Expansive and extractive networks of Web3

Big Data and Society - Tập 10 Số 1 - 2023
Jathan Sadowski1, Kaitlin Beegle2
1Emerging Technologies Research Lab, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Caulfield East, Australia
2Independent Researcher, San Francisco, CA, USA

Tóm tắt

The self-proclaimed usurper of Web 2.0, Web3 quickly became the center of attention. Not long ago, the public discourse was saturated with projects, promises, and peculiarities of Web3. Now the spotlight has swung around to focus on the many faults, failures, and frauds of Web3. The cycles of technological trends and investment bubbles seem to be accelerating in such a way as to escape any attempt at observing them in motion before they crash, and then everybody moves on to the next thing. Importantly, Web3 was not an anomaly or curiosity in the broader tech industry. It articulates patterns that existed before Web3 and will exist after. Web3 should be understood as a case study of innovation within the dominant model of Silicon Valley venture capitalism. Our focus in this article is on understanding how the movement around Web3 formed through an interplay between (1) normative concepts and contestations related to ideas of “decentralization” and (2) political economic interests and operations related to the dynamics of fictitious capital. By offering a critical analysis of Web3, our goal is also to show how any even potentially progressive (or as we call them “expansive”) forms of Web3 development struggle for success, recognition, and attention due to the wild excesses of hype and investment devoted to “extractive” forms of Web3. In the process, they provide us a better view of how different arrangements of technopolitics can exist at the same time, side-by-side, in complicated ways.

Từ khóa


Tài liệu tham khảo

a16z (2022) State of crypto: an overview report. Accessed 1 July 2022: https://a16zcrypto.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/state-of-crypto-2022_a16z-crypto.pdf

Alexander C, 1977, A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction

Allen HJ, 2022, William & Mary Law Review

Andreessen M (2020) It’s time to build. a16z, April 18. Accessed 14 July 2022: https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/

Banton C (2021) Bitcoin whale. Investopedia, 22 July. Accessed 6 April 2022: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bitcoin-whale.asp

Beegle KM (2021) Web3.0 and Open Democracy in the Digital Age. MA Thesis, Technical University Munich.

10.1111/jofi.12470

10.14763/2021.2.1563

Bogost I (2022) The internet is just investment banking now. The Atlantic, 5 February. Accessed 8 July 2022: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/02/future-internet-blockchain-investment-banking/621480/

10.1080/09537320600777002

10.1080/13563467.2020.1806223

Buterin V (2017) The meaning of decentralization. Medium, 6 Feb. Accessed 2 May 2022: medium.com/@VitalikButerin/the-meaning-of-decentralization-a0c92b76a274

10.1080/14650045.2020.1823836

Chun WHK, 2006, Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics

Claypool R (2022) Capitol coin. Public Citizen, 8 March. Accessed 6 April 2022: https://www.citizen.org/article/capitol-coin-cryptocurrency-lobbying-revolving-door-report/

10.1080/09692290.2021.1972433

Corballis T, 2022, Big Data & Society, 1

Dempsey C, Wang A, Mart J (2022) A simple guide to the Web3 stack. Coinbase Blog, 14 January. Accessed 6 April 2022: https://blog.coinbase.com/a-simple-guide-to-the-Web3-stack-785240e557f0

Diehl S (2022) The New York Times has a crypto blindspot. Medium, 26 March. Accessed 6 April 2022: https://medium.com/@Stephen.Diehl/the-new-york-times-has-a-crypto-blindspot-d5de2a889665

Dixon C, Haun K, Yahya A (2021) Crypto fund III. Andreessen Horowitz, 24 June. Accessed 6 April 2022: https://a16z.com/2021/06/24/crypto-fund-iii/

10.1177/0263276417746464

Egliston B, 2022, Big Data & Society, 1

Foreman R (2022) The power of nobodies: Why community matters. ETHDenver YouTube Channel, 18 Feb. Accessed 2 May 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-9eO5ahI3g

Gilbert S, 2022, Crypto, Web3, and the Metaverse

Golumbia D, 2016, The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism

Guo E, Renaldi A (2022) Deception, exploited workers, and cash handouts. MIT Technology Review, 6 April. Accessed 11 July 2022: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/06/1048981/worldcoin-cryptocurrency-biometrics-web3/

Harvey D, 2006, Limits to Capital

Harvey D, 2017, Marx, Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason

Hern A (2022) Failure of FTX crypto exchange will have huge implications, MPs hear. The Guardian, 15 November. Accessed 16 November 2022: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/14/failure-of-ftx-crypto-exchange-will-have-huge-implications-mps-hear

Jutel O, 2021, Big Data & Society, 1

10.1080/1600910X.2013.870083

Kastrenakes J (2022) Bored Ape Yacht Club creator raises $450 million to build an NFT metaverse. The Verge, 22 March. Accessed 6 April 2022: https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/22/22991272/yuga-labs-seed-funding-a16z-bored-ape-yacht-club-bayc-metaverse-other-side

Khanna P, Srinivasan BS (2021) Great protocol politics. Foreign Policy, 11 December. Accessed 6 April 2022: https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/12/11/bitcoin-ethereum-cryptocurrency-Web3-great-protocol-politics/

10.1080/10357823.2014.958054

10.1093/ser/mww022

Lanier J, 2013, Who Owns the Future?

