We all know that WEB3 is coming, but the grind is slow and I want it now.
Not soon™.
Meow.
Wen will soon be now?
Much like the Metaverse, the idea of WEB3 is grounded in reality and bound to happen, but let's be honest the actual implementation of such things is largely vapor and currently non-existent. Luckily, unlike the Metaverse, WEB3 will actually catch on and happen much sooner.
But what even is the definition of WEB3?
The idea of WEB3 is actually quite prone to interpretation. Again this makes sense because it doesn't really exist yet, so the definition is quite fluid and malleable. I myself am quite liberal with the word, and use it to describe anything crypto related that varies from the legacy system (which I also refer to as web2 even if it's not specifically internet related). Others are not so lenient in their definitions.
Of course most people out there are actually too lenient with their definition of WEB3; especially the billionaires like Jack Dorsey or anyone else making a WEB2 product integrated with crypto. Obviously a centralized website that just happens to use crypto is not "web3". Everyone seems to unilaterally understand that centralized exchanges are not web3, but everything else gets put under that umbrella of "web3" as a marketing talking point.
The Wishlist
The amount of work that needs to be done is astronomical and must be accomplished by millions of people working in tandem to bring web3 to life. I've compiled a short list of the things I want and expect to happen over the next ten years.
NFTs to represent bounties for modular development
In my personal opinion this is hands down the most important part of a web3 future. WEB3 can not scale without decentralized development. Before NFTs went viral it was not clear as to how exactly this would be accomplished, but now that NFTs are a thing its quite clear that work completed will eventually be represented by them.
We need to develop some quite hardcore and strenuous economic and political systems in which work that needs to get done is declared in advance and is paid out accordingly on completion. Why does it need to be "political"? Well, because everything is subjective. What kind of work needs to get done? Deciding that is a job in itself. How much will these freelance contracts pay? Who will get the contract if multiple people bid on them? How do we measure the quality of the work that got done? How do we stop people from exploiting the system? These are all political and governance questions that will need to be answered.
Integration with 3D printing
As it stands now 3D printing is largely for hobbyists who like to tinker around with cutting edge tech. Competition is stiff and when anyone can make the product the chance of actually making money by selling product to other people is unfortunately quite low.
A tipping point will eventually be reached when people realize they need to work together to build things that no single person could. With hyper-advanced technology and 1000 people working together in the same 50-mile radius, some truly amazing things will get built right out of dad's garage.
Once again governance issues come into play. Which community members are providing the most value to the end product? Who deserves to get paid what from the profits? How much will they spend on marketing and distribution? These are all questions that require consensus, which is why products like Bitcoin will never be able to help them. Luckily something like Hive and coin voting absolutely can.
Integration with AI
For a long time it seemed like AI was just this mythical thing that would eventually be here but was far away. Now the progress has ramped up to a pace of pure insanity, and the integration of AI into crypto will almost certainly happen first before all these other things. While many people like to talk about why AI is bad and how it's going to ruin the economy and take everyone's job, these folks don't seem to realize that we can just take the other side of that trade and have the AI working for us instead of some mega-corp.
The applications of AI are pretty much limitless, so it's hard to even flush out this discussion with ideas of what AI could do in the future. It can and will do hundreds of things. The ultimate aggregation of data is here. AI is like legacy Google searches x1000.
Integration with "metaverse"
Certainly this one will take the longest as it requires the most technology to merge into a single entity. AI will likely be needed. Virtual reality and altered reality are a requirement. The Internet has to have high enough bandwidth to support it. And without crypto integration it will never scale up and will be doomed under the greed-filled guidance of companies like Meta who try to control everything.
Unfortunately for Mark Zuckerberg the metaverse is bigger than his silly little company no matter what he renames it to. The idea of "the metaverse" is as big as "the Internet" itself. Imagine a single company in the world stepping forward and saying, "we are the entire Internet".
Yeah well, guess what? That's exactly what these jackasses were doing when the Internet was just starting out. When it was small people thought it could be captured and quarantined. Didn't take long for the world to realize that extranets/intranets were quite worthless compared to the real thing. Open permissionless systems win.
Game logistics economics simulator AI survivor
On the video game side of things I want to see a game that has all the things as well. I want to see a game with AI. How crazy would it be if the AI was the game-master and your enemies had actual pseudo-intelligence rather than constantly blindly charging to their deaths and saying the same stupid one-liners over and over again?
I want to see a game with more than pre-programmed outcomes. I want to see a game that is also a simulation in which every single iteration of a new game/server turns out differently than the last. I want to see scarcity of assets and crypto integration to back it up. I want GOLD to actually be worth something because hundreds of coins don't pop out of some random log in the forest.
I'm tired of games that allow people to run around with hero-complexes and defeat entire armies by themselves. Let a tidal wave of destruction sweep over the land if it has to and destroy an entire town that was built from the ground up. Real stakes, real losses, real comradery. That's what I'd like to see.
On the logistics side I'd like to see resources that can't just be teleported trivially across the map with zero drawbacks. In the real world one of the biggest inconveniences to abundance of resources in a certain area is the fact that actually getting those resources to where they need to go is no trivial matter. At least some games should reflect this kind of complexity within the simulation.
Crypto OS
And finally where is the crypto Linux operating system? This is the ultimate example and expression of how crypto is not taken seriously. It's not taken seriously by game developers, and it's not taken seriously by open source developers either. We are all being viewed across the board as scammers and thieves and amateurs, and as much as I hate to admit it that is a correct assessment 90% of the time.
The internet and operating systems are the backbone of all of this. Without a decentralized internet and a decentralized operating system to access it at full potential we will continue to spin around in circles.
Conclusion
Just look at all the work that needs to get done! It will take millions of people working on solutions to actually make any progress. Fortunately crypto is money, so the financial incentives are there. We just have to reach the tipping point before the floodgates will open and progress is the standard rather than the exception.