Web3: the next version of internet?
Web3 is one of the most common jargons being pitched around these days. With the rise in popularity of blockchain, driven by crypto going to the moon, the entire decentralized ecosystem has started to boom.
“World Wide Web + Blockchain = Web 3.0”
Web3 gives the ownership of your data to you. It is considered the next generation to the regular web (or just the internet), where the online ecosystem is based on a blockchain. A blockchain is essentially a decentralized network with its planning and decision-making distributed among its nodes (user terminals). The transactions on the web3 are executed through tokens that are native to the blockchain.
The first generation of the internet, also referred to as Web 1.0, was conceptualized around 1991 when the websites were just static web pages. These portals had centralized content creation, and the majority of the users were mere consumers of these contents or products. Web 2.0 changed this with a platform focused on user-created content. Web 2.0 came forward with the rise of social media and community platforms, blogs, and networking services.
Although the 2nd version of the web empowered users to create and share content among communities, the data became centralized among only a few players. This gives too much power to the hands of a few, creating a skewed market dynamic. Web3 aims to solve this with decentralization using blockchain networks. This also brings concepts like decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) into the equation.
Data of the user is available only with the user itself, giving them self-sovereign identities. Web3 will further improve the data privacy, security, and scalability beyond the capabilities of current platforms.
Although web3 is touted to be the solution to many issues, there has been a lot of skepticism. Leading tech experts and industry veterans have referred to it as part of the cryptocurrency bubble propelled by venture capitalists. A professor at Cornell University described web3 as vaporware, calling it a promised future of the internet that will never see the light of day.
“(web3) seems more marketing buzzword than reality right now”
– Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla & SpaceX
There are a lot of discussions happening around web3. As of now, only a tiny percentage of the internet is familiar with the entire concept of decentralization. Although the rapid surge in the valuation of cryptocurrencies has attracted the masses, multiple use cases are yet to be validated for the wide adoption of this technology.
