What happened to the World Wide Web?
The World Wide Web is the major tool that billions of people use to exchange, read, and write information and communicate with one another over the internet. Since its inception, the World Wide Web has achieved significant progress through various phases, which can be divided into three categories: Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and Web 3.0.
First there was Web 1.0
Web 1.0, often known as read-only web or Syntactic web, was the first stage of the World Wide Web revolution, during period 1989 to 2005.
The websites were just informative and featured only static content; they were only connected together by hyperlinks and did not contain any interactive content or design features. The user was limited to only viewing information provided by content creators and there was no way for a user or a customer to send information back to the content producers (reviews, comments, and feedback).
Then there was Web 2.0
Web 2.0 was the second phase of the web’s evolution, also known as the Social Web or the read-write web, and it was the period (2005 to present) when websites became more interactive with users. Websites began to place a greater emphasis on user-generated content, usability, and interoperability for end-users, resulting in the emergence of the interactive social web.
Every user can be a content creator, and content is distributed and shared between websites.
Web 2.0’s rapid expansion has been fueled by important breakthroughs such as mobile internet access and social networking sites, which then led to the dominance of apps that greatly expanded online interactivity and utility.
Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are examples of this phase, as they allowed users to build their own accounts, share content, and connect with one another on a bigger scale. YouTube allowed users to generate their own video material, blogging allowed the typical internet user to become a home journalist, and Wikipedia allowed the internet community to create the world’s most comprehensive encyclopedia.
What are the benefits and limitations of Web 2.0?
If Web 1.0 revolutionized the way people access information, Web 2.0 revolutionized the way people interact with their surroundings.
The advantages are obvious and significant, but Web 2.0 has a number of limitations that developers have exploited, resulting in Web 3.0, which characterizes the current evolutionary stage of the web.
Web 2.0 Benefits:
- Cost effective: Web 2.0 tools are inexpensive, easy to maintain, and have less downtime, resulting in lower expenses.
- Reach a wider audience: user-generated content to be viewed by millions of people around the world virtually in an instant
- Share information easily: Web 2.0 tools provide networking and communication capabilities, enable users to share content, documents and a variety of information
- Improve communication and collaboration: Web 2.0 tools provide networking and communication capabilities as they are available 24/7, are easy access and user friendly
Web 2.0 Limitations:
- Data Centralization and Censorship: with Web 2.0, users were encouraged to provide content, rather than just viewing it. They can publish articles, videos, and images, as well as comment, react, and interact with a range of material. People can create accounts and profiles on different sites to share thoughts, perspectives, and opinions. To be able to do all of the above, however, the user must have access to numerous platforms owned by huge corporations where the user can use their services by sharing their data. Consequently, as more people began to utilize the internet, centralized platforms like Facebook and Google saw their user bases grow tremendously. This meant that billions of users’ data was concentrated and dependent on only a few tech companies around the world. This centralization leads to various concerns:
- Deplatforming: remove people from their platform
- Demonetization: remove the ability to monetize an individual’s online content
- Commissions: change fee structures and commissions
- Application Changes: change the layout of their applications without the approval of the communities that use them
- Algorithmic: use algorithms to manipulate the users view content for marketing, advertising or other purposes
2. Security: With the high growth of data, networks gained the responsibility for storing data which can cause access issues and concerns about the security.
- Data Bridges: The user is handing over the control of personal confidential information to a third party company, which they may have security flaws in their infrastructure that allow others to gain access to their information or leaked private data.
- Downtime: If the storage provider’s servers collapse or go down for maintenance, the data will be inaccessible.
The above issues have mainly exploited for the main concepts behind Web 3.0.
What is Web 3.0?
In this evolution of web utilization, the next version of the internet, Web 3.0, is bringing in a completely new method of people to interact with the internet by building a new infrastructure that focuses on decentralization and user ownership. It can be also called ‘executable web’, ‘read-write-execute’ web or ‘Semantic Web’.
Unlike the present Web 2.0 era, when centralized entities, such as huge tech companies, own and maintain platforms and apps, Web 3.0 platforms and applications will be developed, owned, and maintained by users.
Users, rather than simply using tech platforms to exchange data, become owners in this decentralized form of the internet.
It aims to create a decentralized internet comprised of open, linked, and intelligent websites and web applications.
How will achieve this?
Blockchain is a key technology behind Web 3.0, along with machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI). A blockchain acts as a database, storing information in a digital format across an entire network of computer systems which cannot be alter, hacked or deleted.
