What is Web 3.0 and Why Is It Important?
If you have been on the Internet or social media recently, chances are that you have come across the concept of ‘Web 3.0’. It’s the phenomenon that seems to be on everyone’s minds lips these days – whether you are a software developer, technology leader, venture capitalist, or even just a casual observer. But if you don’t quite have a technical background, it might seem like just another random buzzword. This blog piece aims to break down and simplify Web 3.0 to make it understandable to anyone… just like the spirit of Web 3.0 is to have it accessible to everyone!
Through the years that the Internet has been in existence, different versions of the World Wide Web have been prevalent at different points of time. To illustrate the significance of Web 3.0, let’s take a walk down a memory lane of sorts to Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.
Web 1.0: Read-only
The first and most nascent version of the Internet was Web 1.0. Think of Web 1.0 as a ‘read-only’ Google Doc where you can browse and read through the content on the page, but only a select few can edit it. This is Web 1.0 in a nutshell where most users were consumers of the content.
Web 2.0: Read and write
Web 2.0 is the second generation of the Internet which is characterized by the rise and rise of social media and the integration of user-generated content. In this version of the Web, users are able to interact with the websites they visit by editing wiki articles, posting comments, social media postings, reviews, etc. or even crafting their own content via blogs.
Web 3.0: Read, write and own
In the current Web 2.0 system, we have seen power centralized in the hands of a few dominant players like Alphabet, Facebook (now Meta), Amazon, etc. For many people, this is seen as a huge problem that can have detrimental impacts that extend up to the erosion of democratic systems. That’s a discussion for another time though…
For now, the vision of Web 3.0 is a quantum leap in the evolution of the Internet as we know it today. Built on blockchain technology (the same technology that enables cryptocurrencies and NFTs, amongst other things), Web 3.0 is meant to be an open, trustless and permissionless ecosystem.
- ‘Open’ refers to the fact that Web 3.0 will be built on open-sourced software that is visible to the whole world
- ‘Trustless’ means that the ecosystem allows users to interact with each other (either publicly or privately) without a third-party intermediary present (such as Facebook, Amazon, etc.)
- ‘Permissionless’ simply alludes to the fact that all users (content consumers and creators) can participate in Web 3.0 without obtaining authorization from an overarching entity.
These characteristics mean that there are three principles that differentiate Web3 from its predecessors:
- Decentralization: The blockchain technology is made up of ‘blocks’ that each store information. Each block has a unique code (known as a ‘hash’) that distinguishes it from other blocks, and the information stored in the blocks is permanent. These qualities make it highly conducive for the execution of transactions and ensure that there is no single point of control that can be compromised by hackers or other malicious actors. For Web3, this means that websites are much more secure against hackers while users benefit from a more peer-to-peer approach that is not driven by a handful of Web2 giants like Google and Amazon.
- Ownership: In Web2, user data is captured, used and monetized by companies for causes that are invisible to us as a user of these websites. With Web3, the power dynamic would shift back to individuals who can control their digital identities through something called Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI). A popular SSI is the use of a crypto wallet such as MetaMask where all data is stored within the walls of the wallet, meaning that users can now determine who can and cannot use their data.
- User-centricity: While previous versions of the World Wide Web were application-centric, Web3 is now touted to be more user-centric for the same principles mentioned above.
While there is plenty to be excited for with the advent of Web3, it is important to note that the technology is still very much experimental. As such, the notions discussed in this article are based on a somewhat utopian vision of the ‘perfect’ Internet. As Web3 evolves, certain concepts and technologies may change, but the underlying idea of a decentralized Internet is the one thing that all those involved in building Web3 seem to agree on.
