The Web Needs a Better Model (Because, Obviously, It Does)

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CoinDesk Indices

What to know:

Oh great, you’re reading Crypto Long & Short, our “weekly” newsletter that-surprise-takes a deep dive into the digital chaos we call the market. Sign up, if you dare, and get it in your inbox every Wednesday. You know, in case you have an unhealthy obsession with staying up-to-date on how your money’s being treated like a piggy bank in a blockchain cult.

Look, we’re basically at the mercy of Google and Amazon now, who are like those landlords who charge you rent while simultaneously making your life miserable by bumping up your rent and pretending they don’t know what’s going on. Welcome to the “digital landlord” experience. And guess what? We, the loyal serfs of this kingdom, keep handing over our data like it’s candy on Halloween. What a time to be alive, right?

In case you missed the memo, more than 80% of Netflix is pretty much controlled by its recommendation algorithm. Yep, that’s how you end up watching shows you swear you’ll never watch, like some random documentary on something you didn’t even know existed. Meanwhile, Amazon, which pretends to be a “neutral marketplace,” is a total sham. Their matching engine favors their own products-because, sure, why wouldn’t they? And if you’re a third-party seller, they’ll happily take up to 50% of your revenue just to let you fight for shelf space. It’s the retail equivalent of a rigged game.

So, Web3-remember that dream?-was supposed to be the messiah. A world beyond these corporate giants. A glorious, decentralized utopia where the big bad wolves don’t control everything. Spoiler alert: It didn’t work out like that.

Reclaiming the Web3 Thesis

Here’s the thing. Gavin Wood, the Ethereum co-founder, had a vision back in 2014. A “post-Snowden” web. Whatever that means. But his big idea was to build a decentralized web with peer-to-peer trust. Sounds great, right? Like one of those peace-loving communes in the ’70s. But what really happened? Ethereum ended up making more individual millionaires than any other project. Good job, Gavin. You nailed it. But the focus quickly shifted from tech innovation to financial speculation. I mean, billions of dollars were funneled into ICOs, and guess what? 90% of them went belly up within a year. Nice return on that investment!

And then came 2021, the “bull run” where crypto briefly reached a $3 trillion market cap, and suddenly, Web3 was just another marketing buzzword to lure investors in. The original idea of a trustless, peer-to-peer internet? Yeah, buried under layers of hype and people chasing a quick buck.

Intermediaries No More

Let’s talk about intermediaries. These are the big middlemen-like Amazon, Google, and every platform that loves to control your every move. They’re trusted to handle payments, disputes, rankings, you name it. They are the gatekeepers, and guess what? They own the rules and your data. It’s the digital equivalent of being stuck in a cage, where they take a huge chunk of your freedom (and your cash).

Early Web3 tried to fix this mess by creating on-chain transactions where everything would be a public record. Sounds like a perfect plan, right? But, uh, asking a global commerce system to run on a single highway isn’t going to work. It’s like trying to drive a race car on a dirt road.

State Channels: The Secret Sauce

Now, here’s where state channels come in. Think of them as a high-speed private lane that bypasses the traffic jam of the blockchain. With state channels, thousands of interactions can happen in real-time, and best of all, it’s free. No middleman taking a cut, just pure, unadulterated freedom.

But wait, how do we avoid the shady people who might just ghost on their deal? Simple: both parties commit funds to a smart contract before making a deal. If one party backs out, the funds are already locked up, ensuring the other party isn’t left holding the bag. This eliminates the need for a “trusted” intermediary and finally lets people do business like grown-ups.

  • For commerce: Instead of paying Amazon’s crazy fees, a buyer and seller can just open a channel governed by an impartial smart contract. No middleman, no problem.
  • For data: Forget surrendering your life story to Google. Now, you can control who gets to see your data and for how long-just like an app giving you control over your own info. You can finally say “No thanks, I’ll keep that one to myself.”

This is how the next wave of autonomous enterprises will work. You’ll have businesses running on smart contracts without the need for that old-fashioned, inefficient corporate structure. Bitcoin did it with money, Ethereum did it with contracts, and now it’s time for Web3 to do it with everything else-without the need for people blindly trusting platforms. How about that?

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2025-09-24 20:18