WEB3.0 — A SIMPLE GUIDE (1)
Among the diverse things it stands for, Web 3.0 represents the next peak of the internet which will disarm the monopolistic control by big corporations and governments to distribute absolute control to everyone.
Web3 has been announced by many people as the future of technology with capabilities to revolutionize the internet, it has fortunately been noted to have no full definition yet, but for the concept that lies around it. However, wired defines it as a decentralized online ecosystem based on blockchain.
The idea of Web3 has evolved and gained popularity in recent years. Web3 has become a buzzword in tech, crypto, and the financial space at large. With the world experiencing change and new developments at the dawn of a new day, the internet is far from what it used to be a decade ago, re-enforcing the reality of being one of the greatest technological advancements in the world.
Among the diverse things it stands for, Web 3.0 represents the next peak of the internet which will disarm the monopolistic control by big corporations and governments to distribute absolute control to everyone. With the prospect it holds, web3 has witnessed gross migration of top-tier stakeholders from web2 to its space. For example, Google took the challenge by building its Web3 division.
Going forward, some other stakeholders joined the buzz, like Google’s former Vice President, Surojit Chatterjee, who now works as Coinbase’s Chief Product Officer. On this list also is Amazon’s Pravjit Tiwana, who left his position as General Manager of Amazon Edge Services to work as the Chief Technology Officer of Gemini. Lyft’s former Chief Financial Officer, Brian Roberts, followed suit, joining NFT marketplace, OpenSea. The former head of gaming at YouTube, Ryan Wyatt, joined Polygon Studios and leads as its CEO, wrapping up with AirBnB’s former Human Resources Director who also joined Polygon in June.
There are a plethora of opportunities currently based in the web3 space, and this has caused a surge in the number of the most demanded job titles, which keeps peaking as more projects come to the limelight. The metaverse and Web3 space jobs include content writers and editors, blockchain developers, growth marketing managers, NFT social media and community managers, front-end and back-end engineers, media reporters, project managers, and gamification strategists.
This article spotlights different areas within the web3.0 space, niching down to the sporadic movement of crossing from a centralized web 2.0 to a decentralized web 3.0 will be the focal point. The article gradually unravels the beauty of web3 by crossing paths with web1 and web2, bringing the relevance of the dot-com bubble and youtube dominance since 2005 to play. Being an explainer article, it goes on to describe how web3.0 works, the associated risk, why it is important, the data growth metrics in the web3 space, and web3 platforms where prospects can get opportunities to learn more and secure jobs.
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What is Web 3.0?
In its most basic form, Web 3.0 is predicted to be the future of the new look which the internet will wear. Primarily, the principle intention of this model of the net is to boost the general compatibility and the decentralized implementation of its content base, which is user-generated, in addition to the inclusion of tokenization that utilizes blockchain technology to bring value and control back to individual users of the web.
When a closer look is taken at Web 3.0, primarily based on the angle of leadership, it’s usually clear that Web 3.0 has a basic intention of prioritizing tokenization and artificial intelligence in addition to other different functions with the inclusive intention of creating what is known as a semantic web.
The web space has some quick reflections, starting with web1.0, which was static. web2.0 later sprung up with its cool features, making a few adjustments to what was already on the ground as it became heavily dependent on huge tech corporations to function.
As this article intends to discuss, web3.0 holds the fort as the lead in the space by being more unique and dynamic than any of the other web inventions. Unlike web2.0, web3 is reliant on technologies that consist of artificial intelligence, machine learning, semantic web, and blockchain, where it makes use of each of them to aid in supplying a higher level of transparency combined with a faster and more personalized user experience.
Web Evolution (web1.0)
To begin this analysis, the need to examine web evolution from start to present is quite necessary. Web 1.0 began at a point in time between 1989 and 2004. Specifically, in 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist, invented the world wide web (www) while working at CERN. While Tim developed the web, the intriguing part of his invention revolves around the fact that it was created as a means of sharing automated information between numerous scientists in universities and institutions. This was a point in time when the internet was new to just about everyone and designed to be a “Read-only” space.
The principal use-case for the web 1.0 era existed to offer information to users. Sadly, at the time, all websites on web1.0 were dominated by static pages that were connected by hyperlinks. While this sufficed, links to intended sites were quite difficult to find, unlike today. It required users to find the web URL to gain access. The narrative is very different in today’s context as search engines have taken up the role to handle such complex tasks for us.
In all of these escapades, web 1.0 didn’t exist as a term until Darcy DiNucci coined it in 1999. In addition, internet resources witnessed a high level of transformation as most of the websites were built on HTML language. These sites ran on static data center infrastructure built by the ISP (Internet Service Provider) companies. One singular innovation that web1.0 brought to human space included web pages that displayed while loading, giving users quick access. For example, Netscape Explorer was a web browser that brought about the means for developers to completely use JavaScript to create web forms and interactive content. Subsequently, cookie files were introduced as a means of keeping session information for the first time throughout the web browser.
To fully appreciate the concept of web3.0, contemporary internet users might have discarded the technology if they could. This is because the web1.0 static innovation could barely aid users in doing anything if they do not understand simple coding languages, mostly HTML. Video uploads, music downloads, blog ownership, and a few others are features that were absent in web1.0 and succinctly led to the emergence of Google.
