25. Even if you are not an investor, you should embrace web3 and interpret its importance from multiple perspectives.

I came into contact with Web3 projects a long time ago, but at that time I didn't have a deep understanding of it and couldn't understand what my friends meant when they said "Web3 is so cool!" So I never wrote a dedicated article about Web3.

Nowadays, I finally feel that I have some understanding of Web3, so I decided to write an article based on my understanding of Web3 in a logical way, in order to make my thoughts more systematic and logical. However, Web3 does not have a very accurate definition, so this article is still filled with my personal subjective opinions.

In this paragraph, I will explain the purpose of Web3 from my subjective perspective.

Before that, I recommend everyone to watch a documentary called "The Social Dilemma" produced by Netflix. This documentary revolves around a project by Tristan Harris, a former Google engineer, and talks about the erosion of individual and human civilization caused by the booming social software in the past decade.

These social media companies (Meta, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) have only one purpose, which is to make profits and earn as much money as possible. In a free market and fair competition environment, making more money is the hard truth of development. Under this sole criterion, these Silicon Valley giants have used all means to exploit the psychological weaknesses of human beings, extracting the maximum amount of attention and time from individuals and selling them to advertisers for profit. At the same time, they have unintentionally pushed human society towards a binary world of black and white. The first half of the documentary focuses on the impact of algorithms (artificial intelligence + big data) and business strategies on individuals. The second half talks about the impact on human civilization as a whole: democratic systems, relationships between people, and communication between people.

There are many interpretations of the Internet, but the fundamental value I feel from the Internet is that "the Internet reduces the distance between people and strengthens relationships." Therefore, I would like to propose a definition here: the cornerstone of the Internet is social media.

For social media companies, their product is not the platform or the chat tool, but the users. Each user (your time, attention, any privacy) is packaged and sold to advertisers. The characteristics of current Internet products (social apps) are to constantly lure you to use them and constantly occupy your attention and time. In short, they make you addicted, just like tobacco, alcohol, and other addictive substances. The result is the same: after a short period of happiness, you will feel tired, empty, and depressed.

Through massive amounts of data and behavioral records of individual users, individual users are no longer unique. Your behavior can be predicted, your psychology has been mastered, and you have nowhere to hide. In front of IT giants, you are just a tool that can be used for profit. What you think you want to buy is actually what the giants want to sell, and what you want to do is what the giants suggest you do.

Under the guidance of these algorithm-driven social media, human expression is becoming more and more emotional, and it is moving towards the extremes of black and white. Commercial activities use these characteristics to sell products, and politicians use them to campaign. This is a world where the competition is about who is more extreme, and the slightly neutral and moderate rational voices have been almost destroyed.

Now, I can finally introduce Web3. Web3.0 is actually about people taking back control of the Internet in various ways, in order to truly own the value they create in the virtual world.

Social media giants profit from the privacy data disclosed by users during social interactions, and users seem to tacitly accept this behavior when using these social products, without any autonomous decision-making power to sell privacy data. However, in Web3 social media, although it may not be completely anonymous, it is definitely desensitized from real-world identities.

When you surf social media on Web3, your social identity is an address, or an NFT avatar, or a Cyberpunk 3D image. The privacy data you generate on it cannot be associated with individuals in the real world. Of course, you can choose to associate with reality, which is the core "privacy autonomy" that Web3 gives to users.

Let me describe a concrete scenario to illustrate the future of Web3 social interactions. You post a dynamic on a Web3 social software, and a Dapp tries to obtain your real-world physical location and sends you an application. After reviewing it, you believe that it would disclose your real privacy, so you refuse to sign the application. The Dapp ends up with no success. But another Dapp applies to access your recent NFT purchase records, and you believe that this would not disclose your privacy, so you sign it on your wallet. This Dapp takes away your NFT transaction records but also pays you some cryptocurrency as a reward.

This kind of scenario roughly represents some situations in Web3 social interactions, but what I really want to say is that the key point is "privacy autonomy," not the reward.

In this paragraph, I will explain why Web3 is being sought after and hyped from my subjective perspective.

First of all, this is similar to the reasons I explained for the popularity of the metaverse before. If you are interested, you can refer to my previous article about the financing story of the metaverse.

Web3, from the perspective of the development of the Internet, should belong to the next generation of Internet paradigm. Everyone knows that Internet companies, especially tech giants, rely heavily on big data, but the metadata required for big data analysis relies on the social interactions of Internet users. Among them, 99% of the benefits generated by the data are taken by these tech giants and big data terminal service providers.

For example, the recommendation algorithm of shopping apps relies on your likes, shares, and reposts on social platforms; the recommendation algorithm of food apps relies on your physical location, eating habits, and consumption level. In the past, Web2.0 users had no choice and passively became leeks on the privacy data. Internet giants absorbed this data and iterated recommendation algorithms, eventually forming a "Truman's world" of 7.6 billion people.

Web3, as the next generation of Internet paradigm, will fundamentally change the situation of social data and take back the "privacy autonomy." In such a new Internet paradigm, there will inevitably be greater chemical reactions, just like the combination of mobile phones and the Internet gave birth to mobile Internet; e-commerce relying on Web2 big data recommendation algorithms ushered in explosive growth, and so on.

Let me describe another concrete scenario to help you understand this future Web3. Suppose you are doing e-commerce on Web3, you will no longer rely on certain platforms like Alibaba and Taobao. Instead, you can choose target user groups through the feed function of Web3 middleware, and these user groups are willing to accept targeted promotions of this kind of product (users have authorized signatures). 95% of your advertising expenses will directly reach the users, and 5% will be deducted by the Web3 protocol. In this way, this function has replaced the direct marketing tool.

The advertising costs of e-commerce directly affect the users, and users can completely choose to accept advertising in categories they are interested in and share the data they are willing to expose. The role of the Web3 protocol is only to integrate and deliver feeds, while the analysis and processing of shareable data can be done by other Web3 projects. This is another major function of Web3, composability and non-siloed work.

Based on the above description, it is enough to paint a beautiful picture of Web3 for capital. There are more people who can tell this story more professionally and beautifully than I do, so this narrative story is no worse than the concept of the metaverse. In the current investment field where there is a lack of opportunities, it is normal for Web3 to be sought after by capital.

Finally, let's talk about why I say that even if you are not an investor, you should embrace Web3, which is the most practical.

Because Web3 will airdrop to you, while traditional social media won't. By actively participating in Web3 applications, due to the strong association between Web3 and blockchain, issuing governance tokens is almost inevitable. Most Web3 applications will choose to airdrop tokens to early product users.

Since socializing and interacting are everywhere, why not choose Web3? Not only can you desensitize your encrypted identity from your real-world identity, but you can also potentially receive benefits. Why not do it?

Remember, at no time do I provide investment advice, and I don't even recommend you to invest in cryptocurrencies. Sometimes the messages in the background may not be displayed, so you can add my personal WeChat for communication. But please indicate the purpose.

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Wiseman's Notes - Liu Ye Jing Hong

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