I am tired of all the scams in this space

Audio version/TL;DR >>

It’s sad to see that we can barely go a day without hearing about another NFT rug-pull, grift or crypto-scam. Web3 was founded on the idea of a new decentralized internet in which we take back control from the big players and build something of-for-and-by the people.

There are so many good ideals:

- Privacy

- Creators getting paid what they're worth

- Taking back control from centralized players

- Freedom of expression

However, this whole concept seems to just be good marketing with no real substance. It’s as if the idea of putting us in charge of our future is just good marketing to get us to buy into the next big grift.

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Let’s take privacy, for example:

Web3 allows us to be anonymous by allowing anyone to create a new wallet address and start a new list of transactions. However, we're in a situation where scammers are able to run wild and create new identities each time they get exposed. There are now whole “NFT factories” doing these scams on rinse-and-repeat because it’s so easy.

Not only that, for ordinary people, an immutable blockchain address is a terrible idea for privacy. As you use the address, more and more personal information gets attached to it, and it becomes a public database of what you do. Do we really want everyone in the world to see everything we're doing? What we own? Every transaction we make? And what if someone sends a picture of our front door to our address? Or even an indecent photo? You have no recourse, no civility, no humanity at all.

When has decentralization done anything for privacy anyway? A decentralized system is not only more easy to exploit but very difficult to patch and update.

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Usability:

The only thing making the blockchain usable by any ordinary person right now is centralized parties like Coinbase. Why hasn't the technology been made with usability from the ground up? Doesn't this defeat the whole purpose?

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An interoperable metaverse:

I can't even begin to list issues with this, so I'm just going to send you to a video: https://youtu.be/I5ao5AwZLZY?t=378

I’d like to say one thing… calling your semi-functional virtual world a “Metaverse” to sell “land” is deeply disingenuous.

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A bad foundation:

I get it, we're all tired of companies like Facebook doing things they shouldn't with our data, but the ideas Web3 is founded on are fundamentally flawed. Decentralization does not create either community or privacy.

We need a future that puts people in control. A future based on ideas that will have a reasonable chance against massive centralized corporate pushes and walled gardens.

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A different take:

Right now I'm in decentralized game development, but I'd love to team up with people who are passionate about the *ideals* of Web3 and research the creation of something new.

My idea is to gather people who want to make a difference and build a centralized, bespoke, usable, foundation for the Metaverse. Namely, something that functions like Wikipedia, with similar values to open source. The end goal would be a private, people-first virtual experience.

I’ll put my contact info and more info about what we are doing on a website: https://ocem.cc/web3