I was confused when someone on our team suggested writing about platforms that are important to Web3 and metaverse because, in my experience, platforms typically follow mature industries. But Web3 is new and nascent, right?
Sort of. Pieces of the Web3 stack are, in fact, not new. Blockchain was first conceived in 1991 and first seen in action in 2008. Digital worlds, now called metaverses, are described in fiction literature since the early 20th century, most famously in Neil Stevenson's 1982 novel Snow Crash. The first virtual reality (VR) headsets emerged in 2010. Digital currencies, art, documents and other assets are as old as computers. The internet infrastructure on which the metaverse depends started in the 1970s and 1980s.
What’s different now is the interest in and potential for integrating these concepts and technologies to create new connected experiences, which is where platforms are important. Elements of the Web3 stack and metaverses don’t just exist; they must be built. And metaverses themselves are also platforms for building experiences.
As my colleague Prashant Kelker expresses, Web3 enables decentralization of business finance, governance and ownership with new tokens and protocols, and with immersive experiences. Depending on what an enterprise wants to build, any or all of the platform categories discussed in this article could be essential – and include some capabilities and considerations not previously needed for Web2. Methodologies for software development are also shifting, so listen out for upcoming discussions about how development practices may evolve to address the needs of Web3 and metaverses.
The needs of the Web3 ecosystem are driven by the “creator economy,” which is evolving from influencers in Web2. Fifty million people, most of whom are amateur individuals, consider themselves creators. Some estimate that the global creator market is worth more than $100 billion. To support this kind of economy, there must be a shift in tools and platforms from an engineering focus to a creator focus. The big challenges today are the lack of ease in development and the inability to use the created assets anywhere. Low-code and no-code alternatives are early steps, but interoperability of the involved technologies and applications – like most of the Web3 development world – is limited by the Web2 paradigm.
Platforms will help push us from Web2 to Web3. There are five main kinds of platforms, with some overlap between them in terms of solution and market fragmentation. The five include:
ISG has observed an increase in the demand for rapidly adaptable, customer-facing systems of engagement, implying that a growing percentage of enterprises and providers will adopt low-code/no-code platforms and innovate using them. Web3 and metaverse requirements will accelerate this trend. More detail will be in the upcoming ISG Provider Lens study Next-Gen ADM Solutions 2022 – Low-code/No-code Development Platforms.
ISG believes protocols will eventually override the platforms’ importance and utility to Web3. Platforms are walled gardens with central control. By contrast, open protocols allow more decisions to be decentralized and left to communities of users. But as protocols evolve, enterprises seeking to explore Web3 should first experiment with existing tools and platforms, using protocols where practical, and supporting and encouraging protocol and standards development. As the shift to Web3 continues, enterprises should assess how they can best participate and experiment and make progress with the categories of platforms discussed here.
ISG helps companies understand and prepare for new uses of technology in the rapidly evolving world of Web3. Contact us to find out how we can help you.