本文選自經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人，了解web的下一個(gè)商業(yè)預(yù)測(cè)，本文有大量的專(zhuān)業(yè)詞匯，如果不了解也沒(méi)關(guān)系。

注意事項(xiàng)

經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人等外刊文章大多數(shù)帶有強(qiáng)烈的主觀推測(cè)色彩，往往不能做到實(shí)事求是。我們的學(xué)習(xí)過(guò)程中積累地道表達(dá)是第一的，第二要帶著批判的眼光去看待，第三自己去思考涉及的內(nèi)容，要一分為二、更要二合為一。

學(xué)習(xí)建議：

1. 在語(yǔ)境中理解詞匯的用法和表達(dá)；

2. 了解本文的核心觀點(diǎn)和主旨；

Will web3 reinvent the internet business?

In parts, yes. But probably not as sweepingly as its boosters reckon 在部分地區(qū)，是的。但可能并不像其推動(dòng)者所估計(jì)的那樣全面。

Like seemingly everyone these days, Moxie Marlinspike has created a non-fungible token (NFT)These digital chits use clever cryptography to prove, without the need for a central authenticator, that a buyer owns a unique piece of digital property. Alongside cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, NFTs are the most visible instantiation of “web3”—an idea whose advocates and their venture-capital (VC) backers hail as a better, more decentralised version of the internet, built atop distributed ledgers known as blockchains. Digital artists, celebrities and even the occasional newspaper have issued and sold them to collectors, often for hefty sums.

這些數(shù)字代幣使用巧妙的加密技術(shù)來(lái)證明，不需要中央認(rèn)證器，買(mǎi)方就擁有一塊獨(dú)特的數(shù)字財(cái)產(chǎn)。與比特幣等加密貨幣一樣，NFT是 "web3 "最明顯的實(shí)例——其倡導(dǎo)者及其風(fēng)險(xiǎn)資本（VC）的支持者將其譽(yù)為更好、更分散的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)版本，建立在被稱(chēng)為區(qū)塊鏈的分布式賬本之上。數(shù)字藝術(shù)家、名人、甚至偶爾的報(bào)紙都發(fā)行并出售給收藏家，往往價(jià)格不菲。

Although it looked cryptographically sound like any other NFT, however, Mr Marlinspike’s token could shift shape depending on who accessed it. If you bought it and viewed it on a computer, it transformed into a poop emoji. After a few days the NFT was taken down by OpenSea, a marketplace for digital artefacts. This played into Mr Marlinspike’s hands. For his aim was not to raise cash but to raise awareness. His token showed that NFTs are not as non-fungible as advertised. And OpenSea’s reaction illustrated that the supposedly decentralised web3 has its own gatekeepers.

雖然它在密碼學(xué)上看起來(lái)和其他NFT一樣，但是馬林斯派克先生的代幣可以根據(jù)訪(fǎng)問(wèn)它的人改變形狀。如果你買(mǎi)了它并在電腦上觀看，它就會(huì)變成一個(gè)大便的表情符號(hào)。幾天后，NFT被數(shù)字藝術(shù)品市場(chǎng)OpenSea取下。這正中馬林斯派克先生的下懷。因?yàn)樗哪康牟皇菫榱嘶I集現(xiàn)金，而是為了提高知名度。他的象征物表明，NFT并不像廣告中所說(shuō)的那樣不容易損壞。而OpenSea的反應(yīng)表明，所謂的去中心化的web3有它自己的看門(mén)人。

The Marlinspike caper was the latest turn in perhaps the biggest controversy to erupt in tech world for several years. On one side sit techno-Utopians, firms offering assorted web3 services and their VC backers. They claim that web3 is the next big thing in cyberspace, that it is truly decentralised—and that it promises juicy returns to boot. Globally, the value of VC deals in the crypto-sphere reached

5bn in 2020 (see chart). Last week Andreessen Horowitz (a16z for short), one of Silicon Valley’s most illustrious VC firms and its biggest web3 champion, was reported to be raising a

3bn. A senior partner left a16z this month to set up her own firm focused on web3.

