I think that @cdixon 's book - Read, Write, Own - is worth reading. But there is an obvious flaw. A flaw that is probably be minor enough to let the book survive in the long term, but means that today it doesn't land today. I kept wanting to close it. It just wasn't honest.  

readwriteown.com

But the most important sections, the ones about Web 3, and what they future holds, are far too much of a normative, proselytizing, essay. Too many 'should's, 'could's and 'might be's about Web 3. Too much of an exercise in dreamy evangelism rather than what is very much needed: serious circumspection.

Unadorned proselytizing might have been appropriate during the 2017-20 era of Web 3. Perhaps even up to Dec 21. But in 2024 it rings too hollow. Too blinkered. Too naive. (And Chris is, I'm sure, anything but naive).

We've been through too many crash and burns, too many scams - scams that have been perpetrated right at the heart of the crypto ecosystem - for well-meaning people with integrity who still believe in the space to adopt Chris's evocations wholesale. The time for unbounded positive ideation for Web3 has long passed.

We needed a good dose of introspection and skepticism. What we needed from Chris was a reckoning from one of crypto's true a believers, rather than a simple rallying cry for the promise of what the future might hold.

We are undoubtedly, as Chris regularly reminds us, "early" to crypto/blockchain/decentralised computing. But that's not excuse enough to simply gloss over the hundreds of millions of losses that have been generated by scammers and charlatans let alone speculators. I hoped he would have taken all of this on earnestly.

Not addressing the charlatans is a real failing. 

Yes, it's understandable. Chris is one of Web 3's OG's. One of its great proponents. Crypto is his baby. But if you love your child you also have to be honest with them when they are hurting others and behaving badly.

You have to be able to chide them. Especially as they grow up. Because we all know what happens to children who never have to face a reckoning from mom and dad. They turn out to be real monsters.

Yes, it's a wonderful potted history of the internet from Web 1->3. A lovely homage to the early days of the internet and full of "what may have beens" if corporate America hadn't dug its snout so far into the world wide web and inevitably sought to turn human connection into revenue.