How to talk about Web 3.0 like an expert

Web 3.0 is the buzzword right now, but what does it even mean? To understand that, we must first trudge through a bit of Internet history

Web 3.0 is getting a lot of press right now, and it's not all for the right reasons. The governments and traditional money markets are up in arms against the proliferation of cryptocurrencies and other Web 3.0 technologies, trying to clamp them down with proposed legislation and efforts to centralise what is essentially decentralised technology.

The reason is simple: Web 3.0 is all about taking the power of the Internet away from the few that control it and handing it over to the people. This is scary for governments and everyone whose business exploits Internet users by controlling their data for profit. The original intent of the Internet was never about mining users' data or using social media to drown out the voices of minorities. The first version of the public Internet was about sharing and freedom, which is essentially the core of Web 3.0. To know where you are going, you need to know where you have been.

In the beginning

The precursor to the Internet was called ARPANET, and it was developed by researchers from the US Department of Defense and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ARPANET was a network of computers connected with phone lines and shared data on various defence projects worked on by different universities. The TCP/IP protocol used for the Internet, even today, was first developed on this network.

The first true public Internet appeared on 6th August 1991. It was created by Tim Berners-Lee, who wanted to develop an easier way for scientists at CERN to share data despite having different hardware and software. The research work culminated in the birth of the World Wide Web and the concept of Hypertext. By 1993 CERN declared that the World Wide Web was free for everyone to use, which was the start of the revolution. This also earned Berners-Lee a knighthood. Not to mention he recently sold an NFT of the WWW code at a Sotheby's Auction for a cool $5434,500.

The first web pages on the Internet were static and text-heavy and mostly a repository of useful data. Overall, access to the Internet was an expensive affair, so the number of people online was limited, and there were almost no rules that governed the end user. The access to content on Web 1.0 was decentralised, where users directly posted and created content for other users who accessed the web pages directly. This changed with Web 2.0.

Web 2.0

The term Web 2.0 was coined in 1999 by Darci Dinucci, which appeared in an article called Fragmented Future. Web 1.0 did not exist until Web 2.0 was coined. However, the move from the static Internet of old into the massive interactive juggernaut we know today happened over several years between 2004 and 2006. Things like chatrooms, social media and forums are all part of Web 2.0. We are technically still in Web 2.0 and in the nascent stages of transforming to the future standard of Web 3.0.

The biggest drawback of Web 2.0 is centralisation—the most popular sites and services require you to register all your details and even pay upfront. A few companies control all of the services on the Internet, and major ISPs in the world have massive monopolies.

This centralisation of power leads to censorship, unfair advantages and almost no consultation from the end-users while implementing policies. Needless to say, it isn't an even playing field. A far cry from the decentralised wild west of Web 1.0. This is not in the spirit of the World Wide Web, which was gifted to the people for free. Web 3.0 is supposed to rectify this.

Web 3.0

Web 3.0 is all about decentralisation and moving the power on the Internet back into the hands of the public. John Markoff coined the term Web 3.0 in the New York Times in 2006. Like Web 2.0, the exact start date of Web 3.0 is not clear, and it can be considered a work in progress.

Web 3.0 is at its core smart technology and is not controlled by any individual corporation. Instead, the power of the Web lies with the end-users. An excellent example of this is Blockchain technology.

In a blockchain, rather than the information being stored in a central location, it uses publicly distributed and verifiable ledger tech to store data. This makes it harder to shut down, ban or censor. The verifiable ledgers were popularised in 2008 with the invention of Bitcoin, and it is the basis of many other popular cryptocurrencies as well.

Though initially made for digital currency, blockchains are now also used for decentralised database systems as well as records management. The interesting thing here is all of this information is not stored on one central server. Instead, it is stored on multiple computer peers. This makes it almost impossible to collapse a blockchain network. NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), Ethereum, Bitcoin and Cardano are great examples of Blockchain technology in use.

Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO)

You might have heard the term DAO being thrown about when talking about Web 3.0. Decentralised Autonomous Organisations are the future of companies in the 3.0 world. They are venture capital funds built on the concept of open source and don't have the typical board of directors and CEO structure. Instead, owners of the DAO tokens can decide the company's direction by voting. DAOs are not affiliated with any country and are not governed by any rules. This makes DAOs a lot more stable and invulnerable to manipulation. Several DAOs are currently operational, including Gitcoin, Dash, Aragon and MakerDAO. These fund projects that contribute towards the decentralised goals of Web 3.0.

Digital identities

A significant change in Web 3.0 will be how our data is handled. Currently, organisations like Google, Facebook and Microsoft collect our personal details to offer "free" services. They, in turn, mine our data which is then used to sell us things. These identities are usually based on our real-world identity and can cause all sorts of problems when leaked. With Web 3.0, users will have complete control of their online personas. They can delete, modify and have multiple personalities using blockchain-based ID systems. Since these IDs aren't stored on a central server and are encrypted and shared on multiple computers, they are harder to disrupt and manipulate.

Ubiquitous and smart

Web 3.0 will connect to everything and everyone around us. Our phones, lights, and appliances will all be connected, forming an Internet of things. The Internet will also recognise patterns and predict things that need to be done using artificial intelligence and data points. Online metaverses will be places where people can live out their digital lives and socialise with friends.

While all of this sound interesting, the complete implementation of a Web 3.0 and the entirety of its scope are still evolving. Though decentralised and equitable access is the main theme for Web 3.0, most of us will still be connected to Web 2.0 systems for a long time.

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