Imagine being paid in Facebook shares based on your value to the platform. Early users, prolific posters, community moderators—all receiving equity proportional to their contribution.
This would align incentives: users benefit when the platform succeeds. It would create better products: stakeholders care more than commoditized users. Win-win.
So why didn't Facebook do this?
Because the technology didn't exist when they launched. Smart contracts and token standards came later. Now they do exist—and that changes everything about how platforms can work.
Web 1.0 (1990-2004): Content delivery. Institutions publish, users consume. Read-only.
Web 2.0 (2004-present): Content creation. Users generate content, platforms capture value. You're the product.
Web 3.0 (2017-present): User ownership. Blockchain-based networks where participants hold tokens representing stake in the platform.
The periods overlap. Most of the internet still runs on Web 2.0 models. Web 3.0 is emerging alongside, not replacing.
Web 3.0's thesis: users should own the networks they participate in.
In Web 2.0, you contribute content, data, and attention. Platforms monetize these through advertising and data sales. You get... free service access. The value flows to shareholders.
Web 3.0 inverts this through tokens:
Early Uniswap users received UNI tokens (now a ~$6B market cap as of January 2026).1 Early Ethereum users hold ETH that's appreciated dramatically. The value accrues to participants, not just founders and VCs.
As Balaji Srinivasan put it: "Tokens are not securities in the same way that YouTube is not television." They share some properties but enable fundamentally new models.
Self-executing code on blockchains. When conditions are met, the code runs automatically. No intermediary decides whether to honor the agreement—the blockchain enforces it.
This enables:
ERC-20 (fungible tokens): One token equals any other of the same type. Used for currencies, governance tokens, utility tokens.
ERC-721 (non-fungible tokens): Each token is unique. Used for digital art, collectibles, ownership records.
These standards let anyone create tokens that work across the entire ecosystem. Composability—protocols building on protocols—accelerates innovation.
Lending, borrowing, trading, insurance—all through smart contracts instead of institutions. No KYC. No credit checks. No business hours.
Uniswap processes billions in trades monthly with no employees managing transactions. Aave lends billions with no loan officers. The code is the institution.
Token holders propose and vote on decisions. Treasury management, protocol upgrades, grant allocations—all on-chain, all transparent.
NounsDAO auctions one NFT daily, forever. 100% of proceeds go to a treasury that token holders govern. Hundreds of ETH allocated to community projects, charities, and experiments—all through on-chain voting. (Note: In 2023, over 50% of Noun holders used the "fork" mechanism to exit with their proportional treasury share, significantly reducing the DAO's resources but demonstrating how token-based governance handles dissent.)2
Musicians, artists, writers—anyone creating digital content—can own their distribution. No platform taking 30-50%. No algorithm deciding who sees your work. Direct connection to audience.
3LAU sold an album as NFTs for $11 million—funding new projects without label deals. Creators on decentralized platforms own their content and their relationship with fans.
Traditional startup funding: pitch VCs, give up equity, hope for acquisition or IPO years later.
Web 3.0 alternatives:
Gitcoin has distributed over $50M in grants through quadratic funding—prioritizing projects with broad community support over those with wealthy backers.
Public blockchains are open source. Anyone can read the code, verify it does what it claims, fork it, improve it.
This creates:
SushiSwap forked Uniswap's code and added token incentives. Uniswap responded by launching their own token. Competition drove both protocols forward.
Web 3.0 isn't ready for mass adoption. The UX is hostile. Fees fluctuate wildly. Scams abound. Regulation is uncertain.
Current users:
What's missing:
The technology works. The adoption is lagging. Whether Web 3.0 displaces Web 2.0 or complements it remains uncertain.
Web 1.0 was idealistic—decentralized, open, free—until corporations centralized it.
Web 2.0 democratized creation but centralized value capture in platforms.
Web 3.0 attempts to deliver on Web 1.0's original promise with better technology. Users own the network. Code enforces the rules. Value flows to participants.
The vision is coherent. The execution is messy. But for the first time, the tools exist to build what the early web pioneers imagined: networks that serve users, not extract from them.
Whether that happens depends on what gets built next.
CoinGecko, January 2026. UNI market cap has fluctuated between $4B-$15B since the 2020 airdrop, tracking broader crypto market cycles. ↩
The September 2023 NounsDAO fork drained approximately 27,000 ETH (~$45M) from the treasury. The mechanism worked as designed—dissatisfied holders could exit—but revealed the tension between "voice" (staying and voting) and "exit" (leaving with assets) in token-governed organizations. ↩
What if users owned the platforms they use?
