Is Web3 Morally Wrong? Exploring Ethics of Web3, Crypto, and the Metaverse
Welcome to my blog series on web3 and the creator economy! This series dives into NFTs, cryptocurrencies, metaverse games, and more.
Check out all the articles in the series here. You can also hire me as a freelance writer for your web3 project — more on my services here!
When I’m posting content on my TikTok page about freelance writing, digital nomad-ing, or how to start a blog, I get a lot of lovely comments from people who have made the leap and are enjoying the freelance life of making money from their laptop while being able to travel or stay home in their favorite sweatpants.
When I post content about web3, however, my comments get flooded with trolls or people calling web3 and all of the pieces of it (NFTs, crypto, and metaverse games) “dystopian nightmares” or just “hell.”
As a freelance writer who has spent the last year almost exclusively writing in the web3 space, I’m pretty taken aback by the change in tone despite the same end goal with both of these spaces. The projects I’ve worked on in web3 have huge potential to continue to help people become financially free — sans the soul-sucking corporate job or oppressive office culture.
One of the web3 startups I wrote for has even been helping 18-year-old gamers in distant countries take up gaming as a job and be able to financially support their family in a way that was impossible before. One such gamer was even able to help build out the family farm and provide additional sources of income for his parents.
That doesn’t quite sound like a dystopian nightmare. But because I’m always game for some contrarian thinking, let’s explore the moral implications of web3 and what it means for society.
Web1, Web2, and Web3: From Static to Social to… Decentralized?
When the Internet was just getting started — back in the heyday of Ask Jeeves where a butler helped usher us to static webpages — we existed in a world without social media, or webpages that did much more than give us some information.
And then, social media came along. It changed the Internet from a place that we read and consumed to a place where we could share with friends and strangers.
Social media has been one of the most hotly debated revolutions in recent history. Social media has changed the way we think about privacy, connection, and the power of an interconnected web of friends and strangers.
I’ll go ahead and share a controversial opinion so you know where I stand: I think social media is a genuinely good thing for society. Social media just amplifies who we are as humans, allowing people who intend to do harm to do so on a larger scale, and allowing people who want to do good to do so on a larger scale as well. Social media has allowed me to meet so many fascinating and lovely people, and to stay in touch with people I (as an introvert) would have fallen out of touch with otherwise.
Social media has helped me, as someone who is fighting — and winning! — a chronic illness get connected to people with my same condition all over the world and discover new ways to completely put my condition into remission.
Web3 takes the promise of the Internet one step further, and even helps to solve some of the problems caused by web2. Social media’s drawbacks are (in part) due to the massive corporations that profit off of you — the product! — of their platform. Your eyeballs are being monetized by these huge companies, to massive profit.
But what if you had ownership over your data? What if you could share and monetize without the Facebooks of the world?
Web3 done right is just that. Cryptocurrency promises borderless, anonymous, and bankless transactions. Creators can monetize without being beholden to a platform.
So… what are the drawbacks?
The Cons, Scam Artists, and Rug-Pullers of Web3
Social media and other web2 platforms amplified some of the not-so-great parts of humanity, and web3 runs into similar problems.
Take this article, for example, of an NFT collection using names and images of “Cypher Punks” without their permission, and the founder profiting off of the way they created trading cards out of real people. Yeah, not exactly a warm-and-fuzzy way to use the blockchain, and the people who were turned into NFTs had to go to a centralized platform — OpenSea — to remove these decentralized assets that were not created with likeness rights in mind.
Plenty of other NFT collections have been created by the get-rich-quick crowd. Everyone and their dog wants to create an NFT collection thinking it’s a path to untold riches. But the era of buying NFTs for the sake of buying them is over: as I’ve said before on this blog, NFTs with ~ actual utility and purpose ~ are going to be the ones that win in the future.
Just like the Nigerian princes of email scams, web3 has its own bad guys who thrive in the anonymity that web3 provides. There are new measures being created every day to protect digital wallets and vet anonymous creators, but anywhere ripe with monetary gain is also rife with people trying to steal it.
Dystopian Nightmare or Decentralized Playground?
Is web3 actually decentralized? This argument is an incredibly fair one to make, and I’m all for continued understanding of a) who are the creators of these different cryptocurrencies, b) how are banks and major corporations trying to get into this space and own it, and c) how will government regulators try and step in?
I would argue that web2 is closer to a dystopian nightmare, what with TikTok trends feeling scarily close to retina scans as creators are encouraged to post close-up videos of their eyes. (TikTok is also ~ very open ~ about collecting users’ voiceprints and faceprints, so that’s a bit dystopian if you ask me.)
But yes, there’s been recent buzz about how JP Morgan owns a critical part of how Ethereum operates, which is shady. A bankless cryptocurrency shouldn’t be controlled by — you guessed it — a bank.
There’s also rumors about Russia potentially inflating Bitcoin to fund their military, and then using Bitcoin to evade sanctions.
Listen, I’m not here to spread hearsay. We all know our traditional financial institutions are wrought with political maneuvering, and these new forms of Decentralized Finance will need to fight to actually stay decentralized.
Part of what gives cryptocurrency its value is the trust that people have in how it operates. Just like any monetary system, these things work because a critical mass of people believe in them. Because when people stop believing in a crypto coin, you get the fate of the likes of Dogecoin (RIP.)
So… Is Web3 a Total Dystopian Scam?
The author of this Recode article thinks so, although author Peter Kafka tries (and fails) to give it his best go of trying to understand what’s so special about this space. This click-bait-y article attempts to dig into web3, but ends up just scratching the surface.
And I understand! Most people read the articles about NFT scams, or don’t understand what’s so special about “buying a .JPEG.”
However, those of us working in the web3 space understand that web3 is an infrastructure with a set of new tools and building supplies. Just like web2 brought us social media and tools of sharing and connection, web3 gives us new ways to build communities and create content without huge monolith platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitch.
So no, I don’t think web3 is a total scam or some new evolution of how machines are going to eat our brains. I actually think the advancement of technology is a good thing: I don’t think humans should work as warehouse workers, farmers, or salad-makers at Sweetgreen. I want vending machines to replace Starbucks, and robots to replace garbage men and street sweepers. Why? Not because I hate jobs. Because I know how much it sucks to work a menial job that you hate that pays you nothing, and I believe all humans are meant to do what you love — even if that thing is playing video games on a farm in the middle of Croatia. And it’s hard to love picking up other people’s trash for a living — especially when sophisticated roombas are right around the corner.
I don’t mind if you’ve gotten this far and still think I’m a rose-colored tech-optimist youngin’ who sees this iteration of the Internet as yet another set of tools to build a brighter future.
But I do mind if you’re a sideline commentator who decides web3 is “morally wrong” without understanding that there is nothing ethically bad about the evolution of 1’s and 0’s.
Application of web3 is a different story: would you still call web3 morally wrong if it helped your local hospital staff avoid mistakes more often because they’re being trained more effectively through VR training? Or if the blockchain could be used to encrypt and anonymize patient records to help people keep track of their medical records from doctor to doctor more easily?
Don’t blame the technology: blame the people who misuse it. That’s the only way we can start to have meaningful conversations about what it means to build things that help other people live better lives, all over the world.
Looking for a freelance writer for your web3 project? I’m your gal. Read more about my services here, or check out more articles on my blog about the web3 space and its intersection with the creator economy.
