Web3 notes from a sci-fi writer and “enemy” of the tech: it shows new protocols are still possible, but is expensive, undemocratic, and impedes ephemerality
he's an enemy and, full disclosure, so am I. https://society.robinsloan.com/ ... Gabe Rivera / @gaberivera : “The money thing confounds evaluation; it's like trying to look at a star next to the sun. The same was true for the World Wide Web in the year 2000, of course; and, if that's the analogy, what do we make of it?” https://twitter.com/... Jason Schreier / @jasonschreier : I don't think there's anything blockchain can do that hasn't already been possible in video game development for years, so I think the actual answer is “Saying the word ‘blockchain’ makes investors horny” Craig Mod / @craigmod : perhaps more than anything else, it strikes me as weird that more people don't see the immutability of web3 as a negative, not a positive https://society.robinsloan.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... Jay Owens / @hautepop : “A key characteristic — a key aesthetic—of blockchains is immutability. But I find myself more interested in the opposite; in mutability & ephemerality. I like things that can change & grow, then vanish. What do we lose when we lose deletion?” -@robinsloan https://society.robinsloan.com/ ... Paul Stamatiou / @stammy : for me, even if crypto assets were completely worthless I'd still be super interested in the potential for decentralized identity with “Connect wallet” / SIWE. just need to find ways to tack on a knowledge graph, privacy controls (Great post about web3 https://society.robinsloan.com/ ...) https://twitter.com/... Katie Dreke / @katiedreke : If you are already convinced that Web3 is the appropriate next step for the world's internetworked computer systems: this post is not for you. Go forth! Instead, this is for people still sort of ... cautiously curious? h/t Robin Sloan (not on twitter) https://society.robinsloan.com/ ... @arainert : This healthily skeptical @robinsloan piece on Web3 is really good. This part about the value of ephemerality resonated strongly with me, especially after what has transpired over the past 15 years in social media. https://society.robinsloan.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... Katherine Miller / @katherinemiller : “I think Web3 is propelled by exhaustion as much as by excitement... If you're 22 years old, Twitter has been around for about as long as you've known how to read. YouTube is fixed as firmly as the stars... I wonder if it's claustrophobic?” https://society.robinsloan.com/ ... Organism / @reedmaniac : “In others ... it's like running your website on a TRS-80 with a coin slot.” This post on Web 3.0 was pretty interesting to read. https://society.robinsloan.com/ ... Lisa Brewster / @adora : I am obsessed with the generational differences of web 2.0 and web3 culture. Were there any olds back then with a similar level of vitriol as we joined every new social network and built things in Ajax and played with APIs? https://society.robinsloan.com/ ... @tynanpants : Fantastic read on “web3” https://society.robinsloan.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... Codyb / @codybrown : Soulful piece from @robinsloan about what Web 3 is now and where it needs much more thinking and understanding. https://society.robinsloan.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... Rat King / @mikeisaac : i think you can be intrigued by the promise of the underlying technology — who doesn't love decentralization of existing power centers? — and still think what's going on right now is unsustainable Harry McCracken / @harrymccracken : BRB, going to see if I can install a coin slot on the TRS-80 that runs my website. https://twitter.com/... Alex Hern / @alexhern : “I do not think Web3 is a desirable or even tolerable path forward for this web right here, but I take its lesson well. ‘Code wins arguments’, and so do clubs, and cults; time remains to build all three.” https://society.robinsloan.com/ ... @killedbygoogle : HOLY FUCK SO MUCH THIS. https://society.robinsloan.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Robin Sloan's field notes arrive at the peak of the late-2021 Web3 argument, and they cut both ways: he concedes the stack shows genuinely new protocols are still possible, while flagging cost, plutocratic governance, and its hostility to ephemerality as disqualifying flaws. The reaction quotes in the piece frame why that matters — Gabe Rivera compares evaluating crypto to judging the World Wide Web in 2000 with money blinding the lens, while Jason Schreier argues blockchain unlocks nothing that game development hasn't already done for years.
Sloan's critique slots into an existing arc of skeptical coverage: Stephen Diehl's warning about venture capitalists using tokens to dump unregulated stakes on retail buyers, and Tim O'Reilly's later framing of decentralization-recentralization cycles that make Web3 illegible until the current bubble deflates. A writer known for building small, humane web tools calling the tech 'expensive and undemocratic' gives the skeptic camp a practitioner's testimony rather than a financier's.
First-order effects
- Sloan hands fellow skeptics a concrete technical bill of particulars — cost, governance capture, impermanence — that shifts the argument from 'crypto is a scam' to 'crypto fails even on its own decentralizing terms.'
- Protocol boosters now have to answer the Rivera problem head-on: if speculative token prices distort every evaluation the way the sun blinds a star observation, credible neutral assessments become nearly impossible to publish.
Second-order effects
- The talent pipeline splits along this fault line: the Not Boring thesis holds that speculative returns draw builders who create real earning opportunities, while skeptics like Schreier argue those same incentives pull engineers into rebuilding existing capabilities under a blockchain label.
- Critics gain a template — Sloan's 'enemy writing notes from inside' stance prefigures the mid-2022 pushback against framing Web3 criticism as an anti-crypto conspiracy, as in Garbage Day's defense of commentators who simply say the current state sucks.
Third-order effects
- If O'Reilly's cycle framing holds, the durable verdict on Web3 gets written only after the bubble pops — and Sloan's specific complaints suggest the surviving layer may be protocol experiments stripped of their token-incentive machinery.
- The ephemerality objection points at a structural values conflict: systems engineered around permanent, financialized records are architecturally hostile to the mutable, throwaway web culture that writers like Sloan build for, making 'Web3 versus the small web' a lasting design schism rather than a passing spat.
The trend: The Web3 legitimacy fight is increasingly being adjudicated by cultural practitioners weighing whether speculative token economics can be separated from genuine protocol innovation — a verdict the related coverage suggests will only land after the bubble cycle completes.