Web 3.0 does not have a specific definition, instead it’s a concept and is seen as the next evolution of the internet.
To understand web 3.0, we also have to understand web 2.0 and web 1.0.
WEB 1.0
Started in the 1990’s, when we saw the beginning of the digital era, during this time, the internet was primarily used to consume information and use. And people could communicate only via Emails. The information you would normally find in a newspaper or a library was now available online. But there wasn’t actually much you could do with it, the pages were static-read only versions where users could simply consume information.
WEB 2.0
Web 2.0 or the social web arrived around 2004 to 2005. With web 2.0, users no longer just consumed the information but they were also contributors. With advanced technologies like JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS 3, you can now interact with the website that you visited. You can express your interest to news agencies, media outlets and content creators on the type of content you want it to read and consume. You could also share your opinions with the world on your social media profiles and interact with contents shared by other users on the web. Web 2.0 brought the power of content creation and interaction to the masses, making it the read/write version of the internet. With this power came a heavy cost; “The centralization of power”.
As the Tech companies like Facebook grew stronger, the balance of power shifted from the web users to the Tech giants. Big social media companies started collecting our data in the name of personalizing and improving our experience of using the internet. Although they did improve our web experience, they also started selling our personal data to advertisers for money.
For these big companies, we were the products that they sold in the market to make them billions. You must have remembered the time when you were having a chat about the best coffee place with your friend and then an ad from a coffee place showed up on your Facebook news feed.
Today, you are constantly being listened to and watched on and there is no private webspace even if you use incognito mode. These Tech giants also have the power to control; they can stop you from creating an account on their platform or revoke your access if they believe you are not abiding by their terms of use. They can also control what you see on your social media profiles and show you what they believe is right for you.
Web 2.0 proved to be a huge leap in the development of the web. This also consolidated control into the hands of a few major entities who make decisions on your behalf.
WEB 3.0
Web 3.0 can also be known as the Read/Write/Own internet. And it signifies the decentralization of these consolidated power. It takes the power from the companies like Facebook and Google and places it into the hands of the user. With web 3.0, you are not only consumers and contributors but you are now also decision makers of how you choose to interact with the web. You can now decide what to do with your data, rather than someone else imposing a decision on you. If you want your data to be sold to advertisers for money, you will be fairly compensated for it, rather than the big Tech giants pocketing ad revenue. You are also free to turn off ads for your web sessions and in this case, your data will not be shared with advertisers. Brave browser is one such example from the real world but you will get rewarded in their native crypto token; BAT for the ads you want to watch.
Web 3.0 is also permission less; this means you can access any decentralized application on the internet using just your wallet. In web 3.0, no central authority can revoke your access just because they don’t like what you are saying or how you are saying it. You also have the power to decide on the governance of some of the platforms that you use. By using decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and holding the governance token of the protocol, community members can vote on decisions of how the organizations are run.
With the decentralization of power through these means, there’s no one central party who calls all the shots. But rather, the entire network decides what’s best for themselves. Now, NFT’S, Block chains and Crypto currencies are sometimes confused with web 3.0, however, these are just some of the tools that will be used in the space to regain control of your web experience and to call up a middle man.
With NFT’s for example you regain greater control of your digital assets by hot work, music and tickets, etc. But it’s not just the ownership and the decision making, there’s an impressive feature of web 3.0. Instead it’s a full-prove system with no central point of failure (cannot develop any problems or be hacked). With a central source, there is a greater chance of failure. With decentralization in web 3.0, data is distributed across several servers or nodes and there is no single point of failure. If one node is hacked or goes down, the system, won’t stop functioning.
Web 3.0 is also constantly improvable; this means the older code written for a particular application is open source and can be viewed by anyone. Developers and tech experts have the permission to take that code and build something better since it’s publicly available.
There is no specific date to when web 3.0 will start, it’s just seen as the next evolution of the internet essentially using block chain technology.
