The Hell is a ‘Web 3.0’?
So apparently, the internet is evolving.
Not like, in the sense of becoming sentient (I think? I hope. Be polite to your Alexa). But I was reading this article by Tim Denning about the future of writing on Web 3.0, and it occurred to me “hey, I don’t actually know what that is.”
Now, I’m only just starting to read about blockchain and crypto and platforms and such. It seems like something I should probably know about, but I am a neophyte. I do not speak this language. I’m fairly certain that I speak Sindarin Elvish from Lord of the Rings better than I speak blockchain (remember kids, it’s important to be multilingual.)
However, I am an avid internet user. I spend a large percentage of my day on the webs. So when ‘Web 3.0’ kept popping up, I pricked up my metaphorical ears. Oooooh, new internet? MORE internet? Shiny EXCITING internet?
I must know things.
The Almighty Power of the Google-Machines
To the Bat-Google, Robin!
The lovely thing about knowing jack all about a subject and wanting to learn more is that we live in this nifty era where we carry like, most of the world’s information in a little box in our pockets. There’s a meme somewhere in the dusty meme-basement of the web that can be summarized as “we have a tool to access all the world’s collective knowledge, and we use it to look at cats.”
Slight digression- do not judge my cat-memery, world. In 2020 the world went to hell. In 2021 we’re figuring out how to make hell cozy. Leave me my chonky cat sites.
Anyway.
What is Web 3.0
I jumped on my phone and started searching. This is Baby Step The First in what promises to be a process. BUT, from what I can understand, it involves the following things:
1. Decentralized internet where the power is no longer in the hands of the almighty Google (and its various drinking buddies. Like Facebook. Though I feeeeeeel that they’re more frenemies. I also feel like they won’t love this).
2. Machines talking to each other, informed by data to the point that they don’t just understand what we say, they understand what we mean. My favorite explanation was that Web 3.0 will understand that “I love blockchain” and “I ❤ blockchain” actually mean the same thing.
The most comprehensible summary I found in the first five pages of a “Web 3.0 for dummies” Google search (I made it to the fifth page of Google results, hot damn) was the following article by Medium writer Tyler B.: Web3 for Dummies — A Quick Guide. I really really liked this one because I actually understood it on first reading, and it gave me a very basic comprehension of what’s going on. Massive kudos, Tyler B.
Conclusion
From what I can gather, Web 3.0 is going to be a very large thing as it develops and does its do. Next iteration of the internet, flips the balance of power, etc. and so forth.
This is only my first foray into this world. I have barely dipped my toe in “how things work.” But I feel like if I’m going to understand the world, particularly in the creator space in the coming years, I should probably know the underpinnings of how online society is going to function. Particularly as I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s going to change offline society in a big flipping way.
