In my view it is likely to be a financial success at least over the medium term precisely because it will disempower everyone who's not a substantial capital ow

In my view it is likely to be a financial success at least over the medium term precisely because it will disempower everyone who's not a substantial capital owner and promises to put very strong ownership validation tools in the hands of those who are. If you want a distributed system that empowers end users, you're better off dusting off your favourite bittorrent client. NFTs in particular are essentially just distributed DRM. Though in practice it will likely be circumnavigable for all cases other than verifying ownership on a block chain just like contemporary DRM is today. But ultimately "Web3" looks to empower capital owners above anyone else, who are already massively empowered. So you have to wonder what the point is other than as a get rich quick scheme for delirious libertarians. The same forces of wealth based accumulation that exist in the current internet/web will come into fruition in the Web3 world precisely because it is the most powerful centralising force on the internet and does nothing to address this.