What big new field is there where you don't have to compete with people that have 10 times the experience than you?
Independently of what you think web3 might solve or doesn't solve, it's still just programming. Someone learning cryptography and coding will get a job in other places.
I'm not sure what you mean by "make a name". As a dev I never needed to make a name, I just acquired skills that were useful for businesses (or my own business) through building applications. How you compete with people with 10 times the experience than you is through a lower salary, as always.
I agree that "web3" skills are programming, and some of it is actually quite challenging and involves more computer science than your average web or mobile app, so I don't think web3 programmers are lost by any stretch of the imagination, even if that ecosystem collapses, they will be reabsorbed into the broader software industry.
I'm beginning to feel the same about mobile, though I think the rate of change in iOS is at least slower than the memes[0] about JS-framework-of-the-week.
I started iOS development with ObjC with manual reference counting; saw big and helpful changes with literal syntax and subscripting, ARC, and storyboards; I switched to Swift when it got OK; and now everyone seems to be going "storyboards and MVC are lame grandpa ways of doing things, let's use reactive asynchronous stuff everywhere!"
I'm starting to feel old, and it's not just the half dozen individual grey hairs.
That's a hopeful upside, that, say an 18 is learning data technology, programming etc. via crypto.
My concern is whether that's what they are learning; too early to tell, of course.
One thing I'm also thinking is that crypto functions like "wokeism" in the sense it seems a parallel right-wing version of the same kind of cultural reformation.
At the same time large retail biz profess their diversity credentials, their heads of research explain how crypto is on some timeline. At the same time a 20yo engages in activism for X, another engages in crypto for Y.
Do we need to "end the patriachy" or "put metriocracy on the blockchain" ?
My concern isnt just the skills issue, but also, everything bound up in the culture around it.
I think we're seeing Tech get to a level of cultural prestige that invites on-mass young-buyin, and mass cultish movements. No doubt finance experienced similar in the 80s.
But, I think, as finance people eventually learned to inculcate some level of cultural scepticism; tech seems it has yet to do so.
In otherwords, we're unprepared for this coming's generation having bought into a tech-culture landscape which is composed of scams.
But didn't Banksy say something similar about young artists being funneled into the for-profit corporate propaganda machine, trading their art skills and unique perspective (and expression of their interpretations) of the world at large, for a corporate paycheck?
“The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists.. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.”
Seems like every generation will need to battle with selling out, no matter the industry or era. But that being said, the web3 stuff feels pointedly scammier than even mobile/ social (which critics skewered even as it was burgeoning/ proliferating when it did, and people still rightfully criticize it today).
That's old now.
So, what to do to make a name for you?
What big new field is there where you don't have to compete with people that have 10 times the experience than you?
Independently of what you think web3 might solve or doesn't solve, it's still just programming. Someone learning cryptography and coding will get a job in other places.