Deserts teach people patience. In the digital desert of Web1, people quietly read pages and closed them, drifting alone as they wandered from link to link. This solitude sparked a new question: What about us? What can we do together?

The early 2000s marked a turning point, the beginning of the internet’s second spring. Technology had advanced, connections were faster and the first wave of users wanted more. They no longer wanted to just read in a browser; they wanted to talk, argue and create. This demand unlocked the door to what we now call Web2. The internet would no longer be just a bulletin board but an interactive network.

Web 2.0: The “Read and Write” Revolution

The term “Web 2.0,” popularized by Tim O’Reilly, was more than just a software version, it was a paradigm shift. While Web1 was an era when you could “only read” Web2 would be a time when you could “both read and write” People would no longer be just spectators, they would become content creators, thought leaders, commenters, connectors. So, what happened next?

Early content platforms like Blogger and WordPress led this revolution. Then came forums, photo-sharing sites like Flickr and at the very center of this story, the social media giant: Facebook. What Mark Zuckerberg started in his college dorm quickly evolved into a global social organism within a few years.

Between 2004 and 2010, the rise of giants like YouTube, Twitter, Reddit and Instagram changed the internet forever. Everyone became a creator, a distributor, a commentator. User behaviors and algorithms together created a new currency for the information economy: Attention.

The Social Graph: A New Economy

Web2 was not just about technology, it was a psychological revolution. Human relationships moved online. Families reconnected on Facebook, protests were organized on Twitter, new-generation artists were born on YouTube. Each new like, comment and share flowed into massive data pools, where algorithms turned raw data into advertising revenue behind the scenes.

As giants like Google and Facebook refined their ad models, even people’s eye movements became a product to be sold. Data became the new oil. The era of “You’re not product” was over. Now, we were all the product (our personal data, our preferences, our social connections) and most of us didn’t mind.

Social media discovered the weakest spot in human psychology: the need for validation. This need kept the engagement wheel spinning endlessly. Post, like, comment, retweet - every action meant more content, more ads, more money.

The Rising Wave: User-Generated Economy

In this era, “user-generated content” was no longer just a technical term, it described a billion-dollar industry. From Wikipedia to TripAdvisor, knowledge became collective. Early social networks like MySpace and Friendster evolved into giants like Facebook and Twitter. These networks turned into living organisms that streamed everything from global events to personal dramas in real-time.

But there was a catch: users created content and left data, platforms made fortunes and what did users get? Likes, follower counts, maybe a bit of fame. Money? Platforms never outright said: “Dream on!” but they acted like it.

The First Crack: Shadow of Social Media

The social age of Web2 wasn’t just cheerful posts and viral videos. By the mid-2010s, fake news, bot networks, election manipulation and data breaches exposed the darker side of social media. The Cambridge Analytica scandal became a turning point: a single liked dog video on Facebook could be used to predict your political leaning.

People willingly gave platforms their lives and, in return, traded away their privacy. Social media turned into a new form of social control.

The Result: Creating Together = Being Sold Together?

Web2 rescued people from digital loneliness and turned them into parts of a vast collective that creates content, connects and builds communities. But this collective was run as a data mine controlled by giant platforms.

The second part of InfoFi tells the story of this era: how it brought people together and built a new digital economy. But like every social revolution, this one wasn’t free. Now, we turn our eyes to the darker layers: data hunger, the sale of privacy and digital sins. In the third chapter, we begin: “Adam Ate the Apple on Web!”

See you again next Sunday.

Deserts teach people patience. In the digital desert of Web1, people quietly read pages and closed them, drifting alone as they wandered from link to link. This solitude sparked a new question: What about us? What can we do together?

The early 2000s marked a turning point, the beginning of the internet’s second spring. Technology had advanced, connections were faster and the first wave of users wanted more. They no longer wanted to just read in a browser; they wanted to talk, argue and create. This demand unlocked the door to what we now call Web2. The internet would no longer be just a bulletin board but an interactive network.

Web 2.0: The “Read and Write” Revolution

The term “Web 2.0,” popularized by Tim O’Reilly, was more than just a software version, it was a paradigm shift. While Web1 was an era when you could “only read” Web2 would be a time when you could “both read and write” People would no longer be just spectators, they would become content creators, thought leaders, commenters, connectors. So, what happened next?

Early content platforms like Blogger and WordPress led this revolution. Then came forums, photo-sharing sites like Flickr and at the very center of this story, the social media giant: Facebook. What Mark Zuckerberg started in his college dorm quickly evolved into a global social organism within a few years.

Between 2004 and 2010, the rise of giants like YouTube, Twitter, Reddit and Instagram changed the internet forever. Everyone became a creator, a distributor, a commentator. User behaviors and algorithms together created a new currency for the information economy: Attention.

The Social Graph: A New Economy

Web2 was not just about technology, it was a psychological revolution. Human relationships moved online. Families reconnected on Facebook, protests were organized on Twitter, new-generation artists were born on YouTube. Each new like, comment and share flowed into massive data pools, where algorithms turned raw data into advertising revenue behind the scenes.

As giants like Google and Facebook refined their ad models, even people’s eye movements became a product to be sold. Data became the new oil. The era of “You’re not product” was over. Now, we were all the product (our personal data, our preferences, our social connections) and most of us didn’t mind.

Social media discovered the weakest spot in human psychology: the need for validation. This need kept the engagement wheel spinning endlessly. Post, like, comment, retweet - every action meant more content, more ads, more money.

The Rising Wave: User-Generated Economy

In this era, “user-generated content” was no longer just a technical term, it described a billion-dollar industry. From Wikipedia to TripAdvisor, knowledge became collective. Early social networks like MySpace and Friendster evolved into giants like Facebook and Twitter. These networks turned into living organisms that streamed everything from global events to personal dramas in real-time.

But there was a catch: users created content and left data, platforms made fortunes and what did users get? Likes, follower counts, maybe a bit of fame. Money? Platforms never outright said: “Dream on!” but they acted like it.

The First Crack: Shadow of Social Media

The social age of Web2 wasn’t just cheerful posts and viral videos. By the mid-2010s, fake news, bot networks, election manipulation and data breaches exposed the darker side of social media. The Cambridge Analytica scandal became a turning point: a single liked dog video on Facebook could be used to predict your political leaning.

People willingly gave platforms their lives and, in return, traded away their privacy. Social media turned into a new form of social control.

The Result: Creating Together = Being Sold Together?

Web2 rescued people from digital loneliness and turned them into parts of a vast collective that creates content, connects and builds communities. But this collective was run as a data mine controlled by giant platforms.

The second part of InfoFi tells the story of this era: how it brought people together and built a new digital economy. But like every social revolution, this one wasn’t free. Now, we turn our eyes to the darker layers: data hunger, the sale of privacy and digital sins. In the third chapter, we begin: “Adam Ate the Apple on Web!”

See you again next Sunday.