The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back
<i>&gt; &#x27;Some people use the term &quot;Web 3.0&quot; to refer only to decentralized blockchain-based networks without considering that all personal websites have essentially the same goals, be they on the regular Internet or on the new blockchain networks. Those who use the term &quot;web 3.0&quot; seem to have forgotten that self-hosted personal websites that run on home servers and are accessible over the regular Internet are inherently decentralized. Unfortunately, despite common goals, some on today&#x27;s old Internet are hostile to blockchain technology. I am not sure why.&#x27;</i><p>What goals does today&#x27;s crypto-token-powered &quot;web 3&quot; vision share with the old Internet? It&#x27;s not enough to say &quot;well it&#x27;s decentralized&quot; and do a handwave.<p>Consider the NFT exploration Moxie Marlinspike did recently:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;moxie.org&#x2F;2022&#x2F;01&#x2F;07&#x2F;web3-first-impressions.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;moxie.org&#x2F;2022&#x2F;01&#x2F;07&#x2F;web3-first-impressions.html</a><p>This is essentially a system that lets you buy DRM&#x27;d metadata that points to servers owned by a corporation funded by billions of VC dollars, and transactions are recorded on a ledger that spends more power than the entire country of Finland. The only purpose of these activities is to speculate on prices of these make-believe digital assets.<p>None of these things have anything to with the old Internet: cargo cult DRM, billion-dollar VC funding, enormous energy waste, artificial scarcity where none is needed.<p>That website on dial-up was slow because of real physical constraints, not artificial constraints erected to make VCs richer at the expense of the planet&#x27;s ecosystem.