Author | Guo Haiwei
As you can see, web3 is involving the world in a crazy "currency mismatch" movement.
In 2022, more than 2.3 million people believe that the act of "running" can be directly pocketed into their own income through the blessing of a pair of StepN magic shoes. Some of these "well equipped" players with huge funds can earn more than 10000 yuan a day by "running", which is equivalent to the total per capita GDP of the poorest countries on the planet in 10 years.
The success of StepN is just a microcosm of the crazy web3 financial world.
With almost no value anchor, the price of Bitcoin rose from zero to nearly $70000, with a total market value of more than $1 trillion, making it the first trillion for nothing asset in human history. The total market value of cryptocurrency once exceeded US $3 trillion, which can almost buy all (including unlisted) Internet companies in Asia today.
This is probably a monetary phenomenon that cannot be avoided in human history, and a "capitalist miracle" that even Marx would marvel at. It is so huge and strange, surging with huge monetary energy, but has not yet created any traditional sense of productivity value.
It is difficult for us to say clearly this tens of thousands of times "currency mismatch" in one sentence. On the one hand, we can really see the capitalist characteristics that are close to "obscurantism" behind such "fanaticism" and "moving stories" - adventure, speculation, exploitation, involution and alienation; On the other hand, the characteristics of this ignorant capitalism are labeled as "scientism", which puts a fashion of "progress", "revolutionary" and "historical inevitability" on this barbarism.
We call this story of the combination of capital and technology "cyber capitalism" and hope to find an answer to this turmoil. This article is the first chapter of On the Birth of Cybercapitalism:
Web3, a concept game.
"Web3.0": the uninteresting necessity of human history
We live in a world of meaning - G H. Mead
In 2004, a person named Dale Dougherty promoted a widely known concept - web1.0 and web2.0 at the conference. Compared with the portal website model of web1.0, which transmits information in one direction like broadcast, web2.0 boasts itself as a website design form that attaches importance to content interaction. Users can upload and create content on web2.0 websites.
This definition method of numbering the web sequence has been sought after by many practitioners after this conference. Especially for some new entrepreneurs, web2.0 is a good way to define their own business model era. The scene of the Internet bubble at the beginning of 2000 was still fresh in the memory of Wall Street. The emergence of concepts similar to web2.0 can help people renew their imagination on the new business model of the Internet.
So rather than promoting the concept of web2.0, Dougherty actually promotes a clear way of web serialization. This script mode of adding numbers to the web actually conveys the "technologist" hypothesis in Silicon Valley's subconscious:
(1) Human web technology will continue to develop iteratively;
(2) This kind of iteration is presented in a revolutionary way;
Now, "numbering" has basically become a common routine for IT industry to engage in marketing. No matter smart phones, technical routes, or business models, we all like to paste a serial number on them, which can convey similar technical values.
What Dougherty didn't know was that such an invention of marketing discourse inadvertently opened a "Pandora's Box".
Since there are web1.0 and 2.0, there should be web3.0. Moreover, as the concept of web2.0 has been in the past for a long time and the boom of Internet dividend fades faster, people are more interested in the discussion of "what is web3.0".
Because people believe that the Internet will continue to have revolution, and each revolution will lead to new wealth distribution. As the revolutionary form changes by leaps and bounds, the level of wealth distribution will also expand geometrically - just like what happened between 2.0 and 1.0.
From this point of view, the emergence of web3.0 is an uninteresting necessity in human history. It is a natural but not rigorous problem in line with human "cognitive aesthetics". From the moment of the birth of web2.0, web3.0, as a "word concept", has actually been born (just as the concept of web5.0 was born when web3.0 was not yet successful today).
Therefore, for a long time, web3.0 has become a girl who can dress up.
Less than 18 months after the popularity of web2.0, many people have been eager to formally organize a forum for web3.0 discussions. Many well-known entrepreneurs and scholars are trying to make their own predictions about the future on web3.0 like forums. You can even see that behind this "prophecy", there are many "private goods" of your own.
● For example, Eric Schmidt, then CEO of Google, predicted that web3.0 would:
"The main features of a pieced together application: the application is relatively small, the data is in the network, it can run on any device (PC or mobile phone), it is very fast and has many customized functions, and it spreads like a virus (social network, e-mail, etc.)"
This sounds like the evolution direction of Android system.
