Web3.0 and the way the internet will change. Forever!
The internet has always been a confusing place for people who are inept at technology. Data has always been a valuable resource, and those who control data, in turn, control the world. Before the advent of the 20th century, data was scarce and hard to understand for the commoners. The problem wasn’t the abundance of data. It was possible to master everything a few centuries back for exceptional individuals. The real problem was the high illiteracy amongst the masses and the human nature to resist change altogether. When data arrives in the hands of the commoner, it becomes more than a tool for everyday work, it defines the culture, and cultures are defined around it.
This accumulation of data in our hands is what we call the internet these days. A massive connection of computers worldwide transmitting data and keeping the world functional. This internet is about to change massively with the eventual coming of Web3.0, or the third version of the internet. To understand the scale of the advancement, we must start from the very beginning.
The precursor to the modern internet was called the ARPANET, and it was nothing more than a network of computers for universities and defence infrastructure. The ARPANET or Advanced Research Projects Agency NET was a way to counter the Soviet advances during the cold war. Starting in 1969, the ARPANET provided fast communication between different nodes of the network and was exceptional for large data transfers that could halt enemy progression in a war effort.
The Internet of the 1990’s a.k.a Web1.0:
In 1990, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the American victory in cold war, the ARPANET was decommissioned. By then, the world had seen what a net of interconnected computers could do. And thus, the first website was built by Tim Berners-Lee of CERN. The earliest websites were generally only for academic purposes, but there was a push by telecom companies to bring this magic to the households. And thus, dial-up internet and modems began to pop up in the western world with the introduction of web1.0.
Websites like Neopets and AOL were all the craze in the first few years of the internet. The internet was getting more ‘fun’ with more people joining the fray. There was also a little known bookselling website called amazon, which was doing humble sales starting in 1994.
As the traffic on the internet grew exponentially over the next few years, more websites began to capitalise on this massive influx of new customers. And thus, the dot-com bubble was formed where internet-based companies inflated massively without any backing and subsequently fell in value.
The dot-com bubble fiasco was a weird time for internet history as it showed that while the internet was here to stay, it wasn’t an infinite gold mine. Intelligent and innovative products must come in to impress the now wary audience. And thus, a new era of the internet ushered in, where the focus was more on the business side of things rather than the random Nyan-cat websites that defined the ‘ancient internet. This new era, beginning in the early 2000s, and defining the present internet, is called Web2.0.
Where we stand now with Web2.0:
The current internet is a weird mixture of terrific and terrifying simultaneously. While on one end, there are YouTube channels like Kurzgesagt and Veritasium, which are educational gems, there is also a dark side to the internet which has plagued many.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, and start from the very start. The tale of our internet is incomplete without the mention of Facebook. Facebook was a simple project. Mark Zuckerberg wanted to create a website that could bring everyone in his university under the same platform. Not something totally out of the box. AOL was a chat service you could use to connect with your friends, so what did Facebook, or social media in general, get right?
The good of web2.0:
One’s growth doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The internet had formed communities within itself by this point. It was just a matter of time when one socially awkward college kid could bring all these things under one ambit. And thus, Facebook was born. Facebook brought all the gamers and grouped them with all the grandmas. Old meme forums shifted to Facebook the same as new interests around internet culture formed in and around Facebook. If the world was a global village, then social media was the community ground of this village.
Similar communities popped up everywhere. Some more niche than others. The business was booming on these platforms as ads provided a way for content creators to seek out better opportunities outside the regular 9–5 cycle. While these ads are a fundamental part of the economy of the modern internet, these ads are the very source of the problem plaguing the internet.
These problems include social media addiction, low self-esteem and decreased concentration.
The bad of web2.0:
While the internet has allowed us to achieve so much in the last three decades, it has also bred a host of new problems. Facebook deserved all the praise it garnered in the last few paragraphs. However, it isn’t the Facebook of today that deserves this credit. That Facebook is perhaps long gone and replaced by a money-making machine focused solely on the number and algorithm game.
This problem of a corporate face hiding the passion of the projects is a downhill slope. To earn more, companies are willing to sell off their users’ private data, use shady business practices to get over the laws and sometimes simply do as they please and get a virtual slap on the wrists.
There is also the complacency of the law-making authorities who are willing to let this customer abuse go by without batting an eye. Some governments have taken initiatives in bringing the power back to the people, but these attempts seem haphazard at best. Trials and questioning against Mark Zuckerberg are one example of more responsive legislation. Still, being responsive won't work at this stage. The governments need to be proactive and anticipate problems that the future of social media might bring.
