> a massive share of all purchasing power resides in Africa and Asia? I don't know about Africa, but Asia already has a massive share of all purchasing power.

> a massive share of all purchasing power resides in Africa and Asia? I don't know about Africa, but Asia already has a massive share of all purchasing power. > Do you think by 2030, all global governments and their citizens will voluntarily give away control over what they can consume and create to Google and Apple? Are they going to ransom their digital economies to Apple's 30% tax? No, they're going to build things like Alibaba and Tencent and hold that control for themselves. Which they did do. > Betting in favor of the current centralized western oligopolies is betting on the belief that the digital economy won't grow, and that there won't be a regulatory crackdown in countries with stronger technological capabilities. Crackdown on what? Speech or human rights or ...? > what's the alternative? Every large country making its own app stores and social networks? Well, they have largely done that, haven't they? The "X" in Musks's "X app" clearly stands for "Wish it was WeChat" with all of the social media, shopping, commerce, banking, and communication embedded in it. > Or a decentralized variant that isn't completely controlled by a handful of western corporations? This is also already happening, isn't it? It seems like all of your hypothetical questions are already answered, and none of the answers are "Web 3."