Written by: Khairul Haqeem, Journalist, AOPG.
With the advent of Web3, the world is entering a new digital era but not everyone is enthusiastic about this development. This level of mistrust has been seen previously, notably during the ’90s dot-com boom. Not many companies were quick to see the possibilities given by the Internet but those that did were better equipped to adapt to the new norms. We still see this same level of doubt with Web3. Web3 is here to stay and will soon penetrate every facet of the business, so why aren’t more people buying into it?
The lack of interoperability and standardisation among Web3 platforms, the dominance of large corporations in the Web3 ecosystem, the general public’s view of Web3 as a speculative investment, and the poor user experience and interface design of Web3 applications are among the topics we’ll cover today. To help investors and consumers embrace and succeed in this brave new world, we must first learn what is holding them back.
The Complexity of Web3
The significance of re-decentralising the world’s information technology ecosystems as the Web 3.0 revolution develops is hard to overstate. The huge complexity of developing useful blockchain engagement tools is one of the greatest threats to a stably decentralised future, although this ambition is not without its hurdles.
Communicating with distributed systems is difficult enough as it is, and making it necessary to manage numerous signatures or use zero-knowledge proofs to preserve privacy simply makes things harder. APIs are used by many developers because they remove the complexities of interfacing with a blockchain.
Although Application Programming Interfaces make it easier to create blockchain tools, almost all of them still rely on centralised software and infrastructure. So, widespread API use poses a threat to the decentralisation of many essential blockchain activities.
Avoiding over-reliance on APIs and SaaS apps requires developers to provide libraries and tools that facilitate direct access to Web3 ecosystems. It’s simpler to use a Software-as-a-Service API to keep everything under control and consistent, but software distribution management is notoriously tough.
Another major concern is that we can over-centralize Web3 in our quest to create services that function and behave precisely like Web2 services. “Decentralised” computation and file storage protocols aim to incentivise users to build the most reliable and efficient networks possible. Yet, these infrastructures are often housed in corporate-owned data centres.
Nevertheless, while this centralisation may be necessary for Web3 apps to match the speed and responsiveness of Web2 services, it may not be a desirable goal in and of itself. As an alternative, we may wish to leave synchronous interactions and instant gratification of user interfaces to the Web2 era, and instead put our attention on Web3’s unique strengths, such as the transfer of value through tokenisation and the facilitation of complex integrations through smart contracts.
Resisting the twin temptations of quick user interface pleasure and incredibly simple API connections is necessary if we are to create a genuinely distributed and decentralised future. The end result will be a financial and technological system that is more just, competitive, and robust.
