If you spend time exploring Web3 – the blockchain-based alternative to the Internet that we know today – you will probably conclude that it is difficult to use.
Web3 tools like the MetaMask wallet or games like Axie Infinity, are not user-friendly and look inconsistent without the sleek design of familiar internet services like Google or Netflix.
This is a problem. While millions of people use Web3, most of them driven by the passion (or greed) of early adopters and are willing to tolerate an inconvenient design to use exciting technologies such as NFT or token-based electronic voting. But for Web3 to be embraced by the unfamiliar “commoners” – who are the bulk of users – the design needs to be dramatically improved and referenced to web products that people are already familiar with.
I spoke with Kanav Kariya, president of Jump Crypto, a major investment and trading company in the Chicago investing in cryptocurrencies and Web3. To my surprise, Kariya agreed with my assertion that Web3’s design is inconvenient. He noted that, in the case of NFTs, he is still frustrated, even though he has been using them since CryptoKitties (a primitive version of NFT that appeared in 2016).
What surprised me, even more, was Kariya’s prediction of how the Web3 design problem will be solved. He told me that cryptocurrency companies like Coinbase or OpenSea are unlikely to be the ones to make Web3 widely accessible – something in their thinking, Kariya says, makes them excel at technology rather than design.
Kariya predicted that a significant improvement in design will come from companies like Spotify, Amazon or Netflix, which are the giants of the Web2 era. He pointed out, correctly, that these companies are masters of UX (terminology meaning “user experience”) and entice people to try new products. Kariya says that all of these companies are already quietly working on Web3 features and that it’s only a matter of time before they start introducing them to their tens of millions of customers.
I was surprised by his prediction – mostly because the original leaders of Web3 invented the technology as a way to break up the centralized monopolies of Silicon Valley. But Kariya’s assertion makes sense. If someone is going to bring Web3 technology to the masses, it’s more likely to be a giant company with masterful design skills than a cryptocurrency startup.
The idea of a Web2-based company becoming ambassador of Web3 is of course curious. After all, wasn’t the whole point of Web3 to crush these Goliaths? Wouldn’t “Google’s Web3” be a contradiction and a betrayal?
These are legitimate concerns, but there is no reason to believe that the ideals of Web3 cannot thrive even if the old guard of Silicon Valley adopts the technology. If the tech giants can introduce tens of millions of people to the potential of blockchain, it won’t be long before they start exploring the wide and decentralized this world outside the “gates” of these companies. And in any case, it will be a landmark event when someone solves the Web3 design problem. Even if that someone is a Web2-based company.
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