馬林斯派克事件是幾年來(lái)科技界爆發(fā)的最大爭(zhēng)議中的最新轉(zhuǎn)折。一方是技術(shù)專(zhuān)家、提供各種web3服務(wù)的公司和他們的VC支持者。他們聲稱(chēng)，web3是網(wǎng)絡(luò)空間的下一個(gè)大事件，它是真正的去中心化，而且它承諾了豐厚的回報(bào)。在全球范圍內(nèi)，去年加密領(lǐng)域的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資交易價(jià)值達(dá)到250億美元，而2020年還不到50億美元（見(jiàn)圖表）。上周，硅谷最著名的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資公司之一和最大的web3支持者Andreessen Horowitz（簡(jiǎn)稱(chēng)a16z）據(jù)說(shuō)正在籌集一個(gè)45億美元的web3相關(guān)基金，以補(bǔ)充現(xiàn)有的三個(gè)總價(jià)值為30億美元的基金。一位高級(jí)合伙人本月離開(kāi)了a16z，成立了她自己的專(zhuān)注于web3的公司。

Pitted against them are the sceptics. They range from Mr Marlinspike, highly respected even among the techno-Utopians for creating the secure-messaging app Signal, to Jack Dorsey, who founded two platforms of the sort that web3 promises to supersede (Twitter in social media and Square in payments). They argue that a truly decentralised internet is a pipe dream—“You don’t own ‘web3’. VCs and their limited partners do,” Mr Dorsey warned last month. And a dangerous one at that for the unwary investor: since November some $1trn of the value of cryptocurrencies, the most mature province of web3, has gone up in flames.

與他們對(duì)立的是懷疑論者。他們中有馬林斯派克先生，甚至在技術(shù)烏托邦中也因創(chuàng)建安全信息應(yīng)用Signal而備受尊敬，還有杰克-多爾西，他創(chuàng)建了web3承諾取代的兩個(gè)平臺(tái)（社交媒體的Twitter和支付的Square）。他們認(rèn)為，一個(gè)真正的去中心化的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)是一個(gè)空想——"你并不擁有'web3'。多西先生上個(gè)月警告說(shuō)："你不擁有'web3'，風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資公司和他們的有限合伙人擁有。對(duì)于不明就里的投資者來(lái)說(shuō)，這是一個(gè)危險(xiǎn)的問(wèn)題：自11月以來(lái)，加密貨幣的價(jià)值約為10萬(wàn)億美元，這是web3最成熟的領(lǐng)域，已經(jīng)在火焰中消失。

The feud may seem abstruse. But the stakes are big. It could change the trajectory of the internet—and the multitrillion-dollar business models that it has enabled.

這場(chǎng)爭(zhēng)斗可能看起來(lái)很玄乎。但其中的利害關(guān)系很大。它可能會(huì)改變互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的發(fā)展軌跡，以及它所促成的價(jià)值數(shù)億美元的商業(yè)模式。

The centre cannot hold

The history of modern computing is a constant struggle between decentralisers and recentralisers. In the 1980s the shift from mainframes to personal computers gave more power to individual users. Then Microsoft clawed back some of that power around its proprietary operating system. More recently, open-source software, which users can download for nothing and adapt to their needs, took over from proprietary programs in parts of the industry—only to be reappropriated by giant technology firms to run their mobile operating systems (as Google does with Android) or cloud-computing data centres (including those operated by Amazon, Microsoft and Google).

現(xiàn)代計(jì)算機(jī)的歷史是一場(chǎng)去中心化和再中心化之間的不斷斗爭(zhēng)。在20世紀(jì)80年代，從大型機(jī)到個(gè)人電腦的轉(zhuǎn)變給了個(gè)人用戶(hù)更多的權(quán)力。然后，微軟圍繞其專(zhuān)有操作系統(tǒng)奪回了一些權(quán)力。最近，用戶(hù)可以免費(fèi)下載并適應(yīng)他們的需求的開(kāi)源軟件，在部分行業(yè)中取代了專(zhuān)有程序——但卻被巨型技術(shù)公司重新使用，以運(yùn)行他們的移動(dòng)操作系統(tǒng)（如谷歌的安卓系統(tǒng)）或云計(jì)算數(shù)據(jù)中心（包括亞馬遜、微軟和谷歌運(yùn)營(yíng)的數(shù)據(jù)中心）。

