In the Web2 era, reuse was a strategy of internal efficiency—a way for developers to recycle code within private silos to reduce "time to market." In the context of Web3 and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), reuse is transformed into a foundational primitive of Universal Composability. It is no longer a choice made by a programmer to save effort; it is a structural requirement for an interconnected, autonomous digital economy.
In the centralized web, the verb "reuse" lived behind a firewall. When a company reused a software component, the utility was trapped within their proprietary stack.
In the 4IR, the architecture of the internet resists silos. Reuse is elevated to a public utility. Because smart contracts and behavioral schemas are open-source and on-chain, the act of "reusing" logic becomes permissionless.
The Transformation: To reuse is to compose. The Action: Developers do not "copy" logic; they call upon existing, live protocols. This creates "Money Legos" or "Logic Legos," where a new application is simply a unique arrangement of reused, proven components.
The Linguistic Shift: The verb moves from "efficiency" to "interoperability."
The Fourth Industrial Revolution introduces AI and autonomous agents into the loop. For these entities, reuse is the primary mode of operation.
Verifiable Origin: Unlike Web2, where reused code loses its history, Web3 reuse maintains a "cryptographic trail." Every time a schema or contract is reused, its provenance remains intact.
Machine-to-Machine Utility: In a 4IR world, an AI doesn't ask for permission to reuse a "Pay" or "Transport" protocol; it simply interacts with the public ledger.
If "to google" was the verb of the age of discovery, "to reuse" is the verb of the age of assembly. We have moved from a world where we look for things, to a world where we build with what has already been proven. In the 4IR, to reuse is to acknowledge that the foundation is already laid—and that our task is to build higher.