You know that blockchain is truly becoming mainstream when Starbucks has embraced Web3 by launching Starbucks Odyssey, which it claims will revolutionise the coffee experience.
“As one of the first companies to integrate Web3 technology and NFTs with an industry-leading loyalty programme at scale and to ground the experience in coffee, connection, and community, Starbucks is entering the Web3 space differently than any other brand. Starbucks Odyssey is an experience surrounded by a digital community where members can come together, interact, and share their love of coffee.
“Starbucks is using meaningful elements of Web3 technology to reward members in innovative ways, including ownable digital collectable Stamps (NFTs) that serve as an access pass to the alluring world of coffee and unique experiences with Starbucks,” Starbucks said on its site.
Starbucks, of course, is not the only major brand to jump on the Web3 bandwagon. Notable companies that have embraced NFTs (which are also increasingly being referred to by brands and mainstream media as digital collectibles) in recent months include Reddit, Meta via its Facebook and Instagram services, and Nike.
This wave of mainstream adoption has resulted in many users being onboarded to the blockchain space for the first time. Professionals and experts from different industries now want to transition to Web3.
Also Read: How Dubai is competing with Singapore in the Web3 race
And, of course, disruption and friction come with mainstream adoption and transition.
One of the debates you might stumble upon if you spend some time on crypto and NFT twitter is quite interesting: Web2 vs Web3 people.
When the internet was ‘just a fad’
As someone old enough to have lived through the days when Bill Gates and other supposed experts thought the internet was just a fad. As one of the pioneering online journalists who spun off the biggest Philippine print newspaper into the most visited Philippine news site, this kind of generational clash is all too familiar. And I’m not even talking about the actual age of the people involved, but rather the mindset.
The fact is that many people in the status quo will try to resist Web3 or, failing that, attempt to tailor it to their needs. Instead of something revolutionary, they will co-opt it as just incremental change, with no need to replace business models and marketing strategies.
Think Microsoft claiming to “embrace and extend” Java once upon a time, or traditional publications only seeing blogging platforms as just a content management system, and bloggers as inferior to journalists.
The funny thing is that yesterday’s revolutionaries and pioneers might now be the ones trying to resist Web3 and decentralisation.
Apparently, you either die a digital evangelist, or you live long enough to see yourself become the new dinosaur.
Web3 is the revolution
As someone who has been a storyteller and digital champion throughout my career, from Web1 to Web2 and now Web3, I have reinvented myself several times. And I’m firmly in the camp of the Web3 revolutionaries.
All of us are migrating from Web2 to Web3, but it is important to acknowledge the contributions of those who embraced blockchain earlier and made the road easier for those who followed.
This is why one of the sessions I truly appreciated at the Philippine Web3 Festival was Yield Guild Games Global COO Colin Goltra’s “A Brief History of #CryptoPH“. It was an important reminder of how the pioneers of the crypto community in the Philippines collaborated in those early days and helped spread the word in a world where almost no one had heard of blockchain technology.
It’s a reminder that the spirit of Web3 is decentralisation and collaboration. That in Web3, a community is a grassroots movement built from the ground up rather than top-down by fiat by personalities and experts.
Also Read: In photos: SCB 10X’s 10,000 sqft web3 collaborative space DISTRICTX in Bangkok
Oh, and a reminder that builders don’t wear suits.
Fixing what’s broken
After all, as Ethereum Co-Founder Gavin Wood, who coined the term Web3, puts it:
“Technology often mirrors its past. It acts in line with the previous paradigm, only faster, harder, better, or stronger than before. As the global economy went online, we replicated the same social structures that we had before. We have the web to thank for the modern divides between rich and poor, powerful and impotent, and enlightened and under-informed.
“The internet today is broken by design. We see wealth, power and influence placed in the hands of the greedy, the megalomaniacs, or the plain malicious. Markets, institutions, and trust relationships have been transposed to this new platform, with the density, power, and incumbents changed but with the same old dynamics.”
Don’t get me wrong. I acknowledge that we can learn from the experience and expertise of people who have succeeded in the Web1 and Web2 eras. But they should embrace Web3 with humility, respect for Web3 culture, and a willingness to listen to and learn from the community.
Because in Web3, no one cares what you did before, your title, or where you worked. What matters is what you’re doing now in Web3 and what you’re contributing to the community.
Dreamers and doers
At the end of the day, the conflict between so-called “Web2 people” and “Web3 people” will be based on two extreme views, both of which are wrong.
On the one hand, it’s the mistaken belief of Web2 people that they can waltz in and succeed in Web3. And on the other hand, it’s the misconception of Web3 people that they have nothing to learn from Web2 people.
I don’t think this conflict can be avoided any more than it was back when the internet was new. But I believe that more people will adopt a Web3 mindset and prepare for a decentralised future.
You might say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.
We are dreamers and doers. Bull or bear, we are builders.
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