Peer-to-peer messaging and consensus are like the yin and yang of cryptoeconomic networks. However it seems that the most attention is on novel consensus layer protocols and the p2p layer is overlooked. Remind you that the phrase 'peer-to-peer' is in the Bitcoin whitepaper title (while 'blockchain' appears 0 times through the whole text).

The key difference between web5 and web3 architectures is the emphasis on p2p networks. In web5, blockchains, or consensus layers, are merely the means to a larger end, the complementary to p2p networks, the yin for yang (or yang for yin). Is it necessary to stuff every last piece we can think of into consensus layers and move the whole world on-chain? The web3 picture of endless chains on chains is incomplete and boring. The idea of web5 is simple: build p2p networks with chains, let there be yin and yang. (Okay, I admit web5 sounds like a lousy meme, but believe me it's not just a meme.)

Why? Because most of the time issues can be handled best by ourselves locally and directly, without involving any unnecessary intermediaries (e.g. consensus validators, block producers). If Alice wants to pay Bob 1000 sats/usdt/whatever, it's better for Alice to hand over Bob the money directly, instead of going through some validators, because it's not only faster but also provides great privacy by nature. If that cannot be done it's still better to delivery the payment through Charlie a dedicated and professional payment processor, because 1. Alice can choose Charlie or Daniel or others by herself, 2. Alice can keep the intermediaries minimum and the payment is still more private than announce the payment to everyone, and 3. payment processors are flexible, they can provide customized services to cater different payees' preferences. That's payment channel networks, like Bitcoin Lightning and CKB Fiber, and why we love them. Payment channel networks are peer-to-peer networks.

The same logic applies in other cases, e.g. when Alice wants to rent 10GB from Bob for 3 months, or Bob wants to outsource a heavy computation to Alice's cluster for 1 week. It's better for people to execute the deal (any kind of deal) themselves. Blockchains, or consensus layers, are here to facilitate the formation of deals, to coordinate, not to take over the execution. In this new architecture blockchains run with p2p networks side by side. P2p networks are the exchanges of information, the markets of consumers and producers, asks and bids (probably in the form of open/partial transactions). Whenever a coincidence of wants is found in the p2p network, blockchains chime in to provide smart contracts and guarantees, to make sure the decentralized markets work as their parallels in physical world. Decentralized economies built on an array of diversified p2p networks and market-enforcing blockchains are more close to free market than those built on resource-hogging I-can-do-everything blockchains.

Web5 is the renaissance of the origin internet spirit of distributed peer-to-peer web combined with the new only-possible-today consensus layers. It's the information+value network done right. Web2 + web3 is not a mere pun, web5 is real.