Economics of Modern Web Commerce 3.0

Introduction

Modern Web commerce is derived from two major tech trends, NFTs and blockchain technologies which are the foundation blocks of Web 3.

Structure

●?????NFT's

●?????Blockchain

Objective

After reading this article, you will understand the modern economics of Web3 and Blockchain-based business transformation across all industries with the industry 4.0 revolution.

?WHAT IS AN NFT? WHAT DOES NFT STAND FOR?

Non-fungible token.

"Non-fungible" means that it's unique and can't be replaced with something else. For example, a bitcoin is fungible — trade one for another bitcoin, and you'll have the same thing. A one-of-a-kind trading card, however, is non-fungible. If you traded it for a different card, you'd have something completely different.

?How do NFTs work?

Most NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain at a very high level. Ethereum is a cryptocurrency, like bitcoin or dogecoin, but its blockchain also supports these NFTs, storing extra information that makes them work differently from an ETH coin. It is worth noting that other blockchains can implement their versions of NFTs.

What's worth picking up at the NFT supermarket?

NFTs can be anything digital (such as drawings, music, your brain downloaded and turned into an AI), but a lot of the current excitement is around using the tech to sell digital art.

You mean, like, people buying my good tweets?

I don't think anyone can stop you, but that's not what I meant. Much of the conversation is about NFTs as?an evolution of fine art collecting, only with digital art.

Do people think this will become like art collecting?

But NFTs are designed to give you something that can't be copied: ownership of the work (though the artist can still retain the copyright and reproduction rights, just like physical artwork). In terms of physical art collecting: anyone can buy a Monet print. But only one person can own the original.

WHAT IS AN WEB 3.0??WHAT DOES NFT STAND FOR?

Web 3.0 refers to successive iterations of the Web, compared with the original Web 1.0 of the 1990s and early 2000s. Web 2.0 is the current version of the internet (a term often used interchangeably with the Web) with which we are all familiar. In contrast, Web 3.0 represents its next phase.

The Web refers to the World Wide Web (WWW), the internet's core information retrieval system. The WWW initialism used to (and often still does) preface a web address. It was one of the first characters typed into a web browser when searching for a specific resource online. Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee is credited with coining the term World Wide Web to refer to the global Web of information and resources interconnected through hypertext links.

?KEY TAKEAWAYS

Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 represent successive, advanced iterations of the original Web 1.0 of the 1990s and early 2000s. Web 2.0 is the current Web version with which we are all familiar. In contrast, Web 3.0 represents its next phase, which will be decentralized, open, and more excellent utility.

Innovations such as smartphones, mobile internet access, and social networks have driven the exponential growth of Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 has disrupted sectors that fail to integrate the new web-based business model.

Web 3.0 includes decentralization, trustlessness and permission lessness, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, and connectivity and ubiquity.

Web 1.0

Berners-Lee pioneered the internet's early development in 1990 when he was a computer scientist at European researcher CERN.2?By October 1990, Berners-Lee had written the three fundamental technologies that became the foundation of the Web, including the very first webpage editor/browser (WorldWideWeb.app):

Economics of Modern Web Commerce: Hypertext Markup Language, the markup or formatting language of the Web

URI or URL: Uniform Resource Identifier or Locator, a unique address used to identify each resource on the Web

HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol, which allows for the retrieval of linked resources from across the web3

By the mid-1990s, the introduction of web browsers such as?Economics of Modern Web Commerce?Navigator ushered in the era of Web 1.0. This was the age of static webpages retrieved from servers, a far cry from the slick content that today takes for granted. Most internet users at that time were delighted by the novelty of features such as email and real-time news retrieval. Content creation was still in its infancy. Users had little opportunity for interactive applications, although this improved as online banking and trading became increasingly popular.

Web 2.0

Economics of Modern Web Commerce, The Economics of Modern Web Commerce?refers to a paradigm shift in using the internet. Over the past 15 to 20 years, the bland webpages of Web 1.0 have been entirely replaced by Web 2.0's interactivity, social connectivity, and user-generated content. Web 2.0 makes it possible for user-generated content to be viewed by millions of people worldwide virtually instantly; this unparalleled reach has led to an explosion of this type of content in recent years.

The exponential growth of Web 2.0 has been driven by crucial innovations such as mobile internet access and social networks and the near-ubiquity of powerful mobile devices like iPhones and Android-powered devices. In the second decade of this millennium, these developments enabled the dominance of apps that greatly expanded online interactivity and utility—for example,?Airbnb,?Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,?Twitter,?Uber, WhatsApp, and YouTube, to name a few.

The phenomenal revenue growth of these dominant platforms has made many of the Web 2.0-centric companies—such as?Apple,?Amazon,?Google, Meta (formerly Facebook), and?Netflix—among the world's biggest companies by?capitalization.

These applications have also spurred the gig economy's growth by enabling millions of people to earn income on a part-time or full-time basis by driving, renting their homes, delivering food and groceries, or selling goods and services online. Web 2.0 has also been tremendously disruptive to specific industries to is an existential threat to some. These sectors have either failed to adapt to the new web-centric business model or been slow to do so, with retail, entertainment, media, and advertising among the hardest hit.

2004

This year witnessed two notable developments that accelerated the development and adoption of Web 2.0: Google's?initial public offering (IPO)?and the creation of Facebook (now Meta).45?Both companies are part of the FAANG group, consisting of the biggest U.S. technology giants.

Web 3.0

Web 3.0 represents the next iteration or phase of the evolution of the web/internet and potentially could be as disruptive and represent as significant a paradigm shift as Web 2.0 did. Web 3.0 is built upon the core concepts of decentralization, openness, and more excellent user utility.

Berners-Lee had expounded upon some of these critical concepts back in the 1990s, as outlined below:

Decentralization: "No permission is needed from a central authority to post anything on the Web. There is no central controlling node, so there is no single point of failure...and no 'kill switch! This also implies freedom from indiscriminate censorship and surveillance."

Bottom-up design: "Instead of code being written and controlled by a small group of experts, it was developed in full view of everyone, encouraging maximum participation and experimentation." 3

In a 2001 paper, Berners-Lee discussed what he referred to as the?Semantic Web.6?Computers have no reliable way to process the semantics of the language (i.e., figure out the actual context in which a word or phrase is used). Berners-Lee's vision for the Semantic Web was to bring structure to the meaningful content of webpages and enable software that would carry out sophisticated tasks for users.

Web 3.0 has moved well beyond the original concept of the Semantic Web as conceptualized by Berners-Lee in 2001, With all its subtle nuances and variations—into a format that computers can readily understand. Web 2.0 has already evolved substantially over the past two decades.

Defining Features of Web 3.0

Though there is yet no standardized definition of Web 3.0, it does have a few defining features:

Decentralization: This is a core tenet of Web 3.0. In Web 2.0, computers use HTTP in unique web addresses to find information stored at a fixed location, generally on a single server. With Web 3.0, because the information would be found based on its content, it could be stored in multiple locations simultaneously and decentralized. This would break down the massive databases currently held by internet giants like Meta and Google and give users greater control.

With Web 3.0, the data generated by disparate and increasingly powerful computing resources, including mobile phones, desktops, appliances, vehicles, and sensors, will be sold through decentralized data networks, ensuring that users retain ownership control.

Conclusion

Collectively with Web 3, business transactions will be disruptive with public and private blockchain networks that are very hard to trace.