Lashinsky A (2005) Remembering netscape: The birth of the web. Fortune Magazine, 25 July. Accessed 10 March 2022: https://web.archive.org/web/20060427112146/http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/07/25/8266639/index.htm

10.1257/jep.34.3.237

Levine M (2022) FTX’s balance sheet was bad. Bloomberg, 15 November. Accessed 16 November 2022: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-11-14/ftx-s-balance-sheet-was-bad

Lipton E, Wakabayashi D, Livni E (2021) Big hires, big money and a D.C. Blitz: A bold plan to dominate crypto. The New York Times, October 29. Accessed 6 April 2022: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/29/us/politics/andreessen-horowitz-lobbying-cryptocurrency.html

Marlinspike M (2022) My first impressions of Web3. moxie.org, 7 January. Accessed 6 April 2022: https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

Marx K, 1990, Capital, Volume I

Marx K, 1993, Capital, Volume III

Marx P (2022) Crypto evangelists promise Web3 will be a truly free and democratic internet—but it’s failing to live up to that hype. Business Insider, 25 March. Accessed 6 April 2022: https://www.businessinsider.com/web3-blockchain-crypto-internet-doomed-fail-doesnt-live-up-hype-2022-3?r=AU&IR=T

10.1080/10350330.2013.777594

McKenzie B, Silverman B (2022) The pandemic sparked a golden age of crypto scams. The New Republic, 10 March. Accessed 6 April 2022: https://newrepublic.com/article/165663/covid-19-pandemic-fraud-crypto-nfts-bitcoin

Metinko C (2022) Funding starts to cascade into Web3 startups. Crunchbase News, 25 February. Accessed 6 April 2022: https://news.crunchbase.com/news/web3-blockchain-startups-funding-alchemy-polygon/

Morozov E (2013) The meme hustler. The Baffler, April. Accessed 6 April 2022: https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-meme-hustler

Morozov E, New Left Review, 133, 89

Morozov E (2022b) Web3: A map in search of territory. The Crypto Syllabus, 13 January 2022: https://the-crypto-syllabus.com/Web3-a-map-in-search-of-territory/

Munster B (2022) What would Karl Marx think about crypto? Decrypt, 26 Feb. Accessed 13 July 2022: decrypt.co/93428/karl-marx-crypto.

Nabben K (2022) Decentralising data governance: Decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) as data trusts. ADM+S Working Paper Series 003. DOI: 10.25916/yzht-7y29

10.4159/9780674240100

Omarova ST, 2019, Yale Journal on Regulation, 36, 735

Ongweso EJr. (2022) The NFT ecosystem is a complete disaster. Vice Motherboard, 2 February. Accessed 6 April 2022: https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgdvnd/the-nft-ecosystem-is-a-complete-disaster

Pardes A (2021) Andreessen Horowitz goes ham on crypto with a new $2.2B fund. Wired, 24 June. Accessed 6 April 2022: https://www.wired.com/story/andreessen-horowitz-new-crypto-fund-iii/

Patel N, Dixon C (2022) Chris Dixon thinks Web3 is the future of the internet—is it? The Verge, 12 April. Accessed 17 April 2023: https://www.theverge.com/23020727/decoder-chris-dixon-web3-cryptoa16z-vc-silicon-valley-investing-podcast-interview

Pimentel B (2022) Meet the new crypto-communists. Protocol, 16 Jan. Accessed 13 July 2022: www.protocol.com/fintech/crypto-communists

10.1177/030631284014003004

Ravenscraft E (2021) The metaverse land rush is an illusion. Wired, 21 December. Accessed 11 July 2022: https://www.wired.com/story/metaverse-land-rush-illusion/

10.1177/0162243918806061

10.1080/17530350.2019.1589553

Stacey K (2022) Meet the ‘crypto caucus’: the US lawmakers defending digital coins. Financial Times, 31 March. Accessed 6 April 2022: https://www.ft.com/content/29f32905-1933-458e-aa29-7f1685109ea1

10.1080/09502386.2017.1416420

tante. (2022) The Third Web. tante.cc, 9 February. Accessed 6 April 2022: https://tante.cc/2021/12/17/the-third-web/

10.1016/j.techfore.2012.12.004

Verses. (2022) Towards a digital pluriverse. Accessed 11 July 2022: https://pluriverse.world/

10.1177/1461444818786220

Wajcman J, 2015, Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism

Waters R, Murphy H, Chipolina S (2022) Will the crypto crash derail the next web revolution? Financial Times, 6 July. Accessed 7 July 2022: https://www.ft.com/content/454257b4-a64b-4d83-a419-fb0ea744df1a

Woodall R (2022) Property values. Real Life, 7 February. Accessed 6 April 2022: https://reallifemag.com/property-values/

10.1177/0308518X20954440

Zuboff S, 2019, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

Thông tin
Thông tin xuất bản

Big Data and Society

Tập 10 Số 1

Thông tin tác giả