It’s almost a cliché to read about Web3 and the intro starts by pointing out the flaws of Web2. By Web2, we mean the current social media platforms like X, Instagram, and Facebook. This almost seems like a routine filled with points you’ve heard so many times that you almost can’t tell anymore if it’s just to justify the point of Web3 or if there is truly a problem that has to be addressed, hence Web3.
Before we move on with our point, let’s show you some posts we’ve seen too many times. There are a million examples, but to save your time and ours, here are a few:
How do you explain losing 3-5 years of your hard work, or even longer in some cases, when no one thinks they owe you an explanation?
Even recently, Twitter rebranded to X, and guess what?
When we came across this post, we decided to read through the comments and the experiences of random people.
Web2 Social media platforms collect data about their users and use it to target them with advertising, promote political candidates, and spread misinformation. This can have a negative impact on users’ decisions and democracy.
What do you call a social media platform that prioritizes privacy?
A myth.
Web2 platforms have a long history of security breaches, which have exposed users’ data to a lot of exploitation. When it comes to users’ privacy and security, Web2 platforms are definitely lacking. This is a major reason why there is a need for Web3.
Now that you know some of the pain points of Web2, let’s talk about Web3’s key propositions for tackling its setbacks.
Web3 Keys Driving the New Paradigm for Social Engagement.
- Decentralization and user empowerment: The goal of decentralizing the social experience is to shift the system from all that you’ve read before now which is a system of high-level censorship and control to a system that puts the user at the center of it all.
We are not making this up, it’s all there:
Facebook has been accused of censoring content related to sensitive topics, such as the Kurdish opposition against Turkey.
This image of Jude was shared again on the Instagram Stories of Hearst Pride, the LGBTQ+ affinity group after it was originally posted and taken down.
This happened after Elon Musk took over Twitter, a platform that had been touted as a champion of free speech. A Twitter user shared how detrimental this censorship is, but then again, this is Web2, where users have little to no say in how their data and content are managed.
- Data Mobility: Web2 social media platforms have data silos, which means users’ data is locked up in each platform. This gives the platform control over the data and can be used to exploit users.
Web3 social media promises to solve this problem by storing data on a decentralized blockchain, so users can take their data with them across different platforms.
One of the projects driving Data Mobility is Match Chain. Match Chain is a revolutionary social graph built on Cosmos that serves as a catalyst for data mobility in Web3 Social.
The Web3 Social promise is that data mobility will revolutionize the way we interact with social media. It will make it easier for us to connect with people, build relationships, and share content. Match Chain is a key enabler of the Web3 social vision.
Match Chain allows builders to seamlessly build social experiences and provide them with access to high user traffic. This lowers the barrier to entry for new developers.
- Creator Empowerment: In Web2, you don’t own your content. If the platform deletes it, you can’t get it back. This lack of control can be a problem for creators.
For example, if you create a post on LinkedIn and LinkedIn decides to delete your post, there is nothing you can do to get it back. LinkedIn owns the platform and the content on it, so they have the right to do whatever they want with it.
This lack of control over content ownership can be a major problem for creators.
So how does Web3 change this, you may ask? Web3 socials allow you to mint your content as NFTs, which are unique digital assets that are stored on the blockchain. This gives you ownership and control over your content.
This gives you the peace of mind knowing that your content is yours and that you can control how it is used.
- Community Building: A new decentralized application (dApp) called Friend.tech that allows Twitter users to sell shares of their accounts recently launched. This means that anyone can buy shares of their favorite creators, giving them a closer relationship with those creators than is possible for the average follower.
When someone buys a share of a Twitter account, they gain certain privileges, such as the ability to send private messages to the account holder and participate in exclusive chat rooms. The more shares someone owns, the more privileges they have.
Friend.tech is still in its early stages, but it’s exciting to see how much people are excited about the possibilities.
Web3 socials can help with community building because they offer creators new opportunities.
Conclusion
Web3 socials is evolving and it’s really exciting to see because of the possibilities it opens up for creators and users. It is a complete revolution, although, in its early stage, it’s changing how we think about social experiences.
We are truly not at the point where everyone is using it, but every day we see projects like Match making it easy to build while helping to provide user traffic for these new experiences.
One thing is certain, Web3 is not a fad or a bubble that will burst with time. It is a true solution to the fallbacks of Web2, and it is the future of social interaction.
