Web3 spawned countless star projects, but most of them were short-lived. As investors watched, passionate, fast-talking ceos took turns on stage, talking about how they would shape the next generation of the Internet and its business models. Failure is often preordained from the start, with too much dreaming and too little down-to-earth work.

PeoplesPay as we see it today may break that spell. A third-party payment platform born less than two years ago has gained the support of nearly 20,000 merchants, processed more than 100 million orders, and generated hundreds of millions of dollars in processing fees... Before this platform attracted widespread attention in the industry, it had already quietly walked out of its own journey of success. Many PeoplesPay users didn't even understand the decentralization mechanism behind it, they were just attracted by the convenience and security of the platform, and gradually increased their use of it for business purposes.

And, of course, there's the payoff.

While they may not have understood the mechanics, PeoplesPay users found themselves receiving commissions while using the platform. By allowing apps to use local device computing to help other users, the balance in their accounts can grow bit by bit. While this may seem like a small fee, it covers most of the costs of using the platform's services. In other words, users can complete tasks such as cross-border payment and offline payment at a very low overall cost of use.

People familiar with decentralized systems can see at a glance that PeoplesPay's services are essentially delivered between users. Each transaction runs through a subset of users' devices, eliminating the need for centralised servers and data centres and providing high levels of security, privacy and user accounts that are immune from interference by operators.

But many users may be more concerned about the cost itself. They could be the new cross-border merchants in Southeast Asia, the middle class in southern Africa trying to buy cheap Chinese goods over the Internet, or inflation-plagued residents of South America looking to use their digital wallets to hedge against financial turmoil.

PeoplesPay brings them cheap enough financial services. Once money enters PeoplesPay's digital wallet, it can be quickly converted into multi-country currencies at almost no cost and purchased at merchants around the world. Users can also consider extending the wallet's use, if they wish, to connect with other online financial services platforms, apply for loans, purchase insurance, and more.

Yes, this reminds us of the popular concept of financial inclusion. PeoplesPay doesn't claim to be a champion of financial inclusion, but its practice does set an example for the field. PeoplesPay is all about bringing the benefits and convenience of finance to everyone, and PeoplesPay fits that philosophy perfectly.

A big key to the story, of course, is convenience. Even if you're in Antarctica, you can download PeoplesPay's app over satellite Internet, use your phone to quickly sign up and start cross-border transactions. This is the weakness of so many projects touting Web3 -- they often set the bar so high that only a few geeks can figure out the technical rigmarole.

In other words, PeoplesPay is universal -- it's easy for the average Web user and merchant to get started; Affordable, offering international payment services at low prices. And the technology behind it just does the work quietly, never in a big way, but solid, reliable and trustworthy.

So PeoplesPay succeeded, and for now at least its growth is unstoppable. Like every blockbuster project of the past three decades on the Internet, PeoplesPay gets at the heart of the problem -- making the average user a satisfying experience. PeoplesPay may open up a new line of thinking that is worth learning from many of the fancier financial inclusion products out there.