What if we've been doing onboarding all wrong in Web3? Set the table with me: Web3 is cool, no doubt. We've got ZKs, EIP 4337s, and all those awesome buzzwords. Complex, provocative, and honestly, a bit over my head sometimes. Everyone's getting an L2, which is nice, but does it really help with onboarding the general audience we all so desperately want? I'm not so sure.
Here's the thing: Web3, in its fascinating complexity, is a developer's playground. It's not really meant for the average human at all. They don't want a developer's sandbox; they need their own space that fits their needs. So what if we've got Web3 onboarding backwards? What if our understanding of onboarding itself is flawed?
Think about it. I don't have hard data, but look at MetaMask - most likely disproportionate amounts of swapping and staking are happening right through their own wallet interfaces directly. People are too "lazy" to look for better deals elsewhere. But are they lazy, or is it because the tools are right where they are?
There are several issues holding us back, especially in terms of UX. Developers and designers have vastly different perspectives on UX, which deserves its own discussion. But the real problem lies in whether people know what to do, can find what they can do, trust what they find, or simply find it too darn hard and click-intensive. In reality, it's all of it and probably a lot more.
What can we do? In my time at a design consultancy, a key principle we used probably too often was "meet people where they are." Sounds slighltly cringey, but it's got merit. Meeting people where they are could mean rethinking how we onboard the next generation. But how about bringing Web3 to them, instead of dragging them into our world? I know it is provocative, bring the network state to them, rather than inviting them in.
I see glimpses of consumer crypto, but not in the way you might think. When I hear "consumer crypto," my mind first goes to culture, memberships, community, creator tools - cool stuff, indeed. But I start to think it is a lot more about the space, than just the tools.
Consumer crypto, in my biased opinion, is taking shape on platforms like Farcaster and Lens. Soon, if Uniswap Hooks and MetaMask Snaps might take off too, we'll see a shift to bitesized apps ready to be implemented where we are. Well maybe posts and feeds are becoming the new super apps, where governance votes and discussions pop up in our feeds, not hidden in some obscure forum.
We're conditioned by Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat to rely on our social feeds. We are hooked on them, to such a sad degree that feed is really the most spot on but hard to swallow metaphor we use. But right now, they're all about past memories, not future possibilities. Consumer crypto is about meeting people in these spaces, using the developer playground to make it easy and safe for them to engage with every nuance of what Web3 can offer.
So, maybe we stop inviting people to Web3 and start bringing Web3 to them? Our collective goal shoudl be working towards bringing Web3 to where people already are, rethinking not just the interactions, but the spaces they inhabit.
We need to reset our approach. New feeds, new spaces, new homes for Web3 interactions. We need to turn these spaces into town squares of possibility, leveraging the existing onchain peer-to-peer networks and all that Web3 offers.
It's not just about making onboarding easier; it's about reshaping where and how Web3 lives in our daily digital experience. Kill the feed and let’s reimagining it bottom up from first principles as a space of onchain possibilities not missed out opportunities.
