How Blockchain Empowers the Web 3

The future is already here — it's not just fully decentralized yet

By Tatiana Revoredo

To understand how Blockchain enhances the Internet of the Future, it is necessary to know the different stages of Web evolution, what are the qualities of Web 3.0. In the end, this article shows Blockchain solutions designed to bring Web 3.0 to absolute decentralization.

The ubiquitous Internet

Today we often use the word "smart" to qualify devices that can connect to the Internet. It's cool to use smart refrigerators to gather your family data, remotely answer your doorbell visitor with the smart lock, and use your personal smart phone's assistant to search for the nearest restaurant of your current location.

However, It is not just an internet connection that makes a device "smart." The combination of service, reliability, and easiness of use is also required to make a better choice for consumers.

All of these interconnected things form a network, also known as the Omnipresence phenomenon, or simply, IoT — Internet of Things.

This device network is one of the most striking features of Web 3.0. We have not had this infrastructure yet, and not all devices are connected. Still, we are moving towards IoE — Internet of Everything. That is, for a world where anything and everything will be connected to the Internet.

That is why Web 3.0 will be the "Internet of the Future": it will be an "Omnipresent Internet."

Web vs. Internet

Many use the Web and the Internet as synonymous words. But can you tell them apart?

While the Internet is a network of networks - and TCP / IP standards define that network - the Web is a space of information.

The Web Evolution Stages

In the 1960s, shortly after the Cold War, came what they called ARPANET, the first version of the Internet.

In this first phase, with the initial purpose of serving US military objectives, basically, the Internet used to enable information sharing, with static, mostly corporate, online content delivery. One of its great achievements was the sending of the first email in 1969.

Also, during this period, IP (the Internet Protocol) and HTTP (the HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) were created. These enabled data traffic via radio, fiber optics, and satellites, with encrypted information sending and commercial transactions. And at this point, ...

The Web was created in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee

Web 1.0 refers to the first stage of the World Wide Web, which was entirely composed of hyperlinked web pages. While the exact definition of Web 1.0 is a source of debate, it is believed to refer to the Web as a collection of static sites that did not yet provide interactive content.

As everything evolves and nothing remains static, new tools have emerged and made the first generation of the Web, Web 1.0, more dynamic. With this, began Web 2.0.

Precisely where Web 1.0 ends and Web 2.0 begins cannot be determined as a change that has gradually happened over time as the Internet has become more interactive.

The social Web

Since 2004, Web 2.0 has been the term used to describe the social Web, where social networking sites feature prominently in users' online activities. The move to this Web, more interactive than Web 1.0, came as a result of technological changes that made the Internet — and the ability to develop content — more accessible. These changes include broadband Internet, better browsers, AJAX, and mass development of widgets.

Web 2.0 is then said to have been an evolution of the original Web (which we can compare to a library). Web 1.0 was primarily an information space where text pages were made available for people to read but not interact with. Web 2.0 has changed that by enabling user interaction with dynamic websites that act more like applications than only info pages.

And as everything evolves and nothing remains static, we are now entering the Web-Age 3.0, which is set to be the new paradigm in web interaction. And it will also mark a fundamental change in how developers create websites and especially how people interact with these sites.

Computer scientists and Internet experts believe that this new paradigm for Web 3.0 interaction will make people's lives more comfortable and more intuitive. Smarter applications will give users precisely what they are looking for by understanding context rather than merely comparing keywords, as it is currently done in Web 2.0.

But why is Web 3.0 a complete reinvention of the Web?

The prophecy of science fiction movies

For understanding Web 3.0, nothing beats an example.

In today's Web 2.0, users interact with sites that have "predetermined user input" behaviors. Users can search for information using various search engines that generally provide satisfactory results "if there is enough information about the search." However, this search is performed by keywords only. It brings up the most popular information available without understanding the context of the search.

Imagine that a user searches for a bug called "Camaro" and enters just one word on the search site. Well, about 90% of search results will surely list the "Chevy Camaro" car model, not "the Camaro bug." And this is because the car is the most popular search result.

In contrast, on Web 3.0, as the focus and basis for its operation is on the user, it will be able to provide more useful information about the Camaro insect. Results such as, "where and how it lives," and even "where to find it as a delicacy." 

You can compare Web 3.0 with an artificial intelligence wizard that understands your user and personalizes everything. It will be possible to compare its characteristics to those of science fiction movies.

There is no concrete definition for Web 3.0 yet, and the technology that will take us there has not yet matured. However, it is already possible to identify some of its features.

The Web 3.0 "Outline"

• The phenomenon of ubiquity
• The user as the reason for being
• Artificial intelligence
• P2P Network
• Semantic Web
• 3D graphics

The user as the reason for being

Web 3.0 is designed to be more user-centric, without centralized servers, with all data distributed across devices that people will access more freely and without supervision. That is quite interesting considering that people are creating more content than ever before, made available on the Internet without intermediaries.

People are merely "following" content and people they like, without any interference from media channels or corporate content creators.

