The Open Web: The Future is Not Web3

by U-Zyn Chua

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U-Zyn Chua The future is not Web3 The Open Web Guest lecture: NUS Business School 7 April 2025

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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.

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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.

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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

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World Wide Web

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World Wide Web circa 1989

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― Tim Berners-Lee “The original idea of the web was that it should be a collaborative space where you can communicate through sharing information.”

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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.

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https://info.cern.ch/

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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?

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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

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Social Media & The Algorithm

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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?

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Remember the problems? Problems no more!

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Instant grati fi cation

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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.

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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?

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Web3

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A little history

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A little history – what is Web3 • JavaScript l ibrary for Ethereum • Predecessors use own c l ients. • Bitcoin • OpenBazaar

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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

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Web3 is not The Web • Unenforcib l e smart contract. • NFT? • Pay fi rst before consumption? • S l ow, expensive. • Backward

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We do not need Web3 to free the Web

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The Open Web

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The Fediverse AKA the g ood o l d se l f-pub l ishin g somewhat chaotic web.

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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!

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• Backbone of Mastodon • W3C standard • Free and open protoco l

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• Different protoco l than Mastodon. • But sti l l open, free protoco l . • AT Protoco l vs ActivityPub

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POSSE Publish on Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere

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Open Source Business Strategy

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• L l ama 4 re l eased yesterday. • Free and open (wei g hts).

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― 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.”

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MCP Model Context Protocol

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MCP Model Context Protocol

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• MCP is a Protoco l • from Anthropic (C l aude) • Free, no vendor l ock-in. Model Context Protocol

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build Protocols not Platforms

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• 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

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Case Study: Menlo Research From Men l o's open handbook: https://men l o.ai/handbook/

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Public open source companies

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Takeaways

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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

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• 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

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Thank you. U-Zyn Chua Questions? I blog at https://uzyn.com Email: [email protected] / LinkedIn