The Open Web: The Future is Not Web3

Guest lecture for NUS Business School for MSc (Venture Creation) class.

In this lecture, I cover:

1. Brief history of the World Wide Web
* Introducing how the web was like during its inception, a very free, open and expressive web.

2. Social media & the destructive algorithm
* The emergence of social media during the 2000s.
* How social media big tech optimizes for maximum usage time rather than syndication of content – creating a mismatch of alignment and expectation.

3. Web3: its history and why it is not part of the Web evolution.
* How Web3 came about – a nice strategy of Ethereum to utilize the Web for its presentation layer, giving birth to web3.js
* And why Web3 is not part of the Web evolution, and it thus the wrong tool to free the Web.

4. The Open Web
* Introduction to the Fediverse. Covering also Mastodon, Bluesky and its underlying protocols: ActivityPub and AT Protocol.
* POSSE: Publish on Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere

5. Open Source Business Strategy
* How you can run a business incorporating open source into your business strategy
* Build Protocols, not Platforms.
* Case studies: Model Context Protocol (MCP), Meta's Llama, Singapore's own Menlo Research

Thank you Dr. Bernard Leong for the invitation.

Transcript

1. U-Zyn Chua <uzyn.com> The future is not Web3 The Open Web Guest lecture: NUS Business School 7 April 2025
2. Hi, I am U-Zyn Chua • NUS A l umni B. En g . (Comp En g ) C l ass of 2007 • Tech entrepreneur. • Bui l t and l aunched Pin g .s g in 2006. • Throu g hout the years, founded many other startups. • Now, ✍ & 🛠 for Open Web.
3. Bitcoiner since 2010 • Cybersecurity interest. • Bui l t many b l ockchain systems: • Sand Do l l ar Wor l d's First Centra l Bank Di g ita l Currenct • Sparrow Exchan g e Crypto options exchan g e • many more... • Cake DeFi: fi rst transparent crypto stakin g service.
4. Agenda 1. Brief History of the WWW 2. Socia l Media & The A l g orithm 3. Web3 4. The Open Web 5. Open Source Business Strate g y 6. Future Out l ook & Takeaways
5. World Wide Web
6. World Wide Web circa 1989
7. ― Tim Berners-Lee “The original idea of the web was that it should be a collaborative space where you can communicate through sharing information.”
8. The Web • Anyone is free to pub l ish anythin g . • C l ients are open, it's a protoco l . • Various browsers and sites.
9. https://info.cern.ch/
14. Fun times, but... • Pub l ishin g Do I have to l earn HTML? How do I host? • Syndication How do I push to my friends? How do I fo l l ow a site for updates? • Discovery How do you discover new sites?
15. Fun times, but... • Pub l ishin g Do I have to l earn HTML? How do I host? • Syndication How do I push to my friends? How do I fo l l ow a site for updates? • Discovery How do you discover new sites?
16. Fun times, but... • Pub l ishin g Do I have to l earn HTML? How do I host? • Syndication How do I push to my friends? How do I fo l l ow a site for updates? • Discovery How do you discover new sites?
17. Fun times, but... • Pub l ishin g Do I have to l earn HTML? How do I host? • Syndication How do I push to my friends? How do I fo l l ow a site for updates? • Discovery How do you discover new sites?
18. Not only centralized services • RSS syndication • Pin g back discovery, community • Comments discovery, community • Trackback syndication, community • B l o g ro l l syndication, community • B l o g rin g discovery, community • Link exchan g e discovery, community Early publishers have a way to self-organize
19. Social Media & The Algorithm
20. Remember the problems? • Pub l ishin g Do I have to l earn HTML? How do I host? • Syndication How do I push to my friends? How do I fo l l ow a site for updates? • Discovery How do you discover new sites?
21. Remember the problems? • Pub l ishin g Do I have to l earn HTML? How do I host? • Syndication How do I push to my friends? How do I fo l l ow a site for updates? • Discovery How do you discover new sites? No problemo!
22. Remember the problems? • Pub l ishin g Do I have to l earn HTML? How do I host? • Syndication How do I push to my friends? How do I fo l l ow a site for updates? • Discovery How do you discover new sites? Problems no more!
23. Remember the problems? Problems no more!
24. Instant grati fi cation
28. The Algorithm • Content is not re l iab l y syndicated. • Constant l y fi g htin g for eyeba l l . • Content l osin g ori g ina l ity.
29. What happened to the open web? • Is the web sti l l free? • Where are se l f-pub l ishin g ? • Creators and Consumers are at mercy of The A l g orithm. What went wrong?
30. Web3
33. A little history
34. A little history – what is Web3 • JavaScript l ibrary for Ethereum • Predecessors use own c l ients. • Bitcoin • OpenBazaar
35. A little history – what is Web3 • Idea l istic view that the users of the Web wou l d be brin g in g their wa l l ets everywhere. • Dan g erous • Privacy concerns
36. Web3 is not The Web • Unenforcib l e smart contract. • NFT? • Pay fi rst before consumption? • S l ow, expensive. • Backward
37. We do not need Web3 to free the Web
38. The Open Web
39. The Fediverse AKA the g ood o l d se l f-pub l ishin g somewhat chaotic web.
40. The fediverse social network Mastodon Mastodon servers: • "defau l t": mastodon.socia l • Sin g apore: kopiti.am • Open source: fosstodon.or g • Creators: indieweb.socia l • Truth Socia l : truthsocia l .com and more, or run your own!
41. • Backbone of Mastodon • W3C standard • Free and open protoco l
44. • Different protoco l than Mastodon. • But sti l l open, free protoco l . • AT Protoco l vs ActivityPub
45. POSSE Publish on Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere
46. Open Source Business Strategy
47. • L l ama 4 re l eased yesterday. • Free and open (wei g hts).
48. ― Mark Zuckerberg “Open-sourcing would provide Meta with a competitive edge in the AI race, potentially positioning Llama as the premier platform for generative AI. Thousands of developers rapidly enhance the model, helping us catch up with competitors like OpenAI and Google.”
49. ― Mark Zuckerberg “Open-sourcing would provide Meta with a competitive edge in the AI race, potentially positioning Llama as the premier platform for generative AI. Thousands of developers rapidly enhance the model, helping us catch up with competitors like OpenAI and Google.”
50. MCP Model Context Protocol
51. MCP Model Context Protocol
52. • MCP is a Protoco l • from Anthropic (C l aude) • Free, no vendor l ock-in. Model Context Protocol
53. build Protocols not Platforms
54. • Sin g apore company • Great OSS: • Jan • Cortex • Re g u l ar meetups & sharin g s. • https://men l o.ai Case Study: Menlo Research
55. Case Study: Menlo Research From Men l o's open handbook: https://men l o.ai/handbook/
56. Public open source companies
57. Takeaways
58. The Open Web is returnin g . Be a part of it. • Deepseek + L l ama or OpenAI et a l ? • B l uesky + Mastodon or X / Insta g ram et a l ? • Remember Post g reSQL + MySQL and Orac l e? Takeaway
59. • Incorporate openness in your business strate g y. • Contribute to open source software. • Protoco l , not p l atform. Be the l eader. • Web3? Takeaway
60. Thank you. U-Zyn Chua Questions? I blog at https://uzyn.com Email: chua@uzyn.com / LinkedIn