What is Web3? The Decentralized Internet of the Future Explained

In 1989, at CERN, Geneva, Tim Berners-Lee was busy developing the protocols that would become the World Wide Web. To create open, decentralized protocols that allowed information-sharing from anywhere on Earth. John is a writer/photographer currently based in Houston, Texas. He’s written on everything from politics to crypto wallets and worked as a photojournalist covering notable events like the Astros Victory Parade and the Day for Night Music Festival. Current hobbies include learning to shoot 35mm film, building Spotify playlists, and working his way through that menacing TBR stack on the nightstand. The immutability of the blockchain also means that data can’t be taken down.

These records would essentially become permanent records of our online lives, and other people could look them up to decide whether to hire us, trust us with some task or even date us. Web2, the story goes, was the next phase of the internet, starting around 2005 or so — the one characterized by social media behemoths like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. In web2 (or Web 2.0, as it was usually called then), people began creating and posting their own content, actively participating in the internet rather than passively reading it.

With traditional video games, companies typically make all the development decisions and own all the content. In Web3 games, players can own game assets and virtual land through NFTs, and vote to make changes, so the interests of gamers can supersede the interests of the companies that designed them. Video games that incorporate blockchain technology—called Web3 games—have gained popularity in Asia, but Western gamers are proving skeptical. Some experts think it’s only a matter of time before the new model of gaming takes root in the U.S., but it’s clear game developers will have to make some adjustments before the games will appeal to a U.S. audience. DeFiprotocolssuch as Aave and MakerDAO provide users with lending and borrowing services run by smart contracts, which eliminate intermediaries so as to enable higher yields and returns, albeit with much more risk.

A division of Fortnite creator Epic Games, SuperAwesome specializes in creating metaverse gaming experiences for brands across a variety of platforms, from Fortnite Creative to Roblox. It has a particular focus on creating youth-friendly experiences and counts DreamWorks Animation among its clients. Wipro is another global technology service provider that has recently added metaverse consultancy and development to its portfolio. It has recently released a guide for manufacturing companies that are interested in the opportunities of the metaverse. To Grimmelmann, Web3 represents technologists reaching for the idealistic ethos of the dawn of the internet — everyone can freely use the information superhighway!

• Web3 will initially benefit large enterprises through applications that benefit from new blockchain-enabled business models and social and gaming networks.
• It retires centralized platforms, servers and authorities as the key managers of information and value flows.
• He says blockchains are too slow, expensive and public to be viable data stores for personal information, and he founded a company, Inrupt, to commercialize Solid.
• When you hear about web3, you’ll notice that cryptocurrency is often part of the conversation.

Web 2.0, the current version of the internet, is based on centralized platforms and services that a small group of companies controls. Web 3.0, on the other hand, is more decentralized and allows for peer-to-peer interactions without intermediaries. Blockchain technology uses both cryptography and certain game theory economics to deliver its service. The details make the difference as to whether it’s basically just Web 2.0 in disguise or whether it is actually legitimately open, transparent, decentralized, peer-to-peer. The Web 2.0 period began in 2004 with the emergence of social media platforms.

Why should you care about decentralization?

This automation eliminates the need for intermediaries, making it possible to conduct transactions at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional methods. As a result, people who use the Bitcoin network can see all the transactions that occurred without needing to trust any one entity or government. Instead, they can rely on the security of the blockchain to protect them from fraud. Hermione Wright covers web design topics as an instructor for Tuts+. A freelance writer for many years, she works with B2B and B2C businesses of all sizes creating content for diverse industries, including technology and design.

If a company building an application takes in venture capital, its investors often expect a return on investment in the order of magnitude of tens or hundreds of what they paid in. The web in its current form is really great in many ways, but there are some areas where we can do a lot better. Most of us have primarily experienced the web in its current form, commonly referred to as web2.

Security through encryption

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Most likely, soon after Bitcoin came to your attention — whenever that may have been — there was a crash. Each time it does, skeptics rush to dismiss it as dead, railing that it was always a scam for nerds and crooks and was nothing more than a fringe curiosity pushed by techno-libertarians and people who hate banks. Bitcoin never had a future alongside real tech companies, they’d contend, and then they’d forget about it and move on with their lives.

Sustainable Blockchains

Aside from its technological advancements, Web3 is somewhat of a rebellion. Web3 represents a rejection of the current mismanagement of the internet that disregards everyday users in favor of mega corporations looking to cash in. “A lot of Web3 games are investment vehicles and not made for entertainment,” he said.

Although Web3 is new, it has already made considerable strides in the tech industry. As such, we can expect more developments in Web3 in the coming years. Web3 is still a new concept, with the Web3 term coined in 2014 by Gavin Wood, the Ethereum co-founder.

Most of what people know and use on the Internet today is based on trusting a few private companies to act in the public’s best interests. As more people went online, a few large corporations began to control a disproportionate amount of the web’s traffic and value. Web 2.0 also gave birth to the revenue model based on advertising.

