There is no shortage of snake-oil and perverse incentives in the space; but the most charitable reading is that Web3 is a diverse family of technologies attempting to fill in two gaps from Web1: (a) self-sovereign identity, and (b) distributed value exchange. Their absence fueled the rise of the quasi-feudal [0] Web 2.0: outsourcing these functions to centralized firms (Google ID, PayPal).

The proposed identity models sometimes involve blockchains and smart contracts, but can also use simple private keys, or trustful P2P models like holochains. The solutions for value exchange are where crypto-tokens enter the picture (setting aside the perverse incentives of Supply attempting to create its own Demand); but one could certainly envision the same technology working with state-backed digital currencies, while still disintermediating finance middlemen (credit card fees, eBay fees, brokerage fees, etc).

[0] https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2012/11/when_it_com...

Well, then they are also related to a file checksum. I believe some ideas were around ledgers providing a means to authentication, which I don't like at all.

For me it was about decentralized platforms to emancipate people from large social media moguls that have enough info on user behavior that they can influence behavior. Interconnectedness would ensure that the draw of peers using the same network would vanish. At least theoretically.