It's nice to debate cryptocurrency stuff rather than realignment stuff for a change
A few thoughts - I don't think comparing blockchain to ARPANET is a good comparison. ARPANET and other early internet projects were systems developed by military/government/academic researchers to improve their ability to communicate and send electronic data and they began immediately using them to improve their own work processes. For a long time, early internet systems were quiet and utilitarian and just got things done. Eventually, someone realized there was a wider use case, technology improved, and by the mid-90s the internet was in the mainstream.
Contrast that to blockchain technology - "Satoshi Nakamoto" has a belief that the global monetary system is a scam and develops the blockchain and Bitcoin as a way to build digital native currency outside government control. Rather than solving a practical problem of day to day work or life, he is attempting to overthrow one of the foundational systems of life in the world today because he and a small community of others believe that they have found a better way. Because of the nature of what they are trying to do, they can't just implement it at a small scale and let it solve small problems until it gradually becomes popular and (if their theories are correct) replaces the existing monetary system due to its superiority. So, rather than simply taking the technology and using it where it makes sense and having it gradually gain acceptance organically over time like the Internet, we see crypto enthusiasts looking to shoehorn their technology in places where it doesn't make sense and is generally inferior to existing products. If we take it at face value and assume good intentions, they are looking to speed up the day that their products and technology will gain critical mass to improve life for people around the world.
The key difference: We're not seeing people in traditional businesses gradually integrate blockchain technology as they find it outperforms traditional technology. We're seeing enthusiasts use it and advocate it, we're seeing grifters abuse it, we're seeing some mainstream companies (gaming for example) hyping it up against the advice of their own employees in order to pump their stock prices, and we're seeing a small number of genuine use cases (imo - these are limited to BTC/ETH store of value and investment diversification).
If Web 3.0 is anywhere on the curve of Web 1.0, we're still in the early days of run up into the Dot Com Boom. We haven't seen the Web3 "Pets.com" yet. Pets.com was mainstream and most people knew about it and talked about it and liked it. The only problem with Pets.com was that it didn't have a valid way to actually make money. Nothing in Web3 has reached that level yet - Web3 is still a topic for enthusiasts only. Once Web3 hits the mainstream, then we'll have the true hype cycle and the true crash, to weed out the impostors and find the uses that actually have value, if any exist.
