| Quite possibly the difference between people who are hostile vs favorably disposed to Web3 is whether or not they think traditional orgs work fine or need improvement. Frustration with traditional organizational pathologies is not universal. The right comparison may not be with past tech revolutions. It may be to organizational evolutions like monarchy to democracy, women entering the workplace, the invention of the limited liability corporation etc. In each case there were people who thought it was unnecessary. I suspect what makes Web3 appear extra contentious is that it divides core members of the middle class. Like artists for eg. Artists tend to be reliably anti-tech initially, taking pride in being socially middle class but economically underclass unless supported by other means. Artists still largely depend on patronage but now are less beholden to institutions/expert tastemakers (museums, grants, commercial art buyers like movies) or potentially tyrannical cohesive crowds based on ideological aesthetics (Patreon style). Web3 loosens the grip of both. Web3 is Crowds3 too. We focus too much on authority figures and institutions. Crowds evolve too. Crowd1 = geographic scene in a city that could ostracize you Crowd2 = filter-bubble online crowd that can cancel you Crowd3 = skin-in-the-game crowd that doesn’t subsume individuals [credit to https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1463182365555970049] |
Also, I think less than 0.01% of 'artists' have ever heard of Web3, even most people in Tech haven't really hard of it or couldn't describe it in any meaningful way.