The Dot-com Bubble
To many who have followed the web story for decades now, the dot-com bubble experience might not be new since it is interoperable with web1.0. In essence, the web1.0 story can’t be fully explained without the infamous dot-com bubble. The dot-com bubble refers to a point in time that occurred between 1995 and 2000 when investors started pumping heavy investments into internet-based startups. On the contrary, their main goal was to make huge profits out of these companies.
Notably, each of these companies had a commercial “.com” domain extension in the internet name address. However, the dot-com bubble also had a strong relationship with the NASDAQ composite index, which experienced a raise of 582% from 751.49 up to 5,132.52 starting from January 1995 to March 2000 and subsequently crashed.
Within this set-out period, many witnessed most of the gains from the bubble being lost. The reason for the loss was that several technology entities got bankrupt and faced liquidation as a result. Not intending to spare, a few companies however, survived the harsh effect, including Cisco, Microsoft, eBay, and Amazon, who became some of the largest tech companies ever.
Being a historic tale, the dot-com bubble did fail, and it was largely because rather than keeping a focus on fundamental company analysis by going over the revenue generation process and business plans of each company, many investors rather focused on the wrong metrics, which included traffic growth, unrevised business models, and high valuation with outrageous speculations. Most of all, the share prices of these companies surged consistently because of the overwhelming demand. Owing to this, the burst was inevitable and resulted in the crash of the market.
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Web 2.0
The web2.0 era came with its features and offerings. Instead of being static, it allowed users to actively participate in the process of creating, engaging, and even sharing content online. While little may be said of web1.0 in terms of finance, the game is level-headed for web2.0. Through web2.0, broadband internet came to lime-light and also afforded corporations the ability to make money from user-generated content.
Specifically, Web 2.0 introduced broadband internet where corporations could start monetizing user-generated content and its overall shift to an elastic virtual infrastructure. Throughout 2007, half of all internet users ended up having a broadband connection, and this allowed a higher volume of data to get transferred a lot more quickly through the use of an ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) connection.
With the launch of the most modern Web 2.0 applications from companies such as Google, YouTube, and Facebook, users got access to everything they could think of at the time. Due to the static nature of web1.0, web 2.0 went on with its pursuit to alter the entire ecosystem and revamp it. Among the many features that have been listed, it also included birthing new programming languages which were introduced. These programming languages enabled developers to have a higher level of flexibility.
Web2.0 crowned its emerging phase by properly creating solutions to one of the problems that sunk web1.0 — Building a web of trust between SSL and big brands wherein the security of information that was transferred online had to be secured. While Web 2.0 may not be considered as a technical shift in the aspect of the web and how it worked, it was however, a shift in how it became used by users.
YouTube’s Dominance
As discussed in this article regarding the web2.0 section, challenges that were encountered on web1.0 fizzled out during web2.0’s administration, and one of the key platforms that played a big role was Youtube. YouTube ended up introducing people to the act of importing motion pictures online. In other words, users could ultimately upload videos, they included videos that they produced themselves and acted themselves. This, in turn grew their visibility and metrics by a great deal, earning them popularity, fame, and money from the ads which was placed online in their content upload.
Web3.0 — The New Web Revolution
Being coined by Tim Berners-Lee, the concept of Web 3.0 is to introduce technology that can bring enhancement to the way through which every user is given access to the capacity to create, share, and even connect their content.
The prospects of web3.0 are poised to have a far-reaching impact. In this sense, web3.0 will most likely utilize the entire concept and scope of artificial intelligence. Ultimately, the goal of this web is to have all of the information merged and interconnected; what this means is that all of the gadgets and services will make use of similar data. It is this introduction of the web that puts its main emphasis on personalization, collective ownership, and a more healthy way through which content is delivered.
How does Web 3.0 Work?
Just like the model through which blockchain networks operate in an interconnected manner, where miners or nodes can make use of their computing power as a means of verifying transactions within a specific network, the decentralized web is built in like fashion as a system of connected computers which runs on a global level being privately owned and independent from others. The primary goal of the decentralized web (web3.0) will be to displace security odds and provide private, secure, and censorship-resistant access to information and services.
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Risks of Web 3.0
While the eulogies keep peaking for the new norm in the web space, web3.0 is not left without some setbacks and ropes to untie. To a great extent, the present projects are largely sponsored by venture capitalists who have the potential of regulating what goes on in the space within these projects. Some of these projects include Polkadot, Filecoin, Chainlink, Helium, Theta token, etc. In simple terms, we can envisage a future of a centralized web again, which will mean that the world will likely maintain a circle of moving from a point and heading back to the same point.
In a bid to prevent a future such as this from occurring, many practices have already been witnessed and implemented throughout blockchain networks, such as the Bitcoin example.
Going forward, while the aspect of having a feasible decentralized web can be achieved, the other way round also poses a threat in the sense that without the right security measurements being implemented, there are likely possibilities to encounter issues with monitoring and regulating Web 3.0. It becomes a dicey situation at this point because this will serve as a double-edged sword in terms that while it will allow for a lot of freedom, it could also result in a cybercrime spike. To curb this dead-end situation, Web 3.0 will require the use of hardware that is much more powerful than today’s technology.
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