Web 3.0 is a possible future version of the internet based on public blockchains, a record-keeping system best known for facilitating cryptocurrency transactions. The attractiveness of Web 3.0 is that it is decentralized, meaning that rather than consumers accessing the internet through services mediated by companies like Google, Apple or Facebook, individuals, themselves, own and govern sections of the internet.
In this post, we'll go through how the web has evolved, why everyone is talking about the evolution of the web, what is Web 3.0 in crypto and the benefits will be taken from Web 3.
The Evolution of the Web
The World Wide Web is the major tool used by billions of people to exchange, read and write information and communicate with others over the internet. The web has changed dramatically over the years, and its current applications are nearly unrecognizable from its early days. The web's evolution is frequently divided into three stages: Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0.
What is Web 1.0?
To understand what Web 3 is, we first have to understand the previous versions of the Internet.
The first phase of the Internet and can be characterized by the way users initially interacted with the web. Most users, during the first iteration of the web, were passive consumers of content. In other words, Web 1.0 was about reading and not writing. It was static instead of dynamic. This changed with Web 2.0.
What is Web 2.0?
The next major phase of the Internet was all about interactivity and users.
In this phase, users created most of the content on platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter. This Internet was more social and collaborative, but that usually came at a price. The downside of this more participatory Internet was that by creating content, users were also providing personal information and data to the companies that controlled these platforms.
What is Web 3.0?
Web 3 is the next step of the Internet. It is currently still being built, so there is no single, established definition yet of what Web 3 is or will be.
Web 3.0, also known as Semantic Web or read-write-execute, is the era (from 2010 onwards) that alludes to the web's future. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) enable computers to analyze data in the same way that humans do, which aids in the intelligent generation and distribution of valuable content according to a user's specific needs.
In general, however, Web 3 refers to an Internet that is made possible by decentralized networks, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. The key innovation of these networks is the creation of platforms that no single entity controls, yet everyone can still trust. That’s because every user and operator of these networks must follow the same set of hard-coded rules, known as consensus protocols.
The secondary innovation is that these networks allow value or money to be transferred between accounts. These two things—decentralization and Internet money—are the keys to understanding Web 3.
Web 2.0 vs. Web 3.0
There are a few key distinctions between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0, but decentralization is at the heart of both. Web 3.0 developers rarely create and deploy apps that run on a single server or store data in a single database (usually hosted on and managed by a single cloud provider).
Let’s take a look at the table below to compare Web 2.0 and Web 3.0.
What is Web 3.0 in Crypto?
When it comes to Web 3.0, you'll find that cryptocurrency is frequently mentioned. This is because many of the Web 3.0 protocols rely heavily on cryptocurrencies. Instead, it offers a monetary incentive (tokens) to anyone who wishes to help create, govern, contribute to or improve one of the projects. Web 3.0 tokens are digital assets that are associated with the vision of creating a decentralized Internet. These protocols may provide various services, such as computation, bandwidth, storage, identification, hosting and other online services formerly provided by cloud providers.
For instance, the Livepeer protocol, which is based on Ethereum, provides a marketplace for video infrastructure providers and streaming applications. People can earn a living by taking part in the protocol in various ways, both technical and non-technical. Consumers of the service typically pay to use the protocol, much like they would pay a cloud provider such as Amazon Web Services. Like many forms of decentralization, needless and frequently wasteful intermediaries are eliminated.
Furthermore, Web 3.0 will rely heavily on nonfungible tokens (NFTs), digital currencies and other blockchain entities. Reddit, for example, is attempting to make Web 3.0 inroads by devising a mechanism to employ cryptocurrency tokens to allow users to essentially control pieces of the on-site communities in which they participate. The concept is that users would use "community points," which they would earn by posting on a specific subreddit. The user then makes points based on how many users upvote or downvote a particular post. (It's simply a blockchain version of Reddit Karma.)
Those points can essentially be used as voting shares, allowing users who have made significant contributions to have a greater say in choices that affect the community. Because those points are stored on blockchain, their owners have more control over them; they can't be simply taken away, and they track you. To be fair, this is just one use, a corporate version of a Web 3.0 idea known as Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), which use tokens to distribute ownership and decision-making authority more evenly.
What are the Advantages of Web 3.0 over its predecessors?
Because intermediaries are no longer involved in Web 3.0, user data will no longer be controlled. This minimizes the likelihood of government or corporate censorship, as well as the effectiveness of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.
More extensive datasets supply algorithms with more information to evaluate as more products become connected to the internet. This will allow them to deliver more accurate information that is tailored to the individual user's demands.
Before Web 3.0, finding the most refined result on search engines was a difficult task. They have, however, improved their ability to discover semantically relevant results based on search context and information over time. As a result, web browsing becomes more convenient, allowing everyone to get the specific information they require with relative ease.
Customer service is critical for a positive user experience on websites and web applications. However, many successful web firms are unable to scale their customer support operations due to the high expenses. Users can have a better experience engaging with support personnel by using intelligent chatbots that can talk to several consumers simultaneously, which is possible due to Web 3.0.
The Future
The future of the web is about increasing usage, usability, and scalability. For the vision of Web 3 to become reality, a lot more people are going to have to start using Web 3 dapps. This not only means more dapps, but also dapps that are easier to use and more appealing to non-technical users.
Finally, with Ethereum, the largest and most-popular smart-contract platform, regularly at near full capacity, Web 3 networks will need to scale up and be able to quickly handle millions of transactions if they ever want to compete with their Web 2 counterparts.
