With blockchain technology, we see a future where the power lies in the hands of the people, where people create, use and most important own their content. It’s the internet where everyone can participate without being monetized from their personal data, the real internet democracy. It’s also known as web version 3 or Web3.

Let’s go in some more detail to understand how the web evolved.

The Evolution of Web

Since the birth of World Wide Web in 1989, it has evolved a lot to reach what it is today. As of now, It can be broadly classified into 3 stages i.e. Web1.0, Web2.0 and Web3.0. Let’s discuss more about these 3 stages.

Web 1.0 - Read-only static web (1989 to 2004)

Web1.0 refers to the first stage in the evolution of the world wide web. It all started when a British scientist working at CERN, Tim Berners-Lee, hosted a read-only static website on the internet. After that we saw a lot of such static websites with little to no interaction over the years. It was like a one-way route where all the information was being served from a static file system rather than a database and navigating through the wide range of content was nearly impossible.

Web 2.0 - Read write dynamic web (2004 to Present)

You can think of Web2 as the interactive and social web. Starting around 2004, we saw a major increase in user participation and social media sites like MySpace, Facebook, Youtube etc became the norm, thanks to the advancement in web technologies like HTML5, CSS3 and JS.

Web2 enabled more and more people in the world to become creators. Because of its scope and simplicity, people started sharing their creativity with the world and the amount of User Generated Content production and consumption increased insanely over the years providing people new monetization opportunities.

The content which the users create is on a particular platform (eg Youtube, Instagram, Twitter) are helping them to grow and monetize, however the content creators doesn’t own their content and they have to abide the platform’s terms & service which can change at any time. These platforms are not only low balling the creators on their platforms but also monetizing over their users’ personal data.

Creators are putting in so much effort making good quality content but for what? To make these handful companies richer and more powerful? This embarks the start of web3, a democratic internet.

Web 3.0 - Democratic Internet (2021 onwards)

With Blockchain technology, we can create an internet where the power will be given back to the people, where people will create, use & own their content and where people will have control over their data. It’s the internet with ownership, value and autonomy, The Democratic Internet.

Web3 seeks to empower users and to recapture the value that they create. These apps are built on decentralized peer-to-peer networks like IPFS and Ethereum instead of being run by a centralized organization. These web3 applications are built, used, maintained and owned by its users.

Lets learn more about some Web3 advantages and limitations/challenges.

Web3 Advantages

1. Trust / Privacy

In Web3, users will have control over how they want to use and share their information with various platforms unlike what has happened till now.

2. Ownership

Web3 allows users to own their content and allows people to participate without any organization defining its terms.

3. Transparency

The applications in Web3 are built from open-source software by an open and accessible community of developers and executed in full view of the world, completely transparent.

4. Security

Web3 applications are decentralized and don’t have a single point of failure making the app much more secure.

5. Permissionless

This signifies that anyone can participate without authorization from a governing body and anyone on the network has permission to use the service.

Web3 Limitations/Challenges

1. Accessibility

The blockchain technology is still advancing and has a lot more scope before it is accessible to everyone and replace Web2.

2. Cost

Putting code on the blockchain or interaction with the smart contract cost gas fees. Due to these costly operations, it’s not possible to use it blockchain as the database for everything.

3. Onboarding

Interacting with web3 applications requires extra steps and is a little complex than interacting with web2 applications. The web2 onboarding learning curve beats the web3 one by a decent amount.

Although Web3 has some limitations/challenges as of now but as the technology advances, I am sure these will also be worked upon making the use of web3 applications effortless.

Conclusion

I hope now you know much more about Web3 and what’s in store for the world in upcoming years. What we are witnessing right now, are the early days shaping the internet of tomorrow.

Further reading

1. The meaning of Decentralization by Vitalik Buterin

2. Why Decentralization Matters by Chris Dixon