[JeremyReimer]

I don't think there's a good explanation out there.

From what I've read, the main idea is decentralization, either of website databases using blockchain (which seems wildly impractical and ludicrously expensive), or of payment of advertising revenue to website users and contributors (which seems like an impossible business model)

The main issue, I think, is that "decentralization" means a different thing to every person, therefore "web3" can mean a different thing to everyone. This makes it hard to define it or to argue for it or against it.

I read a blog post linked on HN recently on "the architecture of a web3 application" [1] and it was so long and complicated that I honestly thought it was satire. I don't think the methods described in the post were at all practical.

Ultimately, web3 might simply be a rebranding of blockchain and crypto technologies in order to make them seem more democratic and transformational than perhaps they are.

[1] https://www.preethikasireddy.com/post/the-architecture-of-a-...

[helloworld11]

So, many people here complain and whine about how the internet has become too centralized and ad-rev driven by the big tech behemoths and all the little shitty fish that follow their tactics, but then when a bunch of people come along and at least propose a certain type of possibly workable solution that's particularly friendly to avoiding major centralized arbiters, they get booed down because some of them also happen to be pie in the sky or scammers (where does either o these two not exist in any tech?) The same people booing these types themselves work for the giant tech behemoths, which are themselves some of the absolute most parasitical, mendacious, lying, perpetually damaging agencies on the entire web and in the wider world of digital technology.

Tell you what, as full of scams and cons as the world of crypto is, i still sympathize with it much more than I do with any random argument in favor of a real monstrosity of dishonesty and prying scumminess like Facebook or today's Google. Those and so many of their modern digital cousins are the real enemies of so many good things.

[zbyte64]

Another fast and loose term is "User". The claim OP makes is that Users will control the network and money created. Seeing how you can't directly transfer an NFT from opensea to a different marketplace, I find this claim dubious. But that aside, the "user" is a programmer, not your Aunt and Uncle.