Imagine being paid in Facebook shares based on your value to the platform. Early users, prolific posters, community moderators—all receiving equity proportional to their contribution.
This would align incentives: users benefit when the platform succeeds. It would create better products: stakeholders care more than commoditized users. Win-win.
So why didn't Facebook do this?
Because the technology didn't exist when they launched. Smart contracts and token standards came later. Now they do exist—and that changes everything about how platforms can work.
Web 1.0 (1990-2004): Content delivery. Institutions publish, users consume. Read-only.
Web 2.0 (2004-present): Content creation. Users generate content, platforms capture value. You're the product.
Web 3.0 (2017-present): User ownership. Blockchain-based networks where participants hold tokens representing stake in the platform.
The periods overlap. Most of the internet still runs on Web 2.0 models. Web 3.0 is emerging alongside, not replacing.
Web 3.0's thesis: users should own the networks they participate in.
In Web 2.0, you contribute content, data, and attention. Platforms monetize these through advertising and data sales. You get... free service access. The value flows to shareholders.
Web 3.0 inverts this through tokens:
Early Uniswap users received UNI tokens (now a ~$6B market cap as of January 2026).1 Early Ethereum users hold ETH that's appreciated dramatically. The value accrues to participants, not just founders and VCs.
As Balaji Srinivasan put it: "Tokens are not securities in the same way that YouTube is not television." They share some properties but enable fundamentally new models.
Self-executing code on blockchains. When conditions are met, the code runs automatically. No intermediary decides whether to honor the agreement—the blockchain enforces it.
This enables:
ERC-20 (fungible tokens): One token equals any other of the same type. Used for currencies, governance tokens, utility tokens.
ERC-721 (non-fungible tokens): Each token is unique. Used for digital art, collectibles, ownership records.
These standards let anyone create tokens that work across the entire ecosystem. Composability—protocols building on protocols—accelerates innovation.
Lending, borrowing, trading, insurance—all through smart contracts instead of institutions. No KYC. No credit checks. No business hours.
Uniswap processes billions in trades monthly with no employees managing transactions. Aave lends billions with no loan officers. The code is the institution.
Token holders propose and vote on decisions. Treasury management, protocol upgrades, grant allocations—all on-chain, all transparent.
NounsDAO auctions one NFT daily, forever. 100% of proceeds go to a treasury that token holders govern. Hundreds of ETH allocated to community projects, charities, and experiments—all through on-chain voting. (Note: In 2023, over 50% of Noun holders used the "fork" mechanism to exit with their proportional treasury share, significantly reducing the DAO's resources but demonstrating how token-based governance handles dissent.)2
Musicians, artists, writers—anyone creating digital content—can own their distribution. No platform taking 30-50%. No algorithm deciding who sees your work. Direct connection to audience.
3LAU sold an album as NFTs for $11 million—funding new projects without label deals. Creators on decentralized platforms own their content and their relationship with fans.
Traditional startup funding: pitch VCs, give up equity, hope for acquisition or IPO years later.
Web 3.0 alternatives:
Gitcoin has distributed over $50M in grants through quadratic funding—prioritizing projects with broad community support over those with wealthy backers.
Public blockchains are open source. Anyone can read the code, verify it does what it claims, fork it, improve it.
This creates:
SushiSwap forked Uniswap's code and added token incentives. Uniswap responded by launching their own token. Competition drove both protocols forward.
Web 3.0 isn't ready for mass adoption. The UX is hostile. Fees fluctuate wildly. Scams abound. Regulation is uncertain.
Current users:
What's missing:
The technology works. The adoption is lagging. Whether Web 3.0 displaces Web 2.0 or complements it remains uncertain.
Web 1.0 was idealistic—decentralized, open, free—until corporations centralized it.
Web 2.0 democratized creation but centralized value capture in platforms.
Web 3.0 attempts to deliver on Web 1.0's original promise with better technology. Users own the network. Code enforces the rules. Value flows to participants.
The vision is coherent. The execution is messy. But for the first time, the tools exist to build what the early web pioneers imagined: networks that serve users, not extract from them.
Whether that happens depends on what gets built next.
CoinGecko, January 2026. UNI market cap has fluctuated between $4B-$15B since the 2020 airdrop, tracking broader crypto market cycles. ↩
The September 2023 NounsDAO fork drained approximately 27,000 ETH (~$45M) from the treasury. The mechanism worked as designed—dissatisfied holders could exit—but revealed the tension between "voice" (staying and voting) and "exit" (leaving with assets) in token-governed organizations. ↩