Back to the Future: From Platform Economy to Decentralized Economy

Abstract

This paper discusses the technological development from Web 1.0 to Web 3.0, focusing on their corresponding economic models. The study begins by analyzing the Web 1.0 portal economy, followed by an in-depth exploration of the rise of the Web 2.0 platform economy and its associated challenges, including the lemon market, platform monopolies, price discrimination, and algorithmic asymmetries. To address those issues, this study elaborates on the Web 3.0 token economy and emphasizes the crucial role of decentralized technologies like blockchain in bringing new production factors and relationships. This inspires the proposal of the Decentralized Economy (DeEco), a novel user-autonomous economic model that integrates advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies with blockchain. Furthermore, the key techniques for formulating DeEco are analyzed, including Decentralized Autonomous Organizations and Operations (DAOs), Decentralized Value Systems (DVSs), Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) and digital humans. This study not only offers a co-evolutionary perspective of web technologies and economic forms but also introduces an innovative economic paradigm to support open, diverse and intelligent societies.