injury - most meetings fail to fulfil their purpose (let alone are a productive use of everyones time). But why is it that we keep having them?
Harvard Business Review published 6 reasons why we keep having meetings that read like a Meeting Bullshit Bingo Card.
Here’s an interesting observation: I experience all of those patterns on a daily basis; But they are more likely to be tied to a person, than to the meeting or meeting type. It appears to be that people tend to schedule meetings because of their own character, not because of the character of the subject matter.
That’s it for this edition of Let’s Be Fwends - thanks for stopping by and taking the time. 📆
|
|
