[puranjay]

The criticism of this ecosystem is just absolutely short sighted.

When I first got internet, it was 56 kbps, a single page took minutes to load, and it was so expensive that I couldn’t stay online for more than 30 minutes per day.

It took 5 years for my town to get “broadband” at 256kbps, and another 5 years to get 2mbps.

Maybe I should have given up on the internet back in 1996 to…

[rchaud]

I first had home Internet in 1997, and even then its value was immediately obvious.

- Email

- Chatrooms

- Maps and directions

- Newspapers from around the world, free (even WSJ didn't put up a paywall until 2005).

- IT troubleshooting information that didn't require calling the surly clowns at your local computer shop.

Does Web3 have something like that that makes it a must-have?

[puranjay]

Web3 gives me immediate access to a global, always-on, completely decentralized market with absolutely no gatekeepers.

Money has always had gatekeepers. Sure, Stripe et al have made the barriers to entry lower, but they've only replaced legacy gatekeepers with newer ones. For the longest time, I couldn't even accept payments easily from US customers on my eCommerce site because Stripe wasn't available in my home country (and I'd seriously considered incorporating via Stripe Atlas just to get access to Stripe).

Crypto has no gatekeepers. There's no one I need to ask permission from to accept crypto from anyone, anywhere.

From my perspective, I can't understand why someone would not be bullish on crypto. It opens up a sector that impacts all of our lives - finance - but one we've strangely collectively decided to give up control over.

If you like the idea of an open and inclusive financial market, you'd be bullish on crypto. If you don't, you can safely ignore it and carry on with your life.

[rchaud]

So if I understand correctly, the benefits of Web 3 are largely payment related.

It still doesn't sound like something the general public would adopt. You have to learn a whole new way of doing things, in order to get paid in a currency that has no use outside of asset speculation.

[puranjay]

> So if I understand correctly, the benefits of Web 3 are largely payment related

And payment/finance/money is arguably the most important industry in any capital-oriented society and has a deep impact on the way people live. And for the vast majority of people, existing systems don’t work

How many people tell you that they love their bank or their credit card company?

We tend to build better versions of everything that’s disliked enough but somehow, we’ve decided that our banks and lenders will always be awful and corrupt and we should be okay with it.

Sure, you can make a better app for your bank, but the core will still be that same opaque black box.