● For another example, Hastings, the founder of Netflix, predicted that web3.0 would:
"Web 1.0 is a dial-up network with an average bandwidth of 50K; Web 2.0 has an average bandwidth of 1M; Web 3.0 should be a full image network with a bandwidth of 10M."
However, gigabit broadband has become commonplace now, but Netflix's bandwidth anxiety is still unresolved. The only thing that can "comfort" this prediction recently is probably that Luo Yonghao has finally started AR.
Hastings in the early days of Netflix, the "solution" to the bandwidth problem is to mail CDs | Image source: network As you can see, web3 is a basket in which all the big men in different industries put their imaginations.
But web3 and web2 are essentially different.
First of all, the essence of web1.0 and web2.0 is an explanation of what is happening, while web3 is destined to be a "transcendental" prediction.
Strictly speaking, when web2.0 was widely known in 2004, the technological phenomenon described by web2.0 had existed for seven or eight years. At least in 1997, Jorn Barger established a blog website called robotwisdom.com, and officially used the term "weblog".
By 2004, service providers such as Wikipedia and Google had already become the mainstay of the Internet. In China, blog buses, blog China and other websites have become very popular.
These new things are not born because of the concept of web2.0. On the contrary, web2.0 explains their birth with a slightly flattering attitude and "hindsight".
However, when people were initially interested in discussing "what is web3.0", it became a battle for the right to speak and fell into a kind of rambling discussion.
Secondly, there is an obvious "non mainstream" characteristic in the battle for the right to speak of web3.
Although the helmsmen of large companies have tried to put forward their own ideas, it is obvious that these are all limited to chatting among forums. Before Meta, no mature Internet company officially took web3 as its development orientation.
After all, a mature company would like to emphasize its vision and positioning:
Netflix hopes to be the best streaming media company, and Apple hopes to know that it is the best intelligent hardware company. These simple and clear positioning can help them gain competitive advantages; However, the use of some inexplicable new words will only raise the cost of understanding your business. Therefore, compared with the concept of technology, the competition of technology itself is more important for these companies.
But for a startup company, the new concept means a shortcut to challenge a large company and obtain financing funds.
A suspicious little video recently showed that different subjects' attitudes towards the new concept of web3.0 at that time:
In the video of the program "Winning in China" in 2007, a Taiwanese entrepreneur, Li Zongen, took an Internet project called "web3.0" and gave a roadshow to Ma Yun, Xiong Xiaoge and Shi Yuzhu in the program.
● Li Zongen wants a new revolutionary concept to encircle money. When he throws out the term web3, Ma Yun and others adjust their sitting posture, lean slightly and listen attentively;
● In fact, Li Zongen's web3 project is to use content form and algorithm innovation to do so-called "brainwashing advertising", similar to today's Little Red Book - it is obviously difficult to achieve success in 2007;
● Entrepreneurs all think this is bullshit, and Shi Yuzhu, the boss of Brain Platinum, said on the spot that this is not the rest of his own play;
● When Jack Ma was most emotional, he actually refuted Li Zongen's statement that Alibaba's website is essentially web1.0 - "if it is useful to customers, web-0.1 doesn't matter."
● In the end, Li Zongen didn't get any money, and now he has transformed into a Chinese doctor;
Source: Network Why there is no "web3.0"
If we carefully review the history of web3.0 in the early ancient times just stated, we will find that there are always some puzzling points in the struggle for the concept of web3.0 in the early ancient times:
First of all, there are too many differences about web3. They seem to be describing the future development of IT technology, but they do not seem to be talking about the same thing.
Secondly, web2.0 was proposed in 2004. From 2004 to 2022, human IT has experienced many very profound developments. The level of this development is actually beyond the technological leap from 1990 to 2004.
We have an operating system based on multiple terminals (as Schmidt said);
Our communications have been migrated from 2G to 5G (about a hundred times as many as Hastings said);
We have a media revolution based on information flow and algorithm (not quite like what Li Zongen preached);
Not to mention the popularity of our mobile intelligent terminals, cloud computing based de server IT computing methods, etc.
In a word, we have already had an IT world beyond the imagination of Dougherty's generation, in which some of the underlying architectures have been completely subverted.
But none of these great technological achievements has won the crown of web3.0. In other words, from the perspective of "web sequence theory", there is no essential difference between us and 2004. We are still in the era of web2.0.
Why is this so? Has human IT entered an era of "technological stagnation"?
It may be funny to think about the mismatch between these technologies. After all, web2.0 defines the web1.0 revolution as a blog and an encyclopedia. Relying on a few people, I created a website with different interactions in the garage, that's all.
