The core blockchain sector should reevaluate whether they believe they can independently onboard the next millions or billions of consumers.
I relate to a section from Gavin Wood’s Polkadot 2023 Roundup.
“…the failings of certain individuals who seem to think the messaging and marketability of Web3 can be successfully divorced from its technology and culture,” was Gavin's explanation for the crypto winter.
Although I agree with the first paragraph about the "failings of certain individuals," I don't think the mismatch between Web3 culture and marketing messaging is to blame.
Rather, there's a mismatch between the go-to-market strategy of the Web3 culture and the realities of customer adoption.
Web3’s technology and culture have been challenged in their own ways pertaining to their messaging and marketability. More than ten years into the birth of this industry, we still can’t point to a mainstream-class application with millions of daily or even weekly active users (not counting exchanges or wallets).
Web3 is reaching a wall in terms of user expansion because of subpar user experiences, as I've previously written, We Need Web2 User Experience To Get Us to Web3, Not Blockchain Protocols.
There is too much attention on the infrastructure players, yet they aren’t the ones that will ultimately own the consumer experiences.
Most L1 blockchain infrastructure teams are relatively small businesses (at the most, less than 250 in headcount). It is very difficult for them to wage multiple battles at once. First, they are fighting each other for mindshare and marketing messages to get attention. Second, they are continuously focused on herding people to develop and evolve their technologies. Thirdly, they must work very hard to draw in developers and users to reach significant adoption.
It’s difficult to execute all three parts well unless the surrounding ecosystem has expanded significantly to the point that, in the event of the central entity’s disappearance, the ecosystem as a whole would continue to advance with little to no harm.
Few infrastructure protocols are as (organizationally) decentralized as the ethos they evangelize to be enabling. Except for Bitcoin, most Foundations (or Labs) organizations continue to act as the main locomotive that pulls the whole train forward. Perhaps Ethereum comes in a close second due to the ongoing self-effacing nature of the Ethereum Foundation, whose role has shrunk considerably in relative terms compared to what the ecosystem is delivering.
Since adoption is the one factor that matters in terms of success, let's return to it.
So, how will the remaining millions (and billions) of users be drawn to crypto and the blockchain?
Within the current landscape of Web3 apps, the mainstream user will be hard-pressed to get excited and take on current Web3 apps like duck to water because there is too much of a jump to get into crypto with both feet and expect to figure things out.
Consequently, we shouldn’t be disparaging app efforts posing as Web2-first. When paired with a Web3 aftertaste, Web2 apps make a delicious appetizer.
I’m excluding “users” that speculate on cryptocurrency prices because, for many of them, central exchanges will give them user-friendly capabilities.
Infrastructure developers currently dominate the blockchain industry, but to attract application-first developers, we need to increase the number of developer-friendly services available.
Web3 and Web2 need each other. Let’s admit it.
The Web3 culture and technology have given us an incredible vision. But they need help in realizing it.
