The World Wide Web has come a long way a decade down the line, a progression that has incorporated itself into day-to-day human activities. Web1 was the first innovation with the premise that everyone would be both a consumer and publisher of infrastructure. It later evolved to web2 nearly ten years ago, bringing on a different experience altogether. Just recently, talks began on the next major paradigm change and thus the introduction of web3.
Notably, Web3, also known as the Semantic Web, was invented by Tim Berners-Lee, the original Web inventor. Web3 emerges as a more fundamental upheaval that can eventually cast everything else into the shade.
Web3, by definition, is a decentralized online ecosystem built on the blockchain intended to bring about a new generation of networked societies and commerce. Despite being in its initial stages, the idea behind Web3 is the democratization of the internet away from the corporatization that we see today. Current Web3 applications include Decentralized Finance (DeFi), play-to-earn, Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).
Web1 and Web2
The web evolution can be broken down into Web1 as read-only, Web2 is read-write while Web3 is read-write and own. The initial version of the internet was created on open-source protocols such as IP, TCP, SMTP, and HTTP. Then, the Web was designed in the spirit of openness and inclusiveness.
An important part of the evolution was enabling users to add content to the Web, which initially started with upvotes on Digg message boards, microblogging, and later social platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Web2 gave rise to massive computer data centers. These centers were needed to store, organize, and use the huge amounts of data generated. However, while this eliminated the need for users to maintain their service to display their websites, it allowed Web2 companies to access their data, behaviors, and activities.
Eventually, these silos of data became a good ground for advertisers, research, and political purposes. Among the most notable cases include the Cambridge Analytica scandal of 2018, when a firm harvested the personal information of 87 million people to create psychographic voters' profiles to influence elections.
In addition, artists and creators have had to share their hard work with third parties who hold significant power over what content can be posted or shared on their platforms.
A dive into Web3
The progression into Web3 seeks to solve the above problems that have largely dominated the current systems. Web3 merges existing technologies to bring about much-needed change. The innovation’s key features include openness, trustlessness, and being permissionless. It emphasizes the community providing a future where users operate in a decentralized environment eliminating the reliance on large private and centralized bodies.
Web3 eliminates the need to create and deploy apps that run on a single server for developers. It also eliminates the need to store their data in a single database, often hosted and managed by a single cloud provider. Using Web3, however, developers build these applications on decentralized networks of numerous peer-to-peer nodes (usually). At times developers use a hybrid of the two, often referred to as decentralized apps (dApps).
One notable benefit Web3 brings to the table is data security, restoring privacy to the users. While the internet has been a phenomenal invention, users have come to lose trust in its operations over the years, especially due to the actors behind the operations. Web3 serves a more extractive approach between users and platforms granting users the power to choose what to share and what to keep private.
Another thing to note is that Web3 will replace these current massive computer data centers through decentralized computing when fully launched. This will be done by the computing resources distributed to users through their appliances, laptops, phones, cars, sensors, and more devices. According to reports, the decentralized way of handling data can compute 160 times more data by 2025 than data produced and consumed by users in 2010.
Web3 is also an identity layer for the internet. Since the inception of the internet, one of the greatest omissions has been the lack of public and open-source identity layers among the early protocols. The identification process with Web3 is related to the users' wallet address interacting with the app, unlike in Web2, where users are required to use emails and passwords.
This is because, with Web3, users own their identity online and only reveal parts of that identity only when they wish to do so. To improve the verification process, developers may include a self-sovereign identification process for their apps.
Lastly, Web3 provides a new era where artists and creators fully own content and the platforms in question. The content produced is uncensorable thanks to decentralization. In addition, content creators and artists can receive rewards directly, bringing real value to their work. These rewards are done using cryptocurrencies.
Web3 Limitations
Web3 is far from perfect. Some experts argue that the technology has slowly become like its predecessors offering the same problems as solutions. Here are some limitations with mentioning:
Firstly, web3 faces scalability issues due to its decentralized nature. Experts have argued that Web3 is not fully decentralized at every layer. To a large part, Web3 is still theoretical and relies on technologies that are yet to be developed.
Another limitation is that interacting with Web3 applications can require additional steps, including education and software. A recent study by National Research Group (NRG), global insights and strategy firm, revealed that most users have not heard or do not understand Web3 while the few who do are yet to grasp its fundamentals fully.
Web3 is also less accessible to most users since there is a lack of integration in the modern Web. In addition, the cost associated with Web3 is slightly higher for most developers, which eventually trickles down to the end-user.
Winding-up
The web has indeed changed significantly over the last decade. That said, learning Web3 is crucial for Web2 developers, in an effort to keep up with the changing market. Web3 protocols will make it easier for participants to get compensated for their activities on top of privacy and decentralization.
In conclusion, the ultimate goal of Web3 is to pave the way for a future where people, especially developers, can interact with other elements like machines in a safe and secure environment free from intermediaries.