·Could it be that even the iPhone, a "human artificial limb", could not match the invention of blog?
·Can't the birth of algorithms and information flows be compared with Google Reader?
·Can the 5G technology with hundreds of billions of R&D costs not be compared with the revolutionary nature of ICQ?
Disruptive industries such as cloud computing cannot even find their exact position in the narrative of web sequences. In the view of "web sequence theory", after the popularity of blog, the DOS master machine that can only be used to view Yahoo portal before has improved for a whole generation in the sense of the times; However, it is the same generation of Mac with M2 chip and MacOS.
Why are we so friendly to the concept of web2, but so harsh to the narrative of web3?
Source: Network In fact, the reason is very simple: the essence of web1.0 to web2.0 is a "philosophical concept" packaged as a "technical concept".
The ingenuity of Web1.0 and 2.0 lies in that its core is the relationship between the network and people:
Web1.0 is a one-way flow of information from the network to users, while web2.0 is a two-way interaction between the two.
This is nothing new. Jorn Barger, the earliest proponent of web2.0, is actually an interaction designer. He is neither a big bull scholar at the technical level nor a forward-looking technical historian. When he proposed this concept, he was talking about the concept of web design.
Yes, it even has nothing to do with IT technology. It is a web (web page) 2.0 concept that can be understood purely from the literal meaning.
Jorn Barger faithfully recorded his idea of how to operate the website at that time, but he gave this idea a cool name, web2.0. This naming method has brought "endless pain" to his descendants.
Due to web2.0 and 1.0, all interactions between the network and people have been summarized in philosophy. It is difficult for us to propose a third flow mode beyond the one-way flow and two-way flow of information. Between human and non-human, in the foreseeable future, it is almost impossible to insert a third party - is it human-computer integration?
Even if we rely on simple brainstorming, it is difficult to extract the third dimension in such a highly refined philosophical relationship.
So it is not difficult for us to understand that the so-called web3.0 proposed by the big guys is basically the advancement of web2.0:
Whether the algorithm understands people better, the imaging mode is more cool, and the device interaction is more streamlined, the essence is still the interaction between people and devices. Some people try to change a subject, such as machine machine interaction. Of course, this is bullshit. First of all, this is no longer the web. Second, the human attempt to the Internet of Things is not much shorter than the Internet.
You can say that this definition of web2.0 is fundamentally buggy, and it should not be "serialized" at the beginning.
From the beginning, we fell into an involuntary but extremely absurd logic trap:
"Technologism" makes us think that technology is infinitely developing, so we love to "number" technology, and the web naturally needs a number;
Web is a "big word", so a very grand concept that conforms to human "aesthetic algorithm" can match its sense of power;
With the development of IT power, the common denotation of the word web has also changed. It has developed from a context that refers more to the form of web pages to a context that refers to "world outlook".
But the attractive technological prospect, fanatical technologism, and human obsession with "serial number aesthetics" make people constantly look for the theoretical possibilities of 3.0 and 4.0 for this philosophical concept, which is originally a dichotomy.
Source: Dale Dougherty | Source: myoops.org The birth of "blockchain web3"
As mentioned above, serializing the web itself is not necessarily a logical error. Without the concept of web3, human beings have also made great progress in IT technology. And the ambitious people who explore web3 should have been like ants circling around forever without any results.
However, in 2014, this "web sequence paradox" with huge logic loopholes was actually "solved".
This concept was first proposed by "Ethereum" co founder Gavin Wood, and then quickly became the "official" way to open global web3. How does the blockchain achieve this "impossible" thing?
At present, the most recognized version of this web3.0 statement comes from researcher Eshita.
In her opinion, Web 1.0 is characterized by "read"; Web 2.0 is characterized by "read+write"; Web 3.0 is characterized by "read+write+own".
This is a high-level expression at first sight.
First of all, in terms of the way of statement, it maintains the narrative tradition of the interactive way between "content" and "people" in the "web sequence theory". In this way, the perspective of technology discussion like that of former CEO Schmidt of Google will really disappear.
In addition, it also continues the strong, concise and beautiful feeling in the narration from web1.0 to web2.0, which makes people have a secret sense of power when reading it. It has successfully hidden the feeling of the Internet energy devouring the society, on the contrary, it makes people feel that the power of a very human being extends infinitely in the Internet, and then unconsciously stirs up the readers' yearning for free will.