Speaking of the future, what does the internet of the future has in store for us?
Web3.0, the next version of the internet:
In my last article about the metaverse, I went about how the goals of Facebook (now Meta) will revolutionise the face of the internet. So, what exactly is this change, and who is bringing this change?
With the advent of blockchain technology, a lot of internet projects in the crypto-sphere are using a democratisation model of development. In other words, nothing is centralised, and the decisions taken are done so with the discretion of every node on the blockchain.
This blockchain model of the internet will take some power away from the hands of the big corporations and possibly restore some balance to the whole situation. While this is a good thing, it alludes that the people have to substitute the governments in countering big-tech.
While web1.0 introduced the internet to everyday life, it was web2.0 which really gave the internet a reason beyond mundane games and silly websites.
So, how exactly will web3.0 differ from web2.0?
- The content on web3.0 will be more life-like than anything the internet offers today.
- The economics, new jobs and re-hashing of old jobs on web3.0 will bring a plethora of new opportunities in the near future.
- Governance and moderation on web3.0 must be more proactive than in the past.
Let’s dive deeper into this subject and learn more about web3.0.
What will be on web3.0:
The content of web3.0 isn’t the usual content of our times. It would include everything from native apps made on blockchains, sustained by NFTs and cryptos, and brought to the user by metaverses.
Web3.0 will be the breeding ground for what would eventually become the new economic market of the world. NFTs would take the place of furniture, ether would take the place of dollars, and the metaverse would take the place of the shops. But shops themselves are located in markets, and this is where web3.0 gets its use.
Suppose you wanted to decorate a room in your favourite game with in-game currency. You would get your AR goggles, fire up the game and select the new couch you wanted to put in. That couch, a digital piece of art and NFT, would then be rendered virtually in the augmented world, in the metaverse. The currency to buy that couch would be the ether and the whole marketplace would be the new internet, web3.0. All of these transactions would be decentralised, just like De-Fi spaces.
Metaverse might seem like just another ‘design your own area’ game right now, but it would be the next evolution of social media where every activity takes place. And an upgraded version of human interaction would require an updated version of the internet to support it.
So, how would this new internet come to fruition and what sort of progress is happening?
The architects of the new world:
Web3.0 will require a plethora of changes to the functioning of the internet, both software and hardware. For starters, the infrastructure around the internet would have to strengthen to incorporate the massive increase in data load. Web1.0 required KB/s internet connections for accessing the majority of the internet. Our web2.0 requires MB/s connections, and it is safe to assume that web3.0 will require even more data to function well.
Thus, technologies like 5G and Li-Fi are imperative to the growth of the internet. More bandwidth allocation and construction of better cellphone towers is a must.
Then there is the development part of things. While normal web2.0 development required the holy trinity of HTML, CSS and JavaScript alongside extensions like Flutter and React, web3.0 will require much more than that. To make a web3.0 application, a developer would need the basic building blocks of the aforementioned languages, but aside from that, integrating it with blockchain will be crucial.
Blockchain development languages like Solidity or Vyper would work in tandem with React and CSS to create content suitable for a decentralised internet. Development for a new internet would mean that the developer is creating something that hasn’t been done yet. Developing for web3.0 can net a developer upwards of a $100k job. Learning Solidity would be the next big thing in the coming years.
Regulation with the advancements:
Tech companies started out as computer geeks coding simple websites in their rooms. In time, some of them caught up with the general public, and before we knew it, a billion people were on these websites. Of course, democracy is a slow process, and thus the computer geeks were billionaires before governments could take any meaningful action against their shady company policies.
Being proactive and setting policies that allow the growth of companies in this new environment while limiting their influence should be the course of action. Half of this work is already done by web3.0 itself. Web3.0 is decentralised by design, and thus, there are fewer privacy concerns than those that come with today’s internet. Decentralisation means that all the records are kept in public view all the time. This will allow vigilantes to keep an eye on bad actors and keep organisations from getting too full of themselves.
Of course, bad actors will still be here despite all these countermeasures. Legislatures meanwhile, need to come up with laws and regulations to counter these miscreants.
Closing thoughts:
This version of the internet might seem like a slow upgrade, but the world will change around it. As the world changes, the way we interact will also change. I hope this change brings something positive with it. May the problems we faced in the past be kept in the past itself, and the lessons we learn forever etched into our memories.
May the world continue on its path to progress!