Artificial Intelligence

On the other hand, artificial intelligence will be a powerful tool for providing the best analytics and the best results to people over the Internet. Artificial intelligence will be able, for example, to identify your taste in music and suggest the best options for your repertoire after analyzing your behavior using Spotify. Because everything is intertwined in Web 3.0, rather than traditional mass marketing techniques, the new marketing strategy will look to the person as to its foundation.

Peer-to-peer Network

Another feature of Web 3.0 is that it focuses on a Peer-to-Peer Network. A peer-to-peer (P2P) network is a group of computers, each acting as a node for sharing files within the group. Instead of having a central server to act as a shared drive, each computer acts as the server for the data stored on it.

When a P2P network is established over the Internet, a central server may be used to index files. Or a distributed network may be established where file-sharing is divided among all users on the net who are storing particular data. 

When P2P networks are established over the Internet, network size and available files allow substantial amounts of data to be shared. Older P2P networks, like Napster, used client software and a central server. Later, networks like Kazaa and BitTorrent eliminated the central server and split sharing tasks among multiple nodes to free up bandwidth.

So, as Web 3.0 is moving towards a P2P Network, we will reduce the need for an intermediate word in the world of Web 3.0. That is, we will no longer depend on the gigantic data servers, controlled by a private company. Our personal data will be more secure.

Web 3 is known as "the Semantic Web."

Just as Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 are referred to as "Simple Web" and "Social Web," Web 3.0 is known as the Semantic Web.

The Semantic Web is a data web. There are many data that we all use every day and are not on the Web. For example, I can see my bank statements on the Web and my photos, and I can see my appointments on a calendar. But can I see my pictures on a schedule to see what I was doing when I took them? Can I see bank statement lines on a calendar? Why not?

That is because we don't have a data network. Because applications control data, and each application keeps it to itself.

The goal of the Semantic Web is, therefore, to extend the Web principles from document to data. Data should relate to each other as well as documents, allowing Web 3.0 to extract its content from human behavior.

3D Graphics

Web 3 will have lots of 3D graphics.

What is it like today?

After 30 years of revolution in the Internet data structure, we still run on a client-server protocol. The Internet architecture has not changed much, and we are always looking for a genuinely open and free Internet.

One of the most significant flaws of Web 2.0 and Web 1.0 is the client/server-based architecture.

That is, all our personal data on the Internet is stored on a computer with huge storage capacity. All data we transact on the Web is under the domain of countries or private companies.

Now, this poses a severe threat to our privacy, as evidenced by the recent data leak on the world's largest social network. It is well established that Internet giants monitor our lives in many ways.

With the evolution of the Internet, narrated in previous topics, we can finally deploy the changes necessary to achieve a genuinely decentralized World Wide Web.

In Web 3.0, no one would have authority over our data, as it would not be stored on a central server, but distributed across the network without interference from traditional intermediaries.

The future is already here — it's just not evenly distributed yet.[2]

Today, there are technologies already available that can make this happen, such as Blockchain architectures [3].

Decentralized domain name systems such as BNS (used by Blockstack), Namecoin, ENS (used by Ethereum), and others are now available.

They often use blockchains to build a fully decentralized DNS-like global system; no business can censor a website or take ownership of a domain.

Decentralized storage systems - such as Gaia (used by Blockstack), Swarm (used by Ethereum), IPFS, Storj, and others - distribute data across many even nodes and eliminate dependency on any company to serve content.

Some systems, such as Gaia, redirect existing cloud storage providers and may offer performance comparable to existing services.

Applied encryption has been around for many years and forms the basis for many secure and decentralized systems. Blockchains have revived interest in encryption, making it easier to use, with user-friendly interfaces for managing private keys and better-designed software.

Although P2P connections exist since 1990 and have gained some popularity with the emergence of sharing programs (Tor Browser, BitTorrent), the blockchain structures took such connections to a new level. Only now can we advance and decentralize the entire data structure of the current centralized system [4]

Furthermore, new Blockchain supported browsers like Brave, Blockstack browser, Mist, and others are now available and support blockchains in many ways. Brave allows Blockchain-based payments. The Blockstack browser connects to a new decentralized Internet.

That is the true beauty of blockchain architecture and its importance: contributing to the building of Web 3.0. A new internet, decentralized, secure, and concerned with data protection.

Finally, it is worth remembering that Web3 is still in its maturation stage [5]. It is, however, redesigning the Internet infrastructure (changing the client-server attribute) to empower human beings again.

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Footnotes:

[1] W3C's mission is to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure the long-term growth of the Web.

[2] William Gibson (1993) Although it is not the only one behind this, it is not yet ideal for storing large amounts of data due to problems such as scalability.

[3] Tatiana Revoredo (2019). Blockchain: Tudo o que você precisa saber. Amazon.

[4] Even if the future is more decentralized, this does not mean that we will completely forget about the centralized system. The centralized system also has advantages, and in some situations, we can still use them in favor of people.

[5] Initially, the transition would be to create a partially decentralized network and then convert fully to decentralization. Nevertheless, we should also consider the fact that even though the decentralized network is safer, it is much slower than before.