Blockchain technology has the following features:
- Programmable: all rules are written into lined of code, for example, smart contracts
- Distributed: all network participants have a copy of the ledger for a complete transparency
- Immutable: any validated records are irreversible and cannot be changed
- Time-stamped: a transaction timestamp is recorded on a block
- Unanimous: all network participants agree to the validity of each of the records
- Anonymous: the identity of participants is either anonymous or pseudonymous
- Secure: all records are individually encrypted
The diagram below shows how a blockchain works to gain a better understanding of its features:
The following key principles are provided by Web 3.0, as it embraces blockchain technology. Thus, Web 3.0 can be:
Decentralized: instead of centralized companies controlling and owning significant areas of the internet, ownership is divided among its creators and users.
Transparent: transactions can be audited, decisions can be made in public, and data cannot be manipulated.
Permissionless: everyone has the same opportunity to participate, and no one is excluded.
Trustless: instead than relying on trusted third parties, it runs via incentives and economic mechanisms.
The internet is currently dominated by organizations and their data and ideas. Personal data is commercialized, and public opinion is easily manipulated — and these has led to the concerns for Web 2.0 which have been discussed before.
Web 3.0 will address these challenges by returning content rights to creators, enhancing online security, decentralizing monopolies, and establishing a new, more transparent digital economy which will lead to the below benefits.
What are the benefits of Web 3.0?
Data Ownership
Users will be able to own and trade their data assets without the need for intermediaries, who often dictate their own rules and may charge fees for transactions. Thus, users will be in possession of a digital wallet. All of the data that the wallet account generates will be considered an asset in that wallet. Through blockchain, the wallet account can transfer assets to another account without the need for an intermediary.
Example: For example, a user is playing a Web 2.0 game. If the player buys an in-game item, e.g. a weapon, then that item it is linked to the player’s account. If the game creators delete that account or if the player decides to stop playing the game, then they will lose all the in-game items and their value.
However, with Web 3.0 and blockchain technology, the in-game item will be consider as an asset in the user’s wallet which they will be the only legitimate owner. Automatically, the owner has has the ownership to sell or trade the in-game item. No one, including the game designer’s or creator, has the authority to take that ownership away.
Security and privacy
In comparison to Web 2.0, Web 3.0 will be more safe and private. Hackers and cybercriminals will have a harder time breaking into the internet and launching sophisticated scams. Without centralization, criminal hackers will find it impossible to totally control the organization, because each transaction on the blockchain must be agreed upon in advance.
However, as the blockchain technology is still on early stages, blockchain platforms may be vulnerable to attacks such as 51 percent attacks or users can be easily scammed.
Censorship
In Web 2.0, content providers must trust platforms not to change the rules. With Web 3.0, a decentralized database records everything in an immutable and transparent manner, preventing moderators from deleting content, manipulate data or ban users. This is mainly because, the information is stored on the blockchain. If the user leaves the platform, they can take their reputation with them, plugging it into another interface that more clearly aligns with their principles.
Example: In August 2021, OnlyFans (user-generated adult content platform), announced plans to ban sexually explicit content. Creators on the network were outraged by the announcement, believing they were being robbed of an income on a platform they helped build. The decision was swiftly reversed after the reaction, but it highlights a major problem within Web 2.0.
Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs)
DAOs are internet-native organizations collectively owned and managed by their members. They do not have central leadership and the decisions are made by a community which follows specific set of rules which are enforced on the blockchain. Users who have tokens (that act like shares in a company) are part of the decision making and they can vote on subjects such as how resources get spent or what changes need to be done on the project which can influence its future.
However, DAOs are still in a very prelaminated stage and its usage its still to be explored and proven.
What are the risks of Web 3.0?
Web 3.0 comes also with risks and concerns:
- Web 3.0 will be inaccessible to devices with less advanced capabilities.
- It might be extremely difficult for beginners to comprehend.
- Current technology has a far higher carbon footprint than its predecessors, hence it must be made more environmentally friendly.
- Web 3.0 will be difficult to be regulated
- Existing websites will need to modernize
- It is easier to obtain information about a user’s public and private life
- Web 3.0 will require better processors and devices will need above-average specifications to handle the next version of the internet
Conclusion
Web 3.0 has a lot of potential despite the fact that it seems too idealistic to put into practice for every day users. Web 3.0 it is still in infancy stage as a young and evolving technology. In recent years, there has been a lot of advancement, with improvements, vast experiments, and a lot of interest and excitement.
This new era of internet is still at the beginning of creating a better web and as it continues to improve the infrastructure, the future is yet to be seen.
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