The original Internet has started to arrive now. It took a bit of detour to centralised services in the last two decades.
In the HTTP protocol there’s still a place for payments, and it’s called 402. 404 is all too familiar to everyone who has ever browsed on the web. In the below section, Mikko Hyppönen talks about the payment opportunities over 20 years ago (see below the timestamped section).
Now that the Internet has its original form of money that is relative commonly distributed and has become accessible to all it unlocks enormous opportunities fast.
The speed of development is accelerating at a very rapid pace. You will be mistaken if you look back and think that it will take a long time since it has been slow development so far.
Ethereum as the harbinger of distributed computing has enabled a lot of different services even though it’s expensive to operate with ETH due to high gas fees at the moment.
For example, if you would like to bid for a traditional auction but lack the funds yourself you could set up a crowdfunding campaign and participate within a week’s notice with +40m USD as a result. Governance with DAOs is the new feature that enables a lot of services.
Or you could write, rally some people around you, mint some NFTs, do auctions yourself or raise funds for your next project. All this with Mirror.xyz where you’re the owner of your data and keys.
Similary, if music is your jam you could upload your songs to Audius streaming service and get paid for your playtime without middlemen. Audius is the new Spotify.
Or if you like to watch videos you could head to Odysee that is the Youtube of the web3 era.
There are a lot of developments and it’s already now impossible to keep track of all the major new initiatives – and that’s a good sign! For example, Sia has been ramping up their infrastructure heavily and it’s starting to bear fruit. You can create your own Google/Facebook type of single sign-on with MySky. Then it’s time to make your own homescreen, install some apps and even build your own de-centralised web pages or just store data.
Let’s not forget the Internet connection. Helium is rapidly becoming a decentralised last-mile Internet provider without centralised capital costs. You could provide a hotspot and start earning in your location (if you can get hold of any hardware due to shortages).
What enables the rapid development and deployment of new services is the very nature of web3. Everyone can contribute and you can use the existing parts to build yours on top of them. There’s no need to start from scratch and start to buy your servers or code everything in-house like in the early days of the Internet.
Composability is the fancy word for idea and code legos of web3.
The best way to start experiencing the new world is to do something. Just hodling your cryptocurrencies is a bit boring and not really much of an effort either. Just point your browser to Coinbase, Bitstamp or Binance and get started.
Before you get too far it’s good to secure your keys and keep the wallet with tokens to yourself. A hardware wallet like Ledger can help when using browser extensions such as Metamask and Phantom. For accepting Bitcoin tips from Twitter and other online services you could try the mobile app, Muun.
Now that we have sorted out the necessary basics how about something more adventurous like registering your .eth or .sol domain? I would start with .sol since it’s cheaper with transaction fees and therefore more forgiving with mistakes.
Just keep in mind that even though .sol domains are paid only once and yours to keep it’s not entirely sure that this is the case forever (even for .eth domains since its Ethiopia’s country domain).
You may be wondering what is Solana. I suggest you read this and listen to this and the recent Clubhouse event. Solana is the new kid on the block but raising fast. If you already have some cryptos try Raydium to swap between coins.
Most of the regular web services will have web3 equivalents. Don’t wait too long to get yourself familiar with the future since incumbents become obsolete faster. If you’re starting to build your startup now it’s even more important that you’re not betting on old technology.
There’s also some additional motivation. Some of the old fiat low tech is self-destructing – first slowly and then suddenly.