The web3 movement is a reaction to perhaps the greatest centralisation of all: that of the internet. As Chris Dixon, who oversees web3 investments at a16z, explains it, the original, decentralised web lasted from 1990 to about 2005. This web1, call it, was populated by flat web pages and governed by open technical rules put together by standards bodies. The next iteration, web2, brought the rise of tech giants such as Alphabet and Meta, which managed to amass huge centralised databases of user information. Web3, in Mr Dixon’s telling, “combines the decentralised, community-governed ethos of web1 with the advanced, modern functionality of web2”.

web3運(yùn)動(dòng)是對(duì)也許是最大的集中化的反應(yīng)：互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的集中化。正如在a16z負(fù)責(zé)web3投資的克里斯-迪克森所解釋的那樣，最初的、去中心化的網(wǎng)絡(luò)從1990年持續(xù)到2005年左右。這個(gè)web1是由扁平的網(wǎng)頁(yè)組成的，并由標(biāo)準(zhǔn)機(jī)構(gòu)制定的公開(kāi)技術(shù)規(guī)則來(lái)管理。下一次迭代，即web2，帶來(lái)了Alphabet和Meta等科技巨頭的崛起，它們?cè)O(shè)法積累了巨大的集中式用戶(hù)信息數(shù)據(jù)庫(kù)。Dixon先生說(shuō)，Web3 "結(jié)合了web1的去中心化、社區(qū)管理的精神和web2的先進(jìn)、現(xiàn)代功能"。

This is possible thanks to blockchains, which turn the centralised databases to which big tech owes it power into a common good that can be used by anybody without permission. Blockchains are a special type of ledger that is not maintained centrally by a single entity (as a bank controls all its customers accounts) but collectively by its power users. Blockchains have outgrown cryptocurrencies, their earliest application, and spread into NFTs and other sorts of “decentralised finance” (DeFi). Now they are increasingly underpinning non-financial services.

這要?dú)w功于區(qū)塊鏈，它把大科技公司賴(lài)以生存的集中式數(shù)據(jù)庫(kù)變成了一種公共物品，任何人都可以不經(jīng)允許而使用。區(qū)塊鏈?zhǔn)且环N特殊的賬本，它不是由單一實(shí)體集中維護(hù)的（如銀行控制其所有客戶(hù)的賬戶(hù)），而是由其權(quán)力用戶(hù)集體維護(hù)的。區(qū)塊鏈已經(jīng)超越了其最早的應(yīng)用——加密貨幣，并擴(kuò)散到NFT和其他種類(lèi)的 "去中心化金融"（DeFi）?，F(xiàn)在，它們正日益成為非金融服務(wù)的基礎(chǔ)。

The portfolio of a16z offers a glimpse of this wild new world. It already includes more than 60 startups, at least a dozen of which are valued at more than $1bn. Many are developing the infrastructure for web3. Alchemy offers tools for other firms to build blockchain applications, much as cloud-computing provides a platform for developers of web-based services. Nym has built something called “mixnet”, a decentralised network to mix up messages in a way that means literally no one else can tell who is sending what to whom.

a16z的投資組合提供了對(duì)這個(gè)狂野新世界的一瞥。它已經(jīng)包括了60多家創(chuàng)業(yè)公司，其中至少有十幾家公司的估值超過(guò)10億美元。煉金術(shù)為其他公司建立區(qū)塊鏈應(yīng)用提供了工具，就像云計(jì)算為基于網(wǎng)絡(luò)的服務(wù)的開(kāi)發(fā)者提供了一個(gè)平臺(tái)。Nym已經(jīng)建立了一個(gè)叫做 "mixnet "的東西，這是一個(gè)去中心化的網(wǎng)絡(luò)，以混合信息的方式，這意味著實(shí)際上沒(méi)有人可以知道誰(shuí)在向誰(shuí)發(fā)送什么。

Other a16z investments are serving end users. Dapper Labs creates NFT applications such as NBA Top Shot, a website where sports fans can buy and sell digital collectables such as key moments in basketball games. Syndicate helps investment clubs to organise themselves into “decentralised autonomous organisations” (DAOs) governed by “smart contracts”, which are rules encoded in software and baked into a blockchain. And Sound.xyz allows musicians to mint NFTs to make money.

