🏰 Without 3
🏰 Without 3
By New Salt • Issue #1 • View online
Issue 0x1…
Web 3.
At this point just reading that probably evokes some sort of emotion.
Maybe it is hopium, and excitement about a third bite at the ‘ole web apple. Or possibly, you agree with the browser god that we have “the original sin of the Web” (16:02) to atone for.
On the other hand, it could be fear and anger, which as we know by now, leads to…suffering.
⌐◨-◨
Either way, for better or worse, 2021 ushered in the term Web 3 and with it, an undeniable explosion of digital culture that was lurking in plain sight.
The culture is what got me hooked. Dollar cost averaging into BTC & ETH and having a call option on the future was fine and all, but it was the ability to build and invest in this new digital culture that took me back to the future.
⌐◨-◨
Punks, Nouns, Toadz, DAOs, Discords. All together producing an Internet energy I haven’t felt since the 90s.
Wait, What is Web 3?
🏰 Property rights for the Internet.
Yes, none of it is perfect, but what is? Web 3 is complex. The UI is mostly horrible. Some of it barely works. Gas fees are insane. You can get rugged in the blink of an eye and get rekt with one wrong click.
However, does anyone remember dial up? This sound, giant phone bills, and long days before cheap broadband came along to save the day.
Remember blue links on gray backgrounds and not much else?
Remember someone random in your address book begging you for money in an email because they were “stranded abroad after losing their passport”?
Remember everyone saying typing your credit card into a computer was something you should never do?
Remember people telling you that the Web was just a passing fad and you needed to get a real job?
I do.
You can also have a deep, and useful, philosophical debate on whether we need, or should have property rights for digital goods. That said, you can’t stop it from happening, it is already here.
There are at least 21MM M3taMa8k Wallets (if I write this in a newsletter does the same thing happen as when you write it on Twitter? Taking no chances.) and Open Sea has done almost $4 billion in January 2022 alone.
If you are still skeptical of Web 3, totally fair, the world of digital assets is currently Mos Eisley in digital form, this won’t be the newsletter for you.
However, if you are curious where this digital culture might lead us, welcome!
Why Newsletter?
After a year of learning, participating and dabbling in Web 3 it was time to get these thoughts out of our collective head, and organized in the only way I know how – web content delivered in email form.
This newsletter has two jobs, for now:
1. Tell stories about digital culture & Web 3.
2. Invite other people building, investing, and participating in digital culture to share their stories.
Much of this will be done through the lens and voice of people, both pseudonymous and doxxed, who have lived through and participated in Web 1, Web 2, and/or Web 3.
The quicker this letter transitions to being written in the royal we the better as far as I am concerned, so let’s hope for that.
Like a good DAO, this newsletter will be amorphous. That might change, or the whole thing might go away, just like everything else.
At the end of the day, every good story has a three act structure, so let’s see what the third part of this Internet trilogy has to offer, shall we?
— mgj
👋 Share your Web 3 stories, questions, send alpha, spread FUD, or just say GM.
👂Heard It On A Podcast…
There are only 4k public companies to invest in and currently 12k digital tokens to invest in.
📜 Call Back
When you get dismissive travel back to 1995 for Episode 1
🎵 Music To Set The Mood
A visionary, vision is scary.