What is Web3 and why it matters?

I’m getting this question a lot, and there is no simple answer or definition.

So, I will walk you through my definition of what is Web3.

I consider Web3, or Web 3.0, as the next phase in the evolution of the internet.

It’s not just “crypto”, it’s how we interact with the technology, how it changes our behavior, and where we put our attention.

In my definition, it involves not only blockchain, but also AI to power up the creation, AR/VR to unlock new experiences, and a major shift in monetization and economy.

Just imagine telling your parents 15 years ago that people would make 6 figures by recording videos of their cats.

That’s how much the internet changed our behavior.

But before we start celebrating Universal Basic Income (UBI), let’s explore what were the other 2 phases of the Internet.

Web 1.0 (1980s — early 2000’s)

In the earliest phases, the Internet was used by researchers and academics.

Only the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989 made the Internet accessible and user-friendly, leading to a dramatic increase in its use and the first major shift.

Once unlocked to less technical users, we quickly started exploring the options.

This exploration, powered by significant investments, resulted in the rise of e-commerce solutions like Amazon and eBay.

In this phase, today referred to as the “read-only” web, the internet was static.

Users were viewing information on websites but didn’t interact or contribute.

This changed in the early 2000s when social networks like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter shifted online interaction from simple “read” to “read-write” and started a new era of the Web.

Web 2.0 (2000’s — today)

The current phase of the internet, known as the “read-write” web, brought us the interactive and social web we know today.

It is more dynamic and users don’t just consume the content, but also interact (like, comment, share) and create their content.

This paradigm shift, supercharged by the development of mobile phones, allowed companies like Google, Facebook, and YouTube, to capture our attention with their platforms.

These companies are not the creators of the content, they just enable it — YouTube doesn’t create videos, users do.

The network effect of these platforms has led to data centralization where the biggest platforms (like Google, Meta, Apple, or Amazon) own and control user data, which they use to further strengthen their position on the market.

Economic pressures, triggered by the global financial crisis in 2007–2008 and the era of “money printing”, combined with questionable behavior of these platforms — unclear ownership, misuse of personal data, privacy, censorship, and lack of control sparked interest in finding alternatives.

That led to the creation of Bitcoin in early 2009 as an alternative to the financial aspect.

And soon after that the rising interest in decentralized solutions and blockchains as a response to the other factors.

Web 3.0 (2010’s — ???)

The future phase, known as the “read-write-own” web.

This phase is still shaping and we are yet to test and decide which concepts are working and what is too utopistic or crazy.

At its core, we have peer-to-peer networks, open source, collective governance, and direct financial incentives.

Users in the network decide how the network will evolve, and by participating they own a small share of the network and possible profits coming out of it.

You help the network, you get a reward.

Products are often open-source and the whole community can contribute to their growth.

This motivates founders to work in close collaboration with their communities, building directly with the customers from day 1, and making products people really want.

Using the Web2 platforms as an example, in Web3, YouTube creators could collectively vote on the evolution of the platform, fee structures and distribution, and each creator would own his videos, so they could anytime switch from YouTube to an alternative, without risking that YouTube would block the content or access to the platform.

I’m sure that from this example alone you can already spot many new challenges:

• Is it good to let the creators decide on the monetization?
• How should they vote on the future of the platform, by the number of followers?
• How’s that different from big companies running the show in Web2, if here the power is with the big creators?
• If not, should everyone get the same vote?

This can quickly turn into never-ending philosophical discussions.

I prefer a more simple, down-to-earth approach.

In my view, it’s about new technology, what it enables us, how it will transform our everyday life, and ultimately, how can I contribute to this evolution.

It’s the AI that we use to analyze different signals faster, having an affordable way to leverage our effort and time in ways we have yet to imagine.

It’s the AR that not only makes things more exciting but adds one more dimension to our senses, empowering our basic interactions and experiences, including learning.

It’s the VR that transforms our leisure time — gaming, social interactions, content consumption, or travel.

And it’s the Blockchain that can put our shared economy on another level, not by democratizing the world and turning current political systems into anarchy, but because the P2P part is not optional, and because truth is verifiable.

So I look at it rather from the angle of individuals building a billion dollar solo businesses, and blockchain unlocking use cases like:

• Transparent secondary market — ticketing, luxury goods, financial assets.
• Tokenization and easier governance — geographical barriers to become even less relevant than today.
• Shared resources — technical, such as GPU/CPU/disk space, but also financial, such as staking tokens.
• Distributed supply chain and administration — Track the whole process and have relevant parties approve their individual parts.
• Consumers opting in and out of data being available, giving businesses a better way to target, but only if the consumer is the beneficiary.

We will dive together into the use cases in different posts.