I just don't get web3 and what problems it solves. People say it solves centralization but I see no means of accomplishing this. I can't see how it doesn't end up like email. Sure, you can host your own email, but the service is very centralized. Yeah, gmail, yahoo, and hotmail might only host 51% of emails, but how many of those other email addresses are fake, temporary, or for bots? If you sample from people around you it is hard to find an address outside these domains and so the sampling likelihood doesn't match the model's probabilities. Email is <i>highly</i> centralized. We can similarly see high centralization in browsers. Functionally there isn't much difference between Chrome and FireFox yet people will promote one over the other with such religious fervor that you'd think they offer different functionalities.<p>Web3 has no mechanism to prevent centralization. There are such things as natural monopolies, and these typically happen through network effects. This network effect is so powerful that everyone uses Google Maps. Web3 does nothing to prevent this (we even have to ask if we want to prevent this). So what is it solving? Hosting monopolies? If that's what it is solving then it seems like there are likely better ways and no need for the blockchain.<p>I even say this as someone that thinks there's value in cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Yeah, a lot of scammers in the area, but I can see some utility in the ideas (but huge noise to signal ratio). I just can't see any signal in web3.