Educational initiatives informing Web2 users of these Web3 paradigms are vital for its success. The technical barrier to entry to using Web3 is currently too high. Users must comprehend security concerns, understand complex technical documentation, and navigate unintuitive user interfaces. Wallet providers, in particular, are working to solve this, but more progress is needed before Web3 gets adopted en masse. Web 2.0 requires content creators to trust platforms not to change the rules, but censorship resistance is a native feature of a Web3 platform.

Ownership

Many users rely on private browsers to keep their Internet habits away from prying eyes. But with so many options out there, what’s the best private browser for you? Auyang said that in Hong Kong he is pushing very hard to rejuvenate the discourse around Web3 and he has seen several diverse initiatives in China around the technology. The future is Web3 was the consensus at a high-powered panel discussing the subject at Hong Kong’s FilMart on Wednesday. Companies developing Web3 games will have to focus more on entertainment and less on monetization to reach global audiences.

Crypto wallets like MetaMask and Torus enable you to integrate easy, anonymous, and secure international payments and transactions into web3 applications. These systems are overly complex and still do not enable true international interoperability between participants. They also require you to hand over your sensitive information and personal data in order to use them. Consumers of the service usually pay to use the protocol, similarly to how they would pay a cloud provider like AWS today. Except in web3, the money goes directly to the network participants. These protocols may often offer a variety of different services like compute, storage, bandwidth, identity, hosting, and other web services commonly provided by cloud providers in the past.

That price can fluctuate based on how engaged the membership is. You’re incentivized to go out there and evangelize for your artist and really make sure you’re potentially participating in the success of the artists, whatever that may be. Now for the artists, the algorithms of Spotify really created this kind of all-or-nothing world. You’re either one of the 500 artists that is making a killing because the algorithm just keeps feeding that, or you just you don’t break through. Al Dente is a Paris-based, metaverse-focused marketing agency that has worked to launch campaigns for prestigious clients such as Versace, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton.

At the time, he was fresh off of helping develop Ethereum, the cryptocurrency that is second only to Bitcoin in prominence and market size. Today he runs the Web3 Foundation, which supports decentralized technology projects, as well as Parity Technologies, a company focused on building blockchain infrastructure for Web3. Wood, who is based in Switzerland, spoke with me last week over video about where Web 2.0 went wrong, his vision of the future, and why we all need to be less trusting. The following interview is a transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for clarity and length. Some visions are based around the concept of decentralized autonomous organizations . Decentralized finance is another key concept; in it, users exchange currency without bank or government involvement.

Ultimately, Web3’s ideal form would be a sort of utopian internet that treated all users, all data, all networks, and all stakeholders equally. You’d have just as much right to your own information as Verizon or Comcast, and just as much chance to profit from it as they currently do. The primary benefit of this idea is that it would give control of a user’s data back to that user. Web3’s backers see us as currently being at the mercy of major online power brokers like Twitter, Google, and anyone else that collates, catalogues, and exploits our data for their own purposes and profits. Anyone that’s ever been served a creepily well-targeted ad should be familiar with that sinking feeling that makes everyone wonder just how much the companies they interact with online — and even the ones they don’t — know about us.

Accessibility

Users could create content but couldn’t own or profit from it. Stakeholders can use their tokens to vote on changes to the future of the project, and the people who helped build the project can sell some of their holdings to make money after the tokens have been released. Imagine, instead, that a new and exciting project is announced that solves a real problem. Anyone can participate in building it or investing in it from day one. The company announces the release of x number of tokens, and give 10% to the early builders, put 10% for sale to the public, and set the rest aside for future payment of contributors and funding of the project. Take, for example, the current state of building a software company.

It’s a web 2.0 where Big Tech has a lot less control—or maybe has been gotten rid of altogether. Helium is basically a crypto-powered, crowdsourced wireless network. People can sign up to share bandwidth from their home or office Wi-Fi networks with the Helium network, using a special kind of device that plugs into their computer or router. In exchange, they’re rewarded with Helium tokens when nearby devices use their bandwidth.

DAOs are groups built for one purpose, community run, relying on each member within the DAO to work in the best interest of reaching a common goal. The big focus of Web3’s meaning is decentralization—making online communities owned by everyone, with transparent information sharing. So when you ask, what is Web3 (Web 3.0), the answer is really that it’s just the next evolution of the internet, growing out of Web 2.0.

With the development of new technologies and the growing adoption of blockchain and cryptocurrency, we expect to see Web3 continue to evolve and transform the internet in the future. The metaverse, if you’ve been following along, is the term we’re using these days for immersive digital worlds in which users can socialize, play games, attend meetings and do other activities together. It’s the vision Mark Zuckerberg outlined when he announced that Facebook was changing its name to Meta. And some crypto proponents believe that web3 is an essential part of the metaverse, because it would allow for the creation of metaverses that aren’t controlled by a single company or governed by a single set of rules.

It counts Goldman Sachs, Disney, and Mercedes-Benz among its clients. Decentralized infrastructure and application platforms will displace centralized tech giants, and individuals will be able to rightfully own their data. Instead, they http://glarec.ru/novostnoe780.htm are decentralized, built upon a system known as the blockchain, which already undergirds Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Imagine it as a kind of bookkeeping where many computers at once host data that’s searchable by anyone.