theabominablewonder t1_j9y4pme wrote on February 25, 2023 at 12:21 PM

Reply to comment by ChronoPsyche in People lack imagination and it’s really bothering me by thecoffeejesus

Saying web3 is dead is the same as the OP complained about, people claiming AI isn’t going anywhere. We’ve only seen the early stages of a lot of disruptive technologies, metaverse/web3 included.

One thing that does happen though is that we get investment bubbles where VCs jump into the latest trend to try and be first, and those first waves of speculation always pop. But that money that VCs have thrown in does contribute to the development of that area as an industry.

A lot of VCs won’t make anything from AI, web3, additive manufacturing, blockchain etc, but their funds would have been used to push those things forwards.

You are right in their behaviour - if VCs are all shouting about something, then it may be better to look the other way, because by that point they are scraping the barrel on good investments trying to get in on the hype. The industry/tech itself can still be a legitimate, disruptive industry as a whole.

ChronoPsyche t1_j9z203t wrote on February 25, 2023 at 4:52 PM

The web3 hype was a solution in search of a problem. I do think it correctly foresaw the whole metaverse phenomena, but it was too early. It was a supply side approach. It tried to create demand for the metaverse by building the financial infrastructure for it, but that was a mistake. Demand for the metaverse will only come when game changing experiences are built for it.

After that happens and enough compelling experiences are built, eventually there will be a need for the block chain infrastructure to handle transactions within and between those games and experiences. At that point, the technology will be more than ready.

Things just happened out of order, bolstered by the extremely speculative monetary environment we were in at the time. It would be like if PayPal were invented while the early internet was still being researched by ARPANET in the 70s.

theabominablewonder t1_j9zbemc wrote on February 25, 2023 at 5:54 PM

It was too early yes, but then the VCs and retail pile in, speculate on everything Web3 being massive and then the bubble bursts. Some of the money is taken by scammers or failed businesses, but some money is left in the ecosystem to develop it so in a decade it is much closer to a 'consumer friendly' experience with actual use cases built around it. It's generally a good thing for the industry as a bubble attracts investment. A lot of people will get burnt by jumping on the hype train though.

And yes you are right on the technology. I believe the likes of Tim Sweeney at Epic see it as a 10+ year time horizon because the experience needs to be a LOT better than it is currently. I think that's a reasonable timeline really. One or two more bubbles before it gets there, no doubt.

ChronoPsyche t1_j9zc495 wrote on February 25, 2023 at 5:58 PM

To be clear, I'm not talking about the Web3 experience. Web3 is not a very technically challenging problem. I'm talking about the experiences that would require Web3 in the first place, VR and AR experiences. Consumer VR is still in its infancy and has no "killer experience" and AR is even further behind. Until we have mass adoption of those technologies, there will be no place for Web3.

And even then, there is no guarantee there will be a demand for Web3 technology right away when VR and AR explodes. It all depends on what type of experiences are popular. There is theoretically no reason the current financial system can't support transactions in those environments. Where Web3 will be desired is if a metaverse-oriented ecosystem of connected social experiences comes into fruition.

I think that is highly likely, but it's still not a guaranteed outcome. For all we know, the killer experiences of VR and AR could be something we aren't even predicting that doesn't have very much to do with transactions at all. For instance, imagine the most popular experiences end up being single player games with intelligent NPCs. If that were the case, there would be no Web3. If people decide they'd much rather just interact with AI than with other people, the metaverse would be dead.

However, personally, I think a combination of the two paradigms is likely; social experiences + enriched single player with intelligent AI characters.

theabominablewonder t1_j9zjd53 wrote on February 25, 2023 at 6:45 PM

I think people have always moved towards richer experiences that more closely emulate face to face contact. Moving from written word, to phone, to video calling.. an immersive experience that allows full natural gesturing is a step up. All the VR side will take a while to develop.

Web3 (as a general theme, allowing decentralised/personal ownership of data/assets) is easier, but the current platforms are not very user friendly. I think only now there's a few good tech demos on an experience for NFT ownership that would be considered user friendly (ie low fees, easy to use, good security - no high fees, random contract messages no one understands etc).

All the current experiences inform the industry how to make it more user friendly and all the scams, exploits, etc, of NFTs/crypto, essentially feed into further development so it is better the next time around.

I think we will have another bubble where stuff is easier for consumers - owning and operating a wallet without easily being scammed would be a nice start :) - but it will still be a way off what the eventual solution will look like.