There are many problems with Crypto-Web, which I will now refer to as Web3, despite there being similar ones. I will simply use Web3
synonymous with other such technologies.
There are many other articles like this. This one is a bit different: It focuses mostly on challenges to overcome to
make such a Web3, unlike many others which focus mostly on the environmental impact. Also, I will try to focus on both good and bad aspects.
Web3 is not all bad. It's got many good things about it. Fundamentally, I would even call it a good idea!
Attempt at decentralizing the web and de-monopolizing it
Anonymity
Unified payment system (also anonymous)
No big corporations controlling speech through central social media
This isn't even a complete list. So you might ask why I am against Web3...
Well, it's because of three main issues, one of them being how the internet works at the moment, one being the fact that decentralization is
hard, and the third being environmental factors.
Fundamentally, the internet was never meant to be centralized. That's why so many websites exist. However, there is a big problem, which is
probably the main reason why almost no-one has a personal website anymore: Router Firewalls and IP addresses.
Of course, routers are great, and I don't dislike routers themselves, but I do dislike some of their functions: many routers have a very
strict firewall, causing open ports of one computer to be inaccessible from outside the Local Area Network.
This isn't too bad however, as it can ususally be disabled with relatively little effort. The second problem is much harder to solve,
however: The assignment (and structure) of IP addresses. IP addresses are stored as 32-bit integers, so four bytes. Sadly, this is not enough
for each computer to have its own address, so computers now often have an IPv6 address, which is directly associated with that one computer,
and a local IPv4 address, which is associated to the computer only in the local network. This local network then has another IPv4
address, which is what's actually available for the whole internet to see.
The internet protocol was meant to be decentralized, but not anonymous. Sadly, this decentralization has been made very difficult
because of IPv4 restrictions and too strict default firewalls in router.
This is then combined with the fact that home IP addressed change regularly, and you've made hosting at home something from extremely
inconvenient to borderline-impossible to the average person.
Changing that is hard
Everyone would have to use IPv6 addresses whenever possible.
Routers would have to be easier to configure.
Internet Service Providers would have to make all addresses static-if-possible (meaning addresses will not
change as long as it is avoidable to do so).
All of this happening any time soon is quite unlikely.
The impact on Web3
Web3 and crypto still rely on the Internet Protocol, meaning Web3 has the same issues. To avoid these, there would have to be
centralized servers to route traffic, which is not truly decentralized!
For Web3 to be anonymous, there would have to be extreme measures to ensure anonymity. Bitcoin shows that any service interacting with
both real life and Web3 can easily link an "anonymous" wallet to a real person. There are, however, also cryptocurrencies like Monero which is truly anonymous. This level of anonymity is, however, nearly impossible to keep on
such a large network, without causing large inconvenience[1].
Chatting
Think for yourself, how is one gonna chat on a decentralized internet where no-one can be identified?
I would love to hear what you think about this blog post, so please feel free to have a conversation with me instead of sending me a DDoS
attack. Here is my contact info:
Discord
TudbuT#2624
E-Mail
discuss-crypto@mail.tudbut.de
~TudbuT
Footnotes
[1]
True anonymity can only be achieved when all of the following are ensured, causing a lot of inconvenience:
Good op-sec
No accounts
No cookies
Single-use IP addresses (or the equivalent of those)