Decentralized Media in the Web3 Era

DeFi (Decentralized Finance) has gained global attention. Banks, other financial institutions, and venture capital have been increasingly focused on this area.

I have worked in Fin-tech for over a decade, so I fully support DeFi. However, as a growth marketer, I couldn't help but wonder how media would change in the era of Web 3. Therefore, I want to share my perspectives as a media user and media buyer.

Imaginations turn into Realities with Web 3.

Imagine an environment where Twitter users own their data and can decide whether they wish to share it for monetary rewards. Imagine Instagram users getting paid for their creations and engagement on this social platform because they are the owners of their posts. Finally, imagine that each real internet user has their own unique and non-fungible ID within the blockchain, so there is no way where fraudulent traffic or activities could exist. These are the future of media and advertising powered by Web 3.

What are the problems we are facing now with Web 2?

We currently live in a web 2 world where media users can read and create on the internet. However, users do not own their data. Instead, each media platform grabs data from users, claims ownership, and uses it for profit. Users themselves have little control over their data. Media platforms extract values from users. Web 2 is centralized, any bad actor can easily create fake identities and use machines to mimic human browsing behavior.

Web 3 is the road to Decentralizing Wealth from Media.

In the web 3 world, users can read and create. In addition, users own their data. Web3 sits on the blockchain, and everyone can participate and own. It's a fully open system. Web 3 enables the ownership economy and provides global access to everyone. In the web 3 world, due to the ownership of data, media platform users will get paid from their participation and engagement with the platforms. For example, more and more people talk about play to earn, create to earn or share to earn. It will be a revenue-sharing model between each media platform and its users.

How could Web 3 benefit media buying?

After Apple rolls out its iOS 14 to promote the privacy setting to its users and remove targeting capabilities, data sharing, and reporting, ad targeting has been difficult for digital advertisers. However, Apple monetizes its user data through ad targeting on its platforms. According to my optimistic assumption for the future of ad targeting in the Web 3 era, the share-to-earn model will incentify media users to share their data with advertisers so that advertisers can target users based on their interests, behavior, and many other attributes in a decentralized web.

Advertising fraud has been a big problem for digital media buyers. According to Statista, in 2021, the global cost of ad fraud is 65 bn U.S. dollars. Common ad frauds are domain spoofing and bots/nonhuman traffic. The traffic is from unverified ad networks or fraudulent websites that obscure marketing traffic data. Every year, the cost of ad fraud has grown exponentially. Research and markets also predicted that by 2023, the total amount of loss due to ad fraud would reach approximately US$ 100 billion.

With the decentralized web, each real user will have their own non-fungible id, and any fake or nonhuman traffic will immediately be identified and blocked from getting advertising revenue. According to Techwire Asia, "Blockchain's unique ability to serve as a decentralized, neutral ledger for all fees and summary ad fulfillment data, as well as a platform for verifying identity, make it an effective solution for the problem of wasted ad spend." Chad Andrews, the global solutions leader for advertising and blockchain.

In conclusion, Web 3, in my opinion, has many tremendous benefits to media users and media buyers. It gives the power back to the users themselves. Without the participation of their millions of users, media platforms would be worthless. With Web 3, users are entitled to get what their participation is worth. It's the road to decentralize wealth from media. On the other hand, media buyers have lost efficiency due to limited targeting and fraudulent traffic. Web 3 will potentially provide a solution to allow users to earn from their data sharing and to spot unidentified nonhuman traffic to stop ad fraud.