Lock In or Lock Out? The Gatekeeping of Web2 and Web3's Open Doors

There are all sorts of barriers in the world, some that are meant to keep us safe and some that are meant to keep us inside. In the picture above, you see a fence, which can be viewed in either two ways — as protection or a boundary. This very principle also applies to the digital and financial systems we have come to depend on these days. Are we being safeguarded, or are we being shut out?

Centralized institutions have had a monopoly over access to finance, information and creativity for decades. Banks determine who gets loans. Tech giants decide what content is seen. Financial freedom is monitored and regulated by governments. However, those old walls are being tested with the rise of blockchain and Web3 technology that’s giving people an opportunity to break free.

In the traditional financial system, banks and payment providers serve as gatekeepers. If you are unbanked or live in a place with rudimentary financial infrastructure, you’re frozen out of the global economy. And even those who do have access often have to contend with restrictions — frozen accounts, high fees, limits on transactions.

With bitcoin, Ethereum,Hive and stablecoins, anyone with an Internet connection can send, receive and store value without a requirement to seek permission from a central authority.
Decentralized finance takes this concept a step further, providing loans, savings, and investment options without the use of banks.

In this new system, you are the keeper of your financial keys. But power, as they say, comes with responsibility. Once you lose access to your private keys, there is no way to recover your cryptocurrency. It’s a tradeoff between actual ownership and trusting institutions to safeguard you. Web2 is the internet today and in Web2 we have huge companies like Google, Facebook, banks all monitoring user data.

Every time we register for an account, we are, in a way, giving away the ownership of our digital identity. These corporations profit off of our data as they dictate what speech is allowed and censored. Web3 brings decentralized identity and self-sovereign data. You authenticate using a crypto wallet rather than logging in with a username and password that are stored on a company’s server.

This means that you own your data, and no one can erase, restrict or monetize it without your consent. Is this truly freedom from surveillance capitalism, or another walled garden? Web2 platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, and Tiktok are good for content creators but limiting. These platforms also take a big percentage of earnings, impose strict content policies and can hand you the boot with no notice.

Web3 platforms such as Hive eliminates these intermediaries and create the opportunity for directly monetizing with crypto rewards, NFTs, and decentralized publishing. By not relying on an algorithm, creators can form authentic communities and monetize their digital assets or contents without an intermediary. The traditional system can be described as a fence to its advantage.

It can be a safety net that provides stability but restricts freedom, or a cage that keeps people in while a more equitable system lies outside. So I believe Web3, crypto, and blockchain is the future, no doubt about that. These are imperfect systems as they are still evolving, but they are systems that embody freedom, ownership, and access. The real question is, are the masses ready for this future?