其他a16z的投資是為終端用戶(hù)服務(wù)的。Dapper Labs創(chuàng)建了NFT應(yīng)用程序，如NBA Top Shot，這是一個(gè)網(wǎng)站，體育迷可以購(gòu)買(mǎi)和出售數(shù)字收藏品，如籃球比賽的關(guān)鍵時(shí)刻。Syndicate幫助投資俱樂(lè)部將自己組織成由 "智能合約 "管理的 "去中心化自治組織"（DAO），這些規(guī)則被編碼在軟件中并被植入?yún)^(qū)塊鏈。而Sound.xyz允許音樂(lè)家們鑄造NFT來(lái)賺錢(qián)。

What all these companies have in common, explains Mr Dixon, is that it is hard for them to lock in customers. Unlike Google and Meta they do not control their users’ data. OpenSea, in which a16z also has a stake, and Alchemy are just pipes to the blockchain. If their customers are unhappy, they can move to a competing service. Even if he wanted, he could not keep them from leaving, says Nikil Viswanathan, Alchemy’s boss. “As a business, I would love to have proprietary choke points. But there aren’t any. We tried to find them.”

Dixon先生解釋說(shuō)，所有這些公司的共同點(diǎn)是，他們很難鎖定客戶(hù)。與谷歌和Meta不同，他們不控制用戶(hù)的數(shù)據(jù)。OpenSea（a16z也有股份）和Alchemy只是區(qū)塊鏈的管道。如果他們的客戶(hù)不滿(mǎn)意，他們可以轉(zhuǎn)移到一個(gè)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)的服務(wù)。Alchemy的老板Nikil Viswanathan說(shuō)，即使他想，他也無(wú)法阻止他們離開(kāi)。"作為一個(gè)企業(yè)，我希望有專(zhuān)有的扼制點(diǎn)。但是沒(méi)有任何。我們?cè)噲D找到它們"。

The idea is that this makes web3 companies try harder to satisfy customers and keep innovating. Whether they can do this while also making pots of money is another matter. It is not clear how much demand exists for truly decentralised projects. That was the problem of early web3 offerings (then called “peer-to-peer” or “the decentralised web”). Services such as Diaspora and Mastodon, two social networks, never really took off. Their successors could face the same problem. A service like OpenSea would be much faster, cheaper and easier to use “with all the web3 parts gone,” says Mr Marlinspike.

我們的想法是，這使網(wǎng)絡(luò)3公司更加努力地滿(mǎn)足客戶(hù)，并不斷創(chuàng)新。他們是否能做到這一點(diǎn)，同時(shí)還能賺到盆滿(mǎn)缽滿(mǎn)是另一回事。目前還不清楚對(duì)真正的去中心化項(xiàng)目有多少需求。這就是早期web3產(chǎn)品（當(dāng)時(shí)稱(chēng)為 "點(diǎn)對(duì)點(diǎn) "或 "去中心化網(wǎng)絡(luò)"）的問(wèn)題。諸如Diaspora和Mastodon這兩個(gè)社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)的服務(wù)從未真正起飛。他們的后繼者也可能面臨同樣的問(wèn)題。像OpenSea這樣的服務(wù)會(huì)更快、更便宜、更容易使用，"所有的web3部分都消失了"，Marlinspike先生說(shuō)。

Or can it?

A more fundamental problem is that even if web3 worked as smoothly as its immediate predecessor, it may nevertheless lend itself to centralisation. Lock-in, reckons Mr Marlinspike, tends to emerge almost automatically. The history of the internet has shown that collectively developed technical protocols evolve more slowly than technology developed by a single firm. “If something is truly decentralised, it becomes very difficult to change, and often remains stuck in time,” he writes. That creates opportunities: “A sure recipe for success has been to take a 1990’s protocol that was stuck in time, centralise it, and iterate quickly.”

一個(gè)更根本的問(wèn)題是，即使web3像它的前輩一樣順利運(yùn)作，它也可能成為中心化的產(chǎn)物。Marlinspike先生認(rèn)為，鎖定幾乎是自動(dòng)出現(xiàn)的。互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的歷史表明，集體開(kāi)發(fā)的技術(shù)協(xié)議比單一公司開(kāi)發(fā)的技術(shù)發(fā)展得更慢。他寫(xiě)道："如果某樣?xùn)|西是真正的去中心化，那么它就很難改變，而且常常停留在時(shí)間上"。這就創(chuàng)造了機(jī)會(huì)。他寫(xiě)道："一個(gè)肯定的成功秘訣是采用1990年的協(xié)議，將其集中化，并快速迭代。"

Centralisation and lock-in have been incredibly lucrative. In fact, a16z has made billions from Meta, in which it was an early investor; one of a16z’s founders, Marc Andreessen, sits on Meta’s board to this day. Web3’s VC boosters may be counting on something like this happening again. And to a degree, it already is. Despite being a relatively recent phenomenon, web3 already exhibits signs of centralisation. Because of the complexity of the technology, most people cannot interact directly with blockchains—or find it too tedious. Rather they rely on intermediaries such as OpenSea for consumers and Alchemy for developers.

