What is Web3? Explaining the Decentralized Internet of the Future
Last updated
Last updated
If you're reading this, you're part of the modern web. The web we are experiencing today is much different than it was just 10 years ago. How has the Web evolved, and more importantly - where does it go next? Also, why are these important?
If history has taught us anything, these changes will mean a lot.
In this article, I'll show how the web has evolved, how it's going to go next, and why it's important.
Think about how the Internet affects your life on a daily basis. Consider how society has changed as a result of the Internet. Social media platform. Mobile application. And now the internet is undergoing another paradigm shift as we speak.
Web development
The Web has evolved a lot over the years, and its applications are today almost unrecognizable from its earliest days. Web development is generally divided into three distinct phases: Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and Web 3.0.
Web 1.0 was the first iteration of the web. Most of the participants are content consumers, and the creators are usually developers who build web pages containing information provided primarily in text or image formats. Web 1.0 existed between 1991 and 2004.
Web 1.0 includes pages that serve static content instead of dynamic HTML. The data and content is served from a static file system, not a database, and web pages don't have much interaction at all.
You can think of Web 1.0 as a read-only web.
Most of us mostly experience the web in its current form, commonly known as web2. You can think of web2 as the interactive and social web.
In the web2 world, you don't have to be a developer to participate in the creation process. Many apps are built in an easy way that allows anyone to be a creator.
If you want to create a thought and share it with the world, you can. If you want to upload a video and allow millions of people to view, interact with, and comment on it, you can do that too.
Web2 is really simple and because of its simplicity more and more people around the world are becoming creators.
The Web in its current form is really great in many ways, but there are some areas where we could do a lot better.
Monetize and secure web 2.0
In the web2 world, many popular applications are following a common pattern in their lifecycle. Think of some applications that you use every day and how the following examples might apply to them.
Make money from apps
Imagine the early days of popular apps like Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn or YouTube and how different they are today. The process usually goes like this:
+The company launches an app
+It has as many users as possible
+Then it monetizes its user base
When a developer or company launches a popular app, the user experience is often smooth as the app continues to gain popularity. This is why they can gain traction quickly in the first place.
At first, many software companies weren't worried about making money. They are completely focused on growth and acquiring new users - but eventually they have to start turning a profit.
They also need to consider the role of outside investors. Often, the constraints of adopting things like venture capital negatively affect the lifecycle and ultimately the user experience of many of the apps we use today.
If an app-building company engages in venture capital, their investors typically expect a return on investment that is in the order of tens or hundreds of dollars in value.
This means that, instead of following some sustainable growth model that they can organically sustain, the company is often pushed down two paths: advertising or selling personal data.
For many web2 companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter and others, more data leads to more personalized ads. This leads to more clicks and ultimately more ad revenue. The mining and centralization of user data is at the core of how the web as we know it and use it today was designed to work.
Security and privacy
Web2 applications keep experiencing data breaches. There are even websites dedicated to tracking these breaches and letting you know when your data has been compromised.
In web2, you don't have any control over your data or how it is stored. In fact, companies often track and save user data without the user's consent. All this data is then owned and controlled by the companies in charge of these platforms.
Users who live in countries where they have to worry about the negative consequences of free speech are also at risk.
Governments will often shut down servers or seize bank accounts if they believe a person is making a point that goes against their propaganda. With centralized servers, governments can easily intervene, control or shut down applications as they see fit.
Because banks are also digital and under centralized control, governments often intervene there too. They can turn off access to bank accounts or restrict access to funds during times of volatility, extreme inflation, or other political turmoil.
Web3 aims to address many of these shortcomings by fundamentally rethinking how we architect and interact with applications from the ground up.
There are a few fundamental differences between web2 and web3, but decentralization is at its core.
Web3 enhanced the Internet as we know it today with several other additional features. web3 is:
+Verifiable
+Reliable
+Self-governance
+Not allowed
+Distributed and powerful
+Status
+Built-in payment
In web3, developers typically don't build and deploy applications that run on a single server or store their data in a single database (usually hosted and managed by a single developer). single cloud provider).
Instead, web3 applications either run on blockchains, a decentralized network of many peer nodes (servers), or a combination of the two forming a crypto-economic protocol. These applications are often referred to as dapps (decentralized applications) and you will see that term used frequently in the web3.
To achieve a stable and secure decentralized network, network participants (developers) are incentivized and compete to provide the highest quality services to anyone using the service.
When you hear about web3, you'll notice that cryptocurrency is often part of the conversation. This is because cryptocurrencies play a large role in many of these protocols. It provides a financial incentive (token) to anyone who wants to participate in the creation, management, contribution or improvement of one of the projects.
These protocols can often provide a variety of services such as computing, storage, bandwidth, identity, storage, and other web services typically provided by previous cloud service providers. this.
People can make a living by participating in the protocol in a variety of ways, at both technical and non-technical levels.
Service consumers typically pay to use the protocol, similar to how they pay a cloud service provider like AWS today. Except in web3, money is transferred directly to network participants.
In this, as in many forms of decentralization, you will find that unnecessary and often ineffective intermediaries are eliminated.
Many web infrastructure protocols like SkyPirl, Livepeer, Arweave and The Graph (which is what I work with Edge & Node) have released utility tokens that govern how the protocol works. These tokens also reward participants at multiple levels of the network. Even native blockchain protocols like Ethereum work this way.
