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Web3 Media president Chris Lyons is constantly in search of “what’s next” in technology. On the latest episode of Financial Freestyle with Ross Mac, Lyons sits down with Mac to discuss the future of blockchain and Web3.
Lyons got his start in the music industry, then used his music engineering background to pivot to the tech world. He says that his background in music helps him have a pulse on future trends.
“At the end of the day… things that we use on a day-to-day basis from Uber (UBER) to… Airbnb (ABNB), you know, even Google (GOOG, GOOGL) when it first came out, these all sounded like terrible ideas when they were coming out, right?” says Lyons, who is also a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. He notes that the founders of those companies were forward-thinking enough to pursue their ideas despite pushback.
Lyons believes that blockchain and Web3 will inform the next wave of such companies. He defines blockchain as, “a computer system that really verifies ownership,” saying that it is “like a computer built on top of the internet… that now runs in its own ecosystem.”
He argues that there have been three eras of the internet so far: Web1, Web2, and Web3. Web1 is the read era, Web2 is the write era, and Web3 allows users to read, write, and have ownership over their content on the internet. Blockchain technology makes Web3 possible.
Lyons sees this ownership as the future of the internet. “We are still in all these systems that are creating centralized ownership. And I think that the only true path forward is, you know, decentralization and blockchain,” he says.
In the future, Lyons believes that users won’t need to think about how blockchain, Web3, or AI work behind the scenes. These new technologies will be integrated into user-friendly applications, similarly to how apps use GPS now. He says that even NFTs won’t necessarily be thought of as “NFTs”:
“These are all technical terms that will eventually be put on the back burner because people will just want to be able to use…the benefits of the technology.”
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This post was written by Meredith Lawrence.
