While the German economy continues to struggle to align its business models with the platform economy, the next Internet generation has long been on the horizon: Web3.
Web1 from 1990 was still a pure reading web with hardly any user interaction. From 2004, our current Web2 developed via social media: users could now publish content themselves.
Web3, on the other hand, turns users into owners: blockchain technology will enable us to own digital originals and exchange them without classic intermediaries such as banks or internet giants. In Web3, you no longer email attachments or enter your password on websites. You only grant access to the original in your own wallet. This also ends countless data silos.
Tokens are digital means of payment similar to “diamonds” in a computer game. In the Metaverse, the future virtual world, they act as currency. Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are indivisible digital assets: images, copyrights, a piece of clothing in the metaverse.
In the future, however, an NFT could also be linked to a work by Andy Warhol. The NFT owner could thus hold a share in the plant and not only earn money with the next sale, but with every further sale.
Web3 drastically reduces transaction costs at all levels
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are coded by public software that the stakeholders can change. This enables direct, grassroots cooperation, in which you no longer have to trust the other person, but only the blockchain code.
In the pharmaceutical industry there is the Eroom’s Law phenomenon: despite technological advances, drug research becomes more expensive and slows down over time. Research DAOs like VitaDAO, VibeDAO, moleculaDAO are able to override Eroom through tremendously efficient teamwork between patients, doctors, researchers.
Smart contracts automatically enforce agreements using blockchain. Applications for insurance after claims, for example, can be made obsolete in the future by the blockchain because it recognizes the damage itself thanks to pre-programmed requirements and triggers payments immediately. Discounts for train delays could be deducted from the fare automatically, to the minute and immediately.
Tokenomics, the economy of tokens, will enable a fundamentally new trade in intangible goods that were previously uneconomic to trade. Many token transactions would already be possible today, but only Web3 will drastically reduce transaction costs at all levels. Also for people with less deep pockets. At realt.co/marketplace, for example, you can share in the value of an apartment in Chicago for as little as $50.
>> Read here: A Zuckerberg on the way to the Web3: Mark’s big sister promotes the next-generation Internet
Web3 holds enormous disruption potential for banks, credit card companies, insurance companies. Everyone who invents, thinks up, produces something will benefit from Web3: bye, platform economy! Hi Creator’s Economy!
In Web3, the authorship of a digital contribution will always be transparent and traceable. Contributions may be purchased, traded or sponsored without an intermediary. The mirror.xyz publishing portal shows how it’s done.
In the future, not only employment contracts can be encoded on the blockchain, but also recruiting: companies could soon enter the skills they are looking for, and applicants will no longer send certificates, but access to their skill NFTs. Job matching as easy as Tinder!
Web3 will also be able to help save CO2. Due to lax standards, today’s emission certificates often do not keep what they promise. If you put them on the blockchain, as with the Sustaim platform, all values can be traced transparently.
A Web3 strategy makes companies more attractive to young talent
Web3 is currently like Web1 in 1997: underestimated, below the threshold of perception – just like future Web3 intermediaries who will one day make Web3 usable for the general market. No one knows if they are already established.
Now is the time for a Web3 strategy, especially for companies in Europe. You can take it to the top of the world in this new technology cycle. In doing so, they must answer the following questions: Can the blockchain already be used internally in your company to automate processes?
Do they have an ENS domain and a presence in the Metaverse that users can log into using a Web3 wallet? Do they offer tokens and NFTs? If you want to be one step ahead, set up a DAO.
Young top talents have long paid attention to which employer sets the course for the future. They no longer all strive for corporations or Web2 start-ups, but increasingly for Web3 companies and DAOs, where they directly participate in success and leadership.
The author:
Isabell Welpe is a professor of business administration and teaches strategy and organization at the Technical University of Munich. Her research focuses on the digital transformation of companies, business model innovation and the future of leadership and work organization design.
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