Much of the tech world likes to wrap itself in a cloak of inevitability.
Of course, Web3[1] will be a success. Everyone will want it. Because every VC and tech company will want everyone to want it.
Sometimes, though, human life decides to twist in a different direction and tech luminaries lose a touch of their (self-administered) shine.
It seems like but a few short years ago that technology was taking food[2] beneath its metallic wing and turning it into something very different.
Plant-based was the thing, and who were you to argue?
Fast food brands raced to see who could make a success of the fake-meat Happy Meal or Whopper. With Beyond Meat[3], non-meat became a cool thing to eat. It wasn't necessary healthier -- those things were still packed with calories -- but it would save the world from the ill effects of cow emissions.
Yet recently, a very odd occurrence tested the notion. It seems that McDonald's has very quietly sent its McPlant burger out to pasture[4].
I did taste one of these things and found it entirely pleasant. You could, if you paired it with a glass of wine, persuade me that it was beef.
American McDonald's[5] aficionados, however, shunned it.
Let's attempt some post-game analysis.
A first thought might be that vegans and vegetarians and healthy-livingists don't often go to McDonald's. Yet, especially during the pandemic, the likes of McDonald's were often the only fast, cheap sources of food.
Why not at least try it? Why not appreciate the brains that went into it? Why not help change the image of the meat-munching 'Murican?