The web of value

The future iteration of the internet is often branded as Web3, claimed to be a decentralising phase of its evolution, a reaction to the centralisation in the Web 2.0 era. This upcoming version of the internet, afforded by distributed ledgers and blockchain technologies, is sometimes also called the "Web of Value". It highlights the expectation that as much of the content and services on the internet get “tokenised”, which enables their trade and related operations of ‘value creation’. It is claimed that as the value of everything on the internet becomes more salient, conditioning new kinds of economic activities, relationships and forms of organising. In this article we discuss these expectations as imaginaries, the implications of which vary based on how they are framed or interpreted by different economic theories. More specifically, the article discusses the interpretations deriving from neoclassical economics, classical economics, heterodox economics and public value theory. We demonstrate significant differences between these interpretations and how they are offering competing imaginaries on the future internet.