Why choose Web3 tools over Web2 services?

Highlighting the benefits and power of Web3 tools

Published in

Cardstack

6 min readJun 7, 2022

If there’s one thing that’s become obvious about Web3 it’s that mainstream adoption must be driven by a renewed attention toward practicality. The rapidly changing nature of the crypto space can leave newcomers in confusion if not total dismay. The tone of headlines often careens wildly between boom and doom, promising great technological innovation one day and impending failure the next. For those outside of blockchain and crypto, the world seems too volatile for long-term commitment, too vanguard to totally understand. The general public’s attitude toward this new tech space seems to always fall into the category of curious but skeptical. Who can blame them? A concrete foundation has yet to be constructed for Web3, and it’s precisely this lack of a ground floor that makes the space so confusing and difficult for newcomers. It’s easy to feel like an outsider even when you’re an insider.

So, how can Web3 fix its own inscrutability? We can begin by turning toward practical solutions. Technology reaches widespread mainstream adoption when it works its way into our daily lives and offers alternatives to stale or broken systems, tools, and practices. Consider the messaging platform Slack. By 2019 or so, Slack had supplanted traditional e-mail as the prime mode of communication in the workplace, mainly because the technologies and functionalities of e-mail had failed to keep up with a rapidly developing world that demanded faster, more collaborative correspondence. Slack recognized the various pain points created by aging e-mail technology and they provided viable solutions. Now, it’s impossible to even imagine a workplace without Slack, Discord, or a similar messaging system.

Yet, Slack’s success wasn’t simply a result of making great tech — though they do, of course. They also convinced the public that their tools were better than the ones in place, and their efforts proved massively successful. Web3 can take cues from recent technological takeovers like the rise of Slack and begin directly confronting the tools that do not work by offering their own unique solutions. So, the question remains: What’s so great about Web3 tools?

Below, we’ve compiled a list of reasons why we should begin choosing Web3 tools over those offered by Web2.

Web3 tools allow for more ownership and autonomy among users.

In recent years, the idea of ownership has become more and more important in discussions regarding digital sovereignty and technological innovation. “Why?” you may ask. The age of Web2 saw a rise in siloed platforms like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google (collectively called FAANG) that all placed one newly important thing at the center of their business models: user data. Each of these sites rely on user data to monetize their businesses through advertising, search engine optimization, the sale of data itself, and more. Web2’s push to obtain user data throughout the 2010s will go down in the history books as something of a digital gold rush, and its effects have already changed the way we think about digital autonomy. According to a 2022 Pew Research Center poll, 81% of Americans feel they have very little or no control over Web2 companies’ use of their personal data, and 79% are very or somewhat concerned about how companies use this data. These numbers obviously tell us that the majority of Americans are concerned about the data question.

So, how can Web3 fix this issue? At its ethical center, Web3 is a system designed to recapture user autonomy. The peer-to-peer nature of blockchain technology and the personalized security of smart contracts grants users more control over their own data. For example, the blockchain-based data ownership platform Cirus works to restore control of data to users by offering a collection of tools that enable privacy and also monetization. With Cirus, users can actually monetize their own data by turning it into cryptocurrency while also maintaining total control over what data they wish to share. DApps like Cirus are paving the way for Web3’s mainstream adoption by directly showing users how blockchain technology can make their digital lives more secure and autonomous.

Web3 tools are more composable, enabling more innovation.

The word “composability” is frequently thrown around in Web3 developer circles, and for good reasons. Though it sounds like a difficult concept at first glance, it’s really quite simple. The tech newsletter Future offers a great summary of how composability works: “Smart contracts go beyond simply allowing for instant and verifiable transactions for various applications though — they can also be programmed to interact with each other.” The post continues by equating composability to building blocks, an analogy that has become commonplace among dApp builders and developers. Essentially, the backend components of Web3 technologies can interact with each other through the power of smart contracts, allowing any developer in a network to participate in building or modifying existing programs. The smart contracts in platforms like Ethereum serve as toolboxes that allow for the open construction of new software systems and applications. This ultimately creates a massive network where any member can participate, even people with little to no-coding experience.

For example, consider the Web3 social platform The Convo Space. Billed as “the decentralized conversation layer of the Internet,” The Convo Space provides users the tools and capabilities needed to “build composable components for decentralized social interactions,” including an API, embeds, extensions, an SDK, and more. So, any user with a little know-how can build out their own social tool to manage their conversations across the Internet. This is much, much different than Web2 engineering, which is siloed and isolated from community members, only able to be modified by developers working for the company. Composability is really at the heart of decentralization. It not only gives web users more autonomy but also engenders a collaborative spirit based on community and creativity.

Web3 transactions are more transparent, equitable, and secure.

Transactions in Web2 have become something of a headache, particularly for the creator economy. Payment platforms like PayPal and Zelle have created a world where transactions pass through intermediary entities that take large percentages for themselves. For example, a small business selling their products on a marketplace like Amazon must pass through their fees — which sit between 8–15% — and sometimes, too, a payment intermediary like PayPal, which collects 1.9% to 3.5% of every transaction. It’s even rumored that Meta (the new company title for the Web2 giant Facebook) plans to take a whopping 47.5% for all profits made within their metaverse. These lopsided payment structures obstruct online creators from earning fair profits and bar them from directly reaching their audience. For example, consider the phenomenon of the YouTube or Instagram influencer who gets big enough to monetize their account. The creator works tirelessly to generate exciting content only to have their profits unfairly split between themselves and their platforms. Transactions in Web2, simply put, are not direct, fair, or straightforward.

Thanks to the peer-to-peer nature of blockchain technology, payments in Web3 can be conducted in personalized, secure ways without the need for intermediaries. Consider the inner workings of NFT marketplaces like OpenSea. NFT creators can advertise and sell their work directly to customers thanks to (typically Ethereum-based) auction platforms. By running on Ethereum, OpenSea allows for truly decentralized commerce to occur, as payments are made peer-to-peer with no cost-incurring intermediary, while trust between two parties is enabled by smart contract technology. OpenSea even records and displays the transaction history for each NFT, so that customers can have total autonomy over and trust in the purchasing process.

Another decentralized platform, Mirror.xyz, is a publishing tool that enables writers to convert forms of writing — essays, novels, poems, etc. — into NFTs, thereby giving authors more ownership rights and the possibility to directly sell their work to fans. Writers create, mint, and sell — it’s that easy. Now, imagine if this sort of transparency could be applied to Web2’s creator economy. Wouldn’t that be a better, fairer economic world?