This heavy brass key on my desk doesn't require a 'terms of service' update to unlock my front door.

The afternoon sun is cutting a sharp diagonal across my study, illuminating the dust motes and the solid, unyielding edge of this old skeleton key. In the physical world, ownership is a conversation between metal and a tumbler; there is no third party standing in the hallway asking for a password or revoking my access because a server in Virginia went dark. For twenty years, we lived in the Web2 era as glorified tenants, paying for the privilege of storing our lives in someone else's digital filing cabinet, always subject to the whims of the landlord.
Now comes the Web3 pitch, promising a return to this brass-key reality through the magic of self-custody. It is a seductive narrative, yet I find myself squinting at the fine print. While the gatekeepers of old are being dismantled, they are often replaced by complex code that is far more brittle than a forged iron bolt. I want to believe in a world where we own our digital selves as surely as I own this key, but I have seen too many 'immutable' locks picked by a simple exploit to stop checking the deadbolt myself.