web3

I've watched web3 promise decentralization and freedom for years now. What I've seen instead is a playground for scams, pump-and-dump schemes, and people treating each other like exit liquidity.

The anonymity doesn't bring out the best in people. Instead, you get false prophets selling dreams of wealth while they're dumping their bags on you. The blockchain gets used for everything except what it was supposedly designed for.

Even games got infected with this stuff. I tried MIR4 and Dark Eden M—both games where crypto and NFTs turned what could have been fun into extractive relationship games. Everything becomes a transaction. Everyone's calculating their ROI instead of just playing.

If you want a catalog of disasters, check this site. It's depressing how predictable it all is.

The alternative I actually believe in is the Smol Web movement.

The Smol Web is what the early internet felt like—before everything became optimized for engagement and conversion. No ads, no tracking, no algorithms trying to keep you scrolling. Just people making things because they want to, connecting over shared interests instead of being served content based on what keeps them angry or addicted.

It's small on purpose. Personal sites. Weird projects. Things that don't scale and don't need to. I'm building this wiki in that spirit—a space that's mine, that connects to other spaces people actually made instead of platforms trying to own our attention.

You can resist the direction things are going. The tools are still here.