Getting Started with Web 3— The Internet of Future
If you have been on the internet, you must have heard of the word Web at least once. The Internet acts as a bedrock to bring impacts on the world and it is always evolving.
The web is the common name for World Wide Web. Simply, the Web is the collection of pages, that can be accessed from the Web Browser. People often use the words Web and Internet interchangeably but these two have completely different meanings. Internet is a global network that facilitates sharing of information over the Web and the Web is the subset of the Internet, that covers the major portion of the Internet.
Evolution of the Internet
The Internet, in its initial days, was about opportunity, decentralization, and sharing thoughts.
These early standards infused the Internet with a sensation of expectation and fervor. The migration from the corporate office space to the open and creative space, a new hope that existed beyond the corporate organizations without any governance and immense freedom made the technology more popular. However, in recent years, the Internet has been moving to centralization. Instead of making data and services widely spread throughout the world worldwide, the content and connectivity are concentrated into a small set of hands. One of the ways which enable users to take back control from the centralized corporations that currently dominate the web is Web 3. It is a new way for individuals to use the Internet without giving up their privacy and valuable data.
Before diving more into Web 3, let’s discuss previous iterations of the Web i.e. Web 1 and Web 2. There are no scientific definitions to define these versions but are defined on the way how they are used. Web 1 was basically used to read content from the Internet. It can be easily termed as a read-only web. This was changed in Web 2 that emerged the concept of intractability and social web. Most of the Internet now is covered with Web 2 that helped in the rising of platforms such as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. It helped in making the Internet more collaborative and social on the cost of providing personal data and information allowing certain corporations to centralize the Internet. To overcome the problems of Web 2, the new version of Web was introduced i.e Web 3.
What is Web 3?
Web 3 is the future of the Internet. The core concept of Web 3 is Decentralization. In Web 3, the developer doesn't build and deploy applications that run on a single server or store the data on a single database that handles all the data of the application. Instead, Web3 runs the application on Blockchain, a decentralized network of peer-to-peer nodes. A Blockchain is essentially a digital ledger of transactions that is duplicated and distributed across the entire network of computer systems on the blockchain. Some of the examples of Blockchain platforms are Ethereum, EOS, Zilliqa, etc. Generally, these applications are called decentralized applications (Dapps). It empathizes on building a network that is not controlled by any single entity and can be trusted by everyone. A question may arise in your mind, how it can be trusted? It’s because all the entities on these networks must follow some hardcoded rules known as the consensus protocol.
Why does Web 3.0 Matter?
The first and foremost thing is that Web 3 gives individuals ownership and control over the content that they create. By saying that, it solves the major problem of Web 2 i.e collection of data by corporate companies. Since the network is decentralized and no entity controls it, everyone can build their own Dapps without any permission from the central authority.
The next important thing in Web3 enables cryptocurrency, which provides financial incentives (tokens) for anyone who wants to create, govern and participate in these projects. Tokens also introduce a native payment layer that is completely borderless and frictionless. Currently,to participate in the transaction, the platforms such as Paypal, Stripe etc requires you to hand over your sensitive information and personal data to use them. On other hand, Crypto wallets and Blockchain Gateways like MetaMask and Zilpay enable you to integrate easy, anonymous, and secure international payments and transactions into Web3 applications.
Another important thing is the participants who run the node on the network are incentivized. As of now, there are various platforms like Youtube, Medium, etc, that have a huge volume of content but the content creators have not been incentivized in a deserving way and the ownership of content remains with the platform. Web 3.0 solves this by allowing the creators to create an equivalent digital representation ( like a Non-Fungible Token), which they can sell and collect a lifetime royalty from it. An NFT is a blockchain token representing any unique item that can be any photo, video, image, etc.
How do you use Web 3?
There are various Dapps available based on Web 3. To use those Dapps, firstly you need to make a connection through your crypto wallet and you can participate in those Dapps. Enormous Dapps are now available on different blockchain platforms. Playing Games, Gambling, etc are the various way to use Web 3.
How to build applications on Web 3?
I made my move into the world of Dapps a year ago and every day has been a new learning day for me. The transition of being a traditional developer into the world of blockchain is more exciting than a roller coaster ride.
So, I will be continuing the topic in my next article. In the whole series, I will be discussing how to get started with Web 3, develop various Dapps on multiple blockchain platforms.
