The Problem With Web2.0

Web2.0 is the second version of the internet and the digital era that we are living in right now. Before Web2.0 there was Web1.0, which was essentially a read-only platform for users to consume information and send emails. Web1.0 lasted from around 1993–2005.

In 2006, companies like youtube changed this paradigm by turning users into creators and creating the interactive internet that we now experience with social media, web commerce, and smartphones.

If Web1.0 changed how we access information, Web2.0 changed how we interact with our world. We have reaped the benefits of Web2.0, but we have also borne the losses, and ultimately, problems with Web2.0 have led to the end of an era.

We are now on the brink of Web3.0, but in order to understand the importance of our current position, let’s first explore the blaring problems of the current internet.

Compromising Security

In the world of Web 2.0, we are at the mercy of large companies such as Google, Youtube, and Facebook. These companies provide us with “free” services.

Well, their services were free in the beginning, and that is why we all adopted these platforms. After they grew their userbases enough, these companies needed to start monetizing and paying back venture capitalists.

So: what used to be free, became services that users pay for many-fold. Instead of outwardly charging money for their services, companies began to track the browsing history of their users to gain valuable marketing information and launch targeted marketing campaigns.

Even paid services and applications tap into your personal information, because why not make more profit off of users?

In the world of Web2.0, users regularly give pieces of their information to third-party entities in order to gain access to products and services. Users therefore must either trust that these entities are keeping their info secure, or forfeit their personal information willingly to the wider public of target marketing and ignore that Web2.0 databases regularly experience hacks and data breaches.

Censoring Information

Censorship is an issue that has emerged into the public’s awareness in the last couple of years. Because internet power is concentrated in a few large entities, these entities can censor and filter information as they see fit, making social media an autocracy rather than a democracy of world views.

With power centralized, political agendas are at the center of what filters the information people can access. This is a dangerous mechanism that obscures the truth and controls populations to adopt certain views and principles while silencing the ones that don’t fit the agenda.

Magic Square and Web3.0

Magic Square hopes to guide users across the globe away from the centralized Web2.0 and towards a new, decentralized version of the internet, Web3.0. Join us on our blog for more Web3.0 updates!

Originally published at https://magicsquare.io on November 11, 2021.