Whilst I believe the term Web3 rightfully receives a lot of criticism, this article is one of the dumbest I've yet seen.

"But unless you’re trying to create a cryptocurrency, buy drugs or blackmail a company using ransomware there aren’t really any sensible use cases for a blockchain"

This is just incorrect and plain lazy. If you take the entire space of crypto, there's no evidence that "buying drugs" or ransomware are the dominant use cases.

Further, there's a well known list of actual web3 use cases: decentralized storage, DAOs, NFTs, crypto gaming, Defi (which has tons of individual use cases), yield farming and more.

You may believe that all of these use cases are worthless and never make it into the mainstream. It's fine to think that. But they are use cases, and it's where most activity is. Failing to even mention them and wrapping it up as "buying drugs" is ridiculous.

"So most people who use the bitcoin blockchain don’t actually have their own copy. As such, it’s not widely distributed."

Here the author contradicts his own point. He argues that scaling a distributed ledger is hard, implying it can't work due to inefficiencies. The very fact that the typical user does not run their own node whilst Bitcoin is still widely distributed directly negates this point as well as the scaling point.

"But if you’re wanting to store your invoices, customer lists or financial data, having a public database is a very bad idea indeed."

Nobody, including blockchain proponents, ever made the point that you should use it for this.

"Or bad data can never be changed. Imagine if you move house and the gas company says: “There is literally no way to change your address in our database."

That's not at all how this works. To correct data in a block chain, you add to it. The history entry with the incorrect data will persist, as it should. Incorrect data is not the issue, illegal data is.

"Finally, trust is an important aspect of all transactions"

This is a very complex topic which I won't fully explore. But the counter point here is that crypto proponents aim to cut out powerful monopolist middlemen for particular use cases. The idea of trustless in this context does not mean absence of trust, it means putting trust in protocols, smart contracts, the like.

"There is an argument that the blockchain is increasingly using electricity from renewable sources, but that’s a red herring. If bitcoin is using that renewable power, then somebody else is having to use coal and gas to power their house."

This is another dumbed down generalization. This depends entirely on how and where the renewable energy is generated. In an urban area with mixed out grid, Bitcoin mining would compete with mainstream energy consumers, which is bad. If Bitcoin mining is instead done in a remote area with a surplus of renewable energy, then it typically does not compete, because said energy can't be transported anyway.

"For example, ethereum, the current go-to blockchain for Web3, uses the same amount of energy as the Netherlands."

Correct, and it's bad. But an honest author would include the pretty essential statement that ethereum merges to PoS in less than 6 months from now.

"Bitcoin produces nothing"

It produces and settles about 1T$ in value. It provides new use cases for the unbanked. It doesn't matter what your political stance on it is, clearly it's not nothing.

To be clear, you might find my counter points to be biased towards pro-crypto. They are, but the point is not to claim absolute truth, rather that the original article lacks any substance. It makes sweeping statements without any basis, it offers no counter points, no pros and cons, important information is left out, it's just pure garbage. I find it shocking that a "Dr" gets away with writing this drivel. It seems to me has absolutely no idea what he's talking about, yet presents himself as an authoritative voice.