Wait, What is Web3? 🪃

Short, practical drops on culture and technology. 🚀

Wait, what is Web3? 🚀

‘Web3’ has us equal parts confused and excited. Some think it’s an elitist way of describing new technology that isn’t as accessible and democratized as it claims to be (ex: high transaction costs - more on that later). 👇

Others think it’s going to change everything. 👇

It doesn’t need to be complicated and it doesn’t have to divide us. As far as I can tell, ‘Web3’ is simply a term used to describe what looks like the next major evolution of the internet. One useful place to start is a combination of @naval x @cdixon.

Let's unpack It 🙌

Web1 👉 Call it ‘94 to ‘06. We were basically digitizing the analog world. We put physical information like magazines online and we could now read on computers. 

Web2 👉 In the second big evolution of the internet, we brought people together in social networks. Call it ‘06 to '19. Not only could we read anything we wanted online, we could now write our own work as well. 

Web3 👉 This time, it’s about decentralization and ownership. Non-fungibility, public ledger systems, and new ways of organizing economic and social activity are all pillars of this new wave of excitement. Sure, in Web2 we could create our own content and communities, but we didn’t own them.

Practical frameworks 🔥

Web3 needs creators and curators. Great technology isn’t built without them. It’s the subtle dance between creativity x engineering. Being able to practically, and efficiently distill complicated information has always been important, but in Web3 it trades at a premium. You could do far worse than starting with Chris Dixon from a16z. 👇

Gratitude 🙏

Thanks for being a part of this community. I hope Boomerang continues to be the shortest, most practical newsletter in your inbox.

See you on the path. 

- MG