Unsolved Problems of Web3
What is Scratching the Surface with Soosh? Its a new mini project of mine to provide some context to the world of crypto, finance etc in bite sized written format. As the name suggests, everything here is at surface level (i.e. no deep dives or extremely details/heavy datasets), just enough to get your curiosity to tingle~ so you can learn!
Today's topic: Unsolved Problem(s) of Web3
Given the market movements over the last few weeks, its clear that Crypto is in the center of policy, politics and development. There is very large positive momentum within this space however, there are a handful of key gaps (read problems) that stay unsolved which will prevent the next 10M-100M users to be onboarded.
Complex On-boarding/Off-boarding
There are a lot of great service providers that have attempted to make this portion of web3 very easy however even with these one click onboarding service providers, the barrier to on-ramp and off-ramp crypto still stays as the biggest blocker for net new users. The learning curve to transact on the blockchain is already very high, adding multiple blockchains, blockchain specific apps and lack of easy transfer of money/assets across blockchains further increase the barriers for on/off ramp.
Pay to Play
The pay to play concept is very lucrative and has been proven to work for creators of all sort (Instagram Creator Subscription, Twitter Super Follow, OnlyFans, Patreon etc). In web2, this paywall exists after users/audience gets to experience and engage in content and community for free to then have a paywall for further content. However with web3, a lot of the social apps are focusing on solely pay to play without allowing the natural path for communities to foster. There are a lot of barriers for a net new user into web3 starting with learning a new application, creating a new community around them and having them to buy crypto, NFTs or any forms of tokens as Step 1 before they can experience and engage.
Value prop of being onchain
Crypto native users understand the value of onchain presence, content and proof of existing. However, to a net new user, the value prop of being onchain is very unclear. Simply put, to a net new user, its unclear as to 'why' something should be onchain and 'why' should they transact.
Privacy not being an option
The biggest flaw of being onchain especially with the new push of social apps, is that the end user gives away their privacy. There are ways a user can have a pseudo-identity which seems to be very normal in web3 however for most net new users, this is something they can't yet wrap their heads around. All onchain engagement and transactions are forever and the human nature (+history) tells us that not everything should be on the internet, and the same belief follows through onto web3. Apps needs to solve this in two parts: a) allow offchain (i.e. not on the blockchain) and b) allow at a minimum, front end fix to hide, undo, block etc data and content.
Many teams are working to solve these problems and more, to make it easier to onboard the next wave of web2 users onto web3. Excited to see how this barriers get solved in the next 6-18 months!
Until next time on the next scratching the surface with soosh!
*this article is for curiosity only and nothing stated within should be taken as tax and financial advice. DYOR!