Therefore, it seems to have successfully solved the logic dilemma after web2.0, making 3.0, 1.0 and 2.0 seem to be an organic whole.
As a matter of course, this expression has become the most popular expression in the entire IT technology circle, and has achieved good results in terms of emotion and communication.
Researcher Eshita | Source: the org So, has history been created?
Wait a minute. In fact, people familiar with social sciences can find that "readable", "writable" and "owned" are totally different concepts in terms of dimensions after a little careful screening.
Readable and writable are actually the interaction between people and content. They are real behaviors that can be recorded and implemented. Imagine that if the hard disk can last forever, it will become an objective fact that can be observed forever and exist in the universe forever.
But the essence of "ownership" is a social contract relationship, its essence is a human "consensus" on distribution, and it is an ideology of human society. Furthermore, "owning" even represents an actual power relationship.
For example, it is a social consensus that people's exclusive right to things - my house can only be occupied by me, and other people can't violate it.
It may also be a person to person power relationship - for example, the rich can buy the working time of the poor through money. If the distribution system of money itself seriously lacks fairness, this purchase can be understood as "exploitation".
Readability and writability are objective facts, while possession is a social ideology. It is strange to juxtapose the three, just as it is strange to compare beef, pork and fish flavored shredded pork.
If Eshita writes honestly, the development track from web1.0 to web3.0 is readability, writability and decentralization. Then people will naturally suspect that these three are not necessarily a progressive relationship.
The reason why ordinary people can't feel this difference in their first impression is that we have tacitly accepted such long-standing social values as private ownership, and regard these similar ideas as air. Finally, we internalized this external perspective into an internal perspective in our thinking.
Karl Marx Source: Network Therefore, the essence of Eshita's theory is to invent a new dimension of ideology that belongs to human society alone beyond the two dimensions of web2, and hope to "objectify" this ideology through a technical means.
This proves once again that the essence of "web serialization" is a "philosophical concept" and "logical game". Therefore, in this kind of game, only abstraction can continue abstraction.
But technology can only "defend" ideology, but it is impossible to code and objectify an ideology. This is reflected in web3, that is, the narrative concept of "ownership" is much more fragile than the concepts of "readability" and "writability".
First of all, blockchain itself can reduce the risk of anti-theft, but it is not a super anti-theft technology, nor a power center separated from the real world cashing ability. It can only achieve decentralization - just like the paper money in your pocket.
But because the concept of "ownership" behind web3 is so popular, netizens will even be surprised that Jay Chou's NFT will be stolen, and then send it to microblog hot search.
And similar "Jay Chou's NFT was stolen" is just the beginning. As long as web3 regards "owning" as "selling point", it will inevitably challenge the understanding of ordinary people on "owning" more and more frequently and continuously:
● It turns out that the basis of "ownership" is that you can accurately remember the account and password. If you forget your password, you will lose your belongings;
● Hackers can take the priceless assets from Jay Chou's wallet once and for all, but the police can do nothing about it;
● The effect of telecommunication fraud is the same, and the effect of extortion crime and money laundering crime is better;
In addition, the token flow itself will devour the tokens in the flow endlessly according to the number of transactions.
And miners are becoming mobile bottom necessities in the same way as data centers. And your assets can't survive without this system.
In the end, even decentralization has become a possible "lie". Property just depends on a "decentralized" system instead of a "centralized" credit institution - unless this system really "engulfs" the world and evolves into an underlying operating logic that you cannot perceive.
Source: unsplash This is a very interesting thing: code may be objective, but philosophy is dialectical; The philosophy based on technology is also dialectical.
We can see the shadow of web3 in the "technicalization" of ideology in many places.
For example, web3 advocates regard web3 not only as a technological innovation, but also as an action of social and political ideas. They believe that blockchain will become a good medicine to solve the problem of social and political operation.
Web3 entrepreneurs will actively participate in local politics and ally with the rulers of the third world countries; They propose new organizational forms and try to change the organizational form of the company; They issued their own currency and built their own "Federal Reserve", trying to subvert the state's monetary operation; They attack and despise the Alliance Chain and other "dissidents", and are committed to building a public chain of great harmony in the world.
It can be said that web3 is the first digital revolution that closely combines technology and ideology on such a large scale.
However, it is obviously not enough to explain the web phenomenon we want to explain just by deconstructing the terms of web3. Therefore, in this series of articles, we will present a complete world view of "cyber capitalism".
