Probably Nothing: Down the Web 3 Rabbit Hole with Arkusinc.eth
Probably Nothing: Down the Web 3 Rabbit Hole with Arkusinc.eth

Probably Nothing: Down the Web 3 Rabbit Hole with Arkusinc.eth

01/28/2022 by Justin Edelstein
In 2020 I jumped into the world of Blockchain technology and Web 3. Here’s some learnings and where I see us going.

Late in 2020, I had an urge to learn something new; an itch that needed to be scratched when it came to things that were going on, well, on the Internet. It felt very much like 2005 or 2006 when I decided that I needed to “work on the Internet” instead of being a sports agent like Jerry Maguire, which was my already predetermined path. I then discovered blogging, podcasting, and Salesforce, two things I still enjoy doing today (note, two things)! 

In 2020 I jumped into the world of Blockchain technology and Web 3. Here’s some learnings and where I see us going. 

Arkusinc.eth — the History, the Why 

A similar energy to what I was feeling back in 2006 has emerged within the web community calling itself Web 3. Web 3 is still in its early stages of being defined and built. Similar to the early stages of Web 2. When Web 2 was in its early stages it looked like the “big thing” was going to be blogs, social posting of images, social posting of videos, and communal creation of metadata on top of existing web properties (social tagging, DIGG, even REDDIT was born here). All of this would be done on websites, remember, the iPhone didn’t exist yet. With this came the notion of RSS Feeds that curated information that you, the end user, wanted to see. 

What this turned into is where we are today, in our walled gardens of social media platforms. While there are certainly many blogs and podcasts floating around, there are quite a few more accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc… the majority of folks creating content on these platforms are only benefiting from the tail end and the droppings of the value that is being created from the content they generate, mostly from advertisements nobody really cares to see or waste their time consuming. 

Where Web 2 gave us the promise to express ourselves freely by being able to “write” to the web, it ultimately failed when all the platforms we express ourselves on are owned by the few. Which means, the protocols we communicate on are not ours, they are not open, they are not free as a utility should be, and they are designed to make money from your attention. 

I often think about how much I despise podcasts that are exclusively published on specific platforms, looking at you Spotify… how does a creator publishing on Spotify win by forcing me to subscribe to that specific service in order to listen to their content on the Internet? Makes no sense to me. The value chain was lost somewhere along the way here. I’d like to think the creator would want anyone and everyone to consume their work regardless of the platform. 

Web 3 gives us the additional layer of “ownership”. When you own something you do tend to care about it just a tad bit more emotionally… Imagine if you actually owned your Twitter handle, I’d think there’d be an attachment there. 

Metaverse Identity Tweet

We’ve had the “read” web. We’ve had the “read/write” web. Now we have the “read/write/own” web where we almost start over again and create an even playing field for all who are in the game to build and evolve into some of the boldest most powerful communities on the planet. 

Check out this post from Little Black Book and We Are Social for a look at the differences between Web1, Web2, and Web3. 

Why did Arkus Acquire Arkusinc.eth?

I see the future of the web as a utility where we continue to communicate in mass but also transact with each other and own digital things without “trusted third parties”. This web is built on personal identity and security that is managed very closely by the individual user and the network they are participating in. Here is a graphic that imho best illustrates how Web 3 has changed the way we can think about our identity online, and even how we log in, or register, for new experiences on the web. Click here or on the image below to check out The Grey Swan Substack for more great writing and graphics around authentication and Web 3. 

Web3 TheGreySwan_ authentication

Web 3 login is connecting our own decentralized and self custodian wallet to the creator’s desired experience for us. What is in our wallet defines us. Sometimes it is social tokens that signal that I am a part of a community, while also allowing me to login to the community experience online. 

I wanted to make sure that arkusinc.eth was owned by Arkus. It’s our identity in Web 3, we may as well own it. 

Thoughts on Identity 

To bring this to Salesforce for a moment, Trailblazer ID is the bane of our existence at Arkus. It really is a nightmare for a consulting firm. The way Salesforce forces it on you so you can’t avoid it is also difficult. We are hard-pressed for an alternative as we are required to use this system that is often not trustworthy. 

Arkies have been known to lose their entire credential history or have their access to groups in the Trailblazer community suddenly disappear without notice. In other cases it sometimes just merges one user with another user, leaving each to see private things that they should otherwise have not seen. A support agent at Salesforce can also “change” your profile, in other words, “fix” it. This means some other person can actually determine the outcome of our identities online. 

Beyond these technical malfunctions, what protections do we all have from a malicious actor on this platform? Probably buried in a very lengthy terms and services agreement that few of us read yet are forced to agree with in order to utilize this system of record, which I guess is fine 🤷. 

The point here is that instead of abiding by the motto “don’t be evil”, it would be far more advantageous for us as consumers if our motto was “can’t be evil”. I didn’t make these things up, I’m just amplifying and repeating the sentiment of the larger Web 3 community. 

If I am able to control who I am online on my own, and use the things I own to denote who I am, well, that’s kinda perfect. The thought of never having to remember another username or password is also rather delightful. Additionally, the thought of owning a token represented visually by an image of my favorite Salesforce mascot with my initials, or something like that on it, representing my Salesforce identity and login sounds intriguing. 

This is the user experience I’m looking forward to. I land on a website and click the Connect button. I’m then prompted to cryptographically sign a message. Once I sign the message the website understands who I am, and based on what I own, I am then provided a unique and engaging experience. 

Arkusinc.eth is a Non-fungible Token (NFT)

In the early web, protocols were developed and standards were agreed upon. If you want to use email, go for it, use email. Nobody was going to tell you, as a user or a developer, that you must use a specific email client (some tried). There are thousands of different email clients and they all work… so if I send an email from gmail.com to someone using an arkusinc.com domain checking their email in Mail.app on their Mac; they are still going to receive the email and they can reply, forward, etc… If the email was written in HTML they will receive it and view it and for the most part they are seeing it the way I design it or intended for them to see it, because HTML is one of those other agreed upon standards.  

Let’s play that out in the current Web 2 world. I want to send a Facebook message to my friend but they don’t seem to use Facebook. How can I overcome this? I’m unsure I can, aside from asking them to use email or maybe text message (another one of those agreed upon standards).

Web 3 gets back to the protocol building and the foundation building. Arkusinc.eth itself is like a domain name. I own it as an NFT. Look at that, real world utility… Feel free to airdrop stuff to it as it’s a shortcut to a public ETH wallet ;) 

The best part is, nobody can take it. Nobody can claim it is theirs and then go to some corporate governing body to have it taken away… It also works across the board as a standard. It is perfectly portable, where my wallet goes, Arkusinc.eth goes. 

Punk6529 Tweet

Advancing our Learning with Communities 

At Arkus we are leaning into Web 3. We are going to use what has been learned over the last year and apply it to some employee engagement initiatives, creation of fun games with our mascot Aria, issuing proof of attendance protocol (POAP) tokens to denote attendance at internal workshops, and even issuing our own version of our identities at Arkus (more to come on this, but, probably nothing). 

Arkusinc.eth ENS If you want to talk about Web 3 please reach out using our contact us form. I’d love to chat about it. In the meantime, if you want to consume some more on your own, there’s some content on the topic Arkus has already written and shared further below.