A lot of things are being written every day on Twitter about this new digital world built on the premise of ownership and decentralization. I’ve bee

Designing for web3: thoughts from first principles

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2022-05-21 17:00:07

A lot of things are being written every day on Twitter about this new digital world built on the premise of ownership and decentralization. I’ve been into crypto for a while and I’ve been amazed at how everyone is enthusiastically pushing this grand vision forward. Yet, the experience of that vision through the products that we are building is quite underwhelming.

Is it because there are fundamental technical constraints that require a greater surface complexity or is it because we haven’t done the effort to think about new perspectives? Or maybe worse: is it because web3 builders aren’t just interested in lessons from the past?

I get that breaking from old standards is core to the web3 DNA but are we really sure that everything should be a candidate for a “revolutionary” redesign? The underlying technology might be able to do things that have never been imaginable before, but the average users don't quite get it, let alone use it.

I’m convinced that these aren’t obvious questions. They aren’t obvious because for the first time in a while we’re dealing with a new category of people on the internet. It’s not just about technology, it’s about behaviors and idealogy and identity. And designing things for people with polarized natures is intrinsically hard.