From Exploitation To Empowerment: How Web3 Apps Put You Back In Control

Every day, billions of people rely on messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram to stay connected—but most don’t realise the hidden costs. Many popular messaging platforms track who you talk to, when, and even where, storing this data in massive databases that are vulnerable to hacks, corporate exploitation, and government surveillance. Worse, these platforms can change their policies overnight, lock users out, or even shut down completely, leaving people without a way to communicate.

It doesn’t have to be this way. New models for messaging are emerging, powered by decentralised web3 technology. Instead of being controlled by a single profit-driven company, these apps operate on community-run networks, giving users more privacy, security, and control. Session is the premier web3 messaging app—offering a messaging experience that’s private by design, censorship-resistant, and run entirely on infrastructure operated by the Session community.

What Is Web3?

The internet wasn’t always dominated by big corporations. In its early days, it was a decentralised and open space—websites were independently hosted, online communities were small and self-governed, and privacy was the default. But as the internet grew, big business took control, centralising the space we inhabit and turning users into products. The basic functionality of the internet became locked inside platforms that track, monetise, and control the people who use them.

Web3 is a return to that original vision of the internet—one that is open, decentralised, and made possible by the people who use it. Instead of depending on a single company’s servers, web3 applications run on distributed networks powered by their users. To keep these networks running smoothly, web3 introduces incentives, ensuring people who contribute resources are rewarded for maintaining a secure and reliable system.

Messaging is a primary use case for the internet, and Session is pioneering a new model for secure, people-powered digital communication which (unlike most popular messaging apps) doesn’t exploit its users. Think of Session like a co-op—anyone can participate in the Session network and be rewarded for it. As Session grows, the benefits of participating can too. 

How Do Web3 Apps Protect Our Security?

When you use traditional ‘web2’ apps, information about you is collected and stored on their centralised servers, creating a lucrative target that can be exploited by hackers, governments, or data hungry corporations. Web3 is disrupting this model by distributing the infrastructure that powers apps and services across a global network operated by user-communities. This means that no single entity owns or controls user data, which approach drastically reduces the risk of breaches, surveillance, or misuse of the personal information of the people using the platform.

Your messaging app handles your most sensitive and personal information—having privacy in your conversations is non-negotiable. This means security against hackers, but importantly, the app itself. Before Meta integrated end-to-end encryption about 12 months ago, all Facebook and Instagram messages were viewable on Meta’s servers. Even now, all the information about your conversation—other than what you’re actually saying—is known by Meta’s servers. Web3 messaging puts you back in control.

Web3 fundamentally changes how your information is handled by redesigning the way that messages are routed and stored, eliminating many vulnerabilities found in centralised systems. Session users have total identity protection, as well as end-to-end encryption by default. Not only does this mean that the people who build and maintain Session are unable to read your messages—they’re unable to even connect your encrypted data packets to your real world identity. 

How Do Web3 Apps Put Users In Control?

The spaces we inhabit online are worthless without us. Popular social media and messaging apps like Facebook and WhatsApp derive all their value from users—our data, content, and connections—but return very little to the people who make them valuable. Instead of working cooperatively with user-communities to make their platforms useful and safe, they sell us out by mining user data, pushing targeted ads, and locking people into ecosystems where they have little control or ownership. It’s a system that treats users like tenants in a gentrified neighborhood, where corporations reap the rewards while users bear the costs of surveillance, censorship, and exploitation.

Web3 disrupts this model by putting users back in control. These new kinds of platforms don’t own the data or infrastructure—users do. Decentralised networks run on community-operated servers, and blockchain-based systems ensure that participation is incentivised. This means that when platforms grow in popularity, the users who support them can share in the benefits, whether through staking rewards, ownership tokens, or simply knowing their data isn’t being monetised without their consent. Web3 flips the script: instead of being exploited by the platform, users are an integral part of the platform’s success.

This shift represents a return to the internet’s original ideals. Web3 turns the tables on the gentrification of the digital world, replacing corporate landlords with community ownership. It’s not just a technological evolution—it’s a movement toward a fairer, more equitable internet, where users are no longer treated as products but as stakeholders in the systems they rely on.