Article
Harvard Business Review Digital Articles

Why Build in Web3

Format:Electronic

Abstract

A major change is coming to the internet. While today’s dominant platforms have guarded their troves of user data and maintained an advantage through network effects, new companies—working in what they're calling a “Web3” model—are proposing a new value proposition to users. In Web3, instead of platforms having full control of the underlying data, users own whatever content they have created (such as posts or videos), as well as digital objects they have purchased, and these digital assets are typically portable. This new paradigm has a few important advantages: it's easier for new companies to compete with established ones if they offer better user experience; the system is less zero-sum, because user lock-in isn’t the primary goal; and it can be easier to win users' trust, as key operations can be encoded on the blockchain in “smart contracts” that are auditable and immutable. All of this means that it can be much easier to launch a product in Web3.