集中化和鎖定已經(jīng)獲得了令人難以置信的利潤(rùn)。事實(shí)上，a16z已經(jīng)從Meta公司賺取了數(shù)十億美元，它是該公司的早期投資者；a16z的創(chuàng)始人之一Marc Andreessen至今仍是Meta公司的董事。Web3的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資助推器可能指望這樣的事情再次發(fā)生。而且在某種程度上，它已經(jīng)在發(fā)生了。盡管是一個(gè)相對(duì)較新的現(xiàn)象，Web3已經(jīng)表現(xiàn)出集中化的跡象。由于技術(shù)的復(fù)雜性，大多數(shù)人不能直接與區(qū)塊鏈互動(dòng)，或者認(rèn)為這太乏味了。相反，他們依靠中介機(jī)構(gòu)，如消費(fèi)者的OpenSea和開(kāi)發(fā)者的Alchemy。

Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures, a VC firm that started investing in web3 firms a few years ago, points to other potential “points of recentralisation”. One is that the ownership of the computing power that keeps many blockchains up to date is often very concentrated, which gives these “miners”, as they are called, undue influence. It could even allow them to take over a blockchain. In other systems the ownership of tokens is heavily skewed: at recently launched web3 projects, between 30% and 40% is owned by the people who launched them.

幾年前開(kāi)始投資web3公司的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資公司Union Square Ventures的Albert Wenger指出了其他潛在的 "再中心化的要點(diǎn)"。其中之一是，使許多區(qū)塊鏈保持最新的計(jì)算能力的所有權(quán)通常非常集中，這使這些 "礦工"（他們被稱(chēng)為）具有不適當(dāng)?shù)挠绊懥ΑＫ踔量梢宰屗麄兘庸芤粋€(gè)區(qū)塊鏈。在其他系統(tǒng)中，代幣的所有權(quán)是嚴(yán)重傾斜的：在最近推出的web3項(xiàng)目中，30%到40%是由推出這些項(xiàng)目的人擁有的。

These dynamics, combined with the latest crypto crash that may cool enthusiasm for the sector among investors, suggest that web3 is unlikely to displace web2 altogether. Instead, the future will probably belong to a mix of the two approaches, with web3 occupying certain niches. Whether or not people keep splurging on NFTs, for example, such tokens make a lot of sense in the metaverse, where they could be used to track ownership of digital objects and to move them from one virtual world to another. Web3 may also play an important role in the creator economy, another buzzy concept. Li Jin of Atelier, a VC firm, points out that NFTs make it much easier for creators of online content to make money from their wares. In this limited way, at least, even the masters of web2 see the writing on the wall: on January 20th both Meta and Twitter integrated NFTs into their platforms.

這些動(dòng)態(tài)，再加上最近的加密貨幣崩潰，可能會(huì)冷卻投資者對(duì)該行業(yè)的熱情，表明web3不太可能完全取代web2。相反，未來(lái)可能會(huì)屬于這兩種方法的混合體，而web3將占據(jù)某些利基市場(chǎng)。例如，無(wú)論人們是否繼續(xù)花錢(qián)購(gòu)買(mǎi)NFT，這種代幣在元空間中都有很大的意義，它們可以用來(lái)追蹤數(shù)字對(duì)象的所有權(quán)，并將它們從一個(gè)虛擬世界轉(zhuǎn)移到另一個(gè)。Web3也可能在創(chuàng)造者經(jīng)濟(jì)中發(fā)揮重要作用，這是另一個(gè)熱門(mén)的概念。風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資公司Atelier的李進(jìn)指出，NFTs使在線(xiàn)內(nèi)容的創(chuàng)作者更容易從他們的商品中賺錢(qián)。至少在這個(gè)有限的方面，即使是web2的主人也看到了墻上的字：1月20日，Meta和Twitter都將NFTs整合到他們的平臺(tái)上。