Web 3.0 & its Nexus with the Predecessors.

Over the past couple of months, after various discussions around #Web3 , I decided to do a short draw up of my understanding of it and its nexus with the predecessors Web 1.0 & Web 2.0

#Web1.0 1990 - 2005, The advent of the Internet.

Start of the internet saw it being dominated by open protocol. Everyone could use it & no one controlled it. If you were an Entrepreneur/content creator wanting to build a platform and get yourself out there, you’d have to shell out some cash and?

-get a web-hosting provider,?

-buy a domain name,?

-deal with coding and all the tech stuff.?

Cumbersome as it may sound, the consolation prize however was the liberty this gave to the entrepreneurs that it was something they Owned and Trusted (key selling points, borrowed by Web3.0, but we’ll come to that in a bit). This new found freedom led to a sea of Innovation & Creativity. To the point that some might even agree that it was the golden-age of innovation.

Key beneficiaries were Microsoft, Netscape & Google which laid the stones for the internet as we see it today.

#Web2.0 2005 - present,

For reasons of limitations in Web 1.0, led to its upgradation to Web 2.0?

In Web 2.0, if content creators want to put something out there, they don’t have to go through the seemingly ungainly process of having to buy a domain name, have coding knowledge & what not. They just have to log-in their Apps/Computer programs (Twitter/Facebook account) a few clicks and you’re ready to go.

By mid 2000’s mass adoption of the internet by the media & the up and coming Millennials, led to the ‘Network effect’ and creation of Social media platforms. This is where we saw an Exponential increase in users and massive scalability. Adoption of the world wide web by the masses was almost overnight. Its ease of use & capabilities empowered even the technologically shy enabling them with sharing, tagging, widgets & mashups among other upgradations now possible, which was the reason for Web2.0’s glorious victory.?

All Sounds good??

Here’s the catch..

In a normal scenario when we talk about a computer program, we think of an application run by a third party. It is this Third party (Twitter/Facebook/Spotify) which controls the data, controls the code and has the major share of the economic benefits. What happens to the content creators? ? Well... they get a fraction of revenue, likes, upvotes, shares, retweets…basically scraps, while the major heap goes to these intermediaries.

From its inception, Spotify & Upwork for example have always been subjected to this criticism. Not so rosy now is it?

Come #Web3.0, which aspires to eradicate this bias.

How would it do it?

Marrying #scalability of Web 2.0 with the decentralized nature of #Blockchain.?

Every Data on Web 3.0 is?

• On the Blockchain,?
• More Decentralized,
• More Secure
• Tokenised &?
• Composable (more on that in a different post).

Just like Web 1.0, the content creators in Web 3.0 now get to actually own their data, except that this time, there is no intermediary, no third party standing as your custodian which may block/delete/de-monetize you since apparently your views 'goes against their policy'. It is on the blockchain & distributed across nodes. This decentralized nature of Web 3.0 results in the data being more secure and immutable (inalterable/unchangeable).?

For the above reasons, it seems quite logical to quote Chris Dixons’ aphorism here that Web3 “gives users… the ability to own a piece of the Internet”

For easy understanding a distant comparison may be made with “BitTorrent” (a media downloading/seeding app) & its likes and it’s IPFS protocol which is a peer to peer network on a distributed filing system.

That is to say, to ban “BitTorrent”, you’ll have to shut every system at the same time, which is attached with the protocol, which is next to impossible.

A content creator on Spotify, if they were to be on Web 3.0, would own their creation & benefit from the tokenization of their art/content (popular as an #NFT), and would even earn every time it is shared/forked or whatever are the terms of ‘smart contract’ of that blockchain. As per Reuters, NFT sales volume reached a whopping $25 Billion. The possibilities are truly immense.

This is not to overlook the fact that Web3.0 does come with its fair share of shortcomings & issues. Primary challenges being its complexity, uncertainty & magnitude.?

• Its linkage with the blockchain and decentralization itself, makes it complicated for newcomers to understand.?
• With the immense capabilities that it proclaims, it still has a long way to go, in terms of handling the humongous data out there.
• Even the most robust blockchain systems have been struggling to attain a true decentralization benchmark. Does this mean that there will be centralisation in Web3?. The answer apparently seems to be Yes, however, due to the beauty of blockchain and distributed systems it enables portability, reducing the possibility of users to stick to one platform.
• Also, Web3.0s adoption does not mean that Web 2.0 will be completely eradicated, however, it surely will minimize web2.0 and web1.0s use cases, just like Web2.0 did Web1.0s.

Amidst the hype, seemingly immense possibilities that Web3.0 brings on the table, is truly mind-boggling. Since most of the practical applications of Web3.0 are still in pilot mode, I guess only time will tell if it stands up to the rosy expectations & whether it impacts our lives for the good.