LOCATION: No one knows and very few people can find out.

To begin with, there are four things that people need to understand about Web 3.0 and ‘the metaverse.’

1. They are not new. I used to know someone who ‘refurbished’ machines. I asked him what ‘refurbished’ meant and he said, “No one knows. So, we can fix obvious faults, slap some paint on and resell it and so long as it’s safe, no one can complain.” 

That basically sums up Web 3.0, except that its faults haven’t been fixed and it’s not safe.

2. Web 3.0 is related to - even intertwined with - the metaverse but they aren’t the same thing, even though they are often talked about in the same breath.

3. In 1999, in an academic paper that is still quoted today, I wrote that, ″on the internet everyone knows your name but no one knows who you are.″ In the metaverse, this phenomenon is perpetuated - and hugely increased. Despite all the technology that is available to identify and verify that identification for banking and other applications, its effective identification is pretty much alien on the web and in Web 3.0 and the metaverse, so nothing has really changed. You are whoever you say you are.

4. In that same paper and in subsequent work, I have emphasized that the vast majority