NFTs and Web 3.0
I’ve spent the last two months exploring NFT Art in the metaverse. I have articles and podcasts on my early impressions. It is exciting and inspiring to see all the creativity and amazing art and photography. It is exploding and very much the wild west. However, my honeymoon period is over and I am thinking that Web 3.0 will go through a similar lifecycle to Web 2.0 and Web 1.0 in the following ways:
1. The early adopter creativity and optimism will flourish and there will be many rags to riches stories (this already happened in 21 and early 22).
2. The earning potential will invite many profiteers into the ecosystem to try and make a quick buck. These ill-intentioned people will do what is called "Rug Pulls" where they get in and get out with their money leaving investors and believers adrift.
3. As throughout history - the bad apples ruin it for the rest, and the rug pulls will result in a cry for regulation and safety.
4. Regulation efforts will begin (this already started with recent executive order around centralized currency exchange to reduce fraud).
5. In parallel to this activity: corporate marketing departments will see potential and leverage NFTs. Just like Pinterest and Instagram have been part of every marketing plan for years now, NFTs will become a "must have", and bonus points for any company that can provide "added utility".
6. Becuase of the forces of regulation and organic competition, the diversity of marketplaces and digital currencies will settle down into 2 or 3 "competing choices". (Think of browser wars for 1.0 and photo sharing social platforms for 2.0)
7. These market places and currencies will become centralized and homogeneous in form and function all with same big data structures on backend. These data will be used to further AI and circle back into advancing “generative art” and metaverse environments.
8. The whole idea of DAO and de-centralized blockchain will ultimately be up-ended and streamlined to centralized, regulated, digital currency on a few marketplaces in the regulated metaverse ecosystem. We will have a new level of digital reality to play in (already you can spend real money to buy a virtual house) and the divide between kings and peasants will widen.
I think that artists, inventors and explorers have been and remain the visionaries, and I hope that my sequence above is not correct. I would love it if Web 3.0 really brought the world together in a positive and unifying way, if it gave marginalized people a path to indepence and sustainability, but the patterns of the past indicate that it may go a different way.
Oh and btw - the currencies are NOT green. It takes a lot of energy to "mint" and keep things on the blockchain. And the UX and usability issues are a barrier to entry for a large portion of the population.
If this post on FB gets censored or removed, I will know I have "hit a nerve".
Being a QAE for most of my career in software taught me how to look for bugs, how to apply logic and reasoning to identify patterns and how to be a systems thinker.
In the meantime, I suggest that if you like photography or art, take a look at some of the NFT stuff happening. There is beauty there and some amazing art, but you have to sift though the noise too.
Posting from the great state of Florida.
Until next time, ciao for now.