Web3 & Web3.0 Are NOT The Same. Here Are The Differences Explained

The internet as we know it may not be around for much longer. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. With both private companies and hackers mercilessly reaching out for our personal information, it’s clear that we’re long overdue for an upgrade. The problem is that while there are ideas on how this brand new internet utopia would look like, most people can’t exactly pinpoint what it actually is.?

To help shed light on this new iteration of the internet, let’s take a closer look at two terms that are often used to describe it: Web3 and Web3.0. Though these terms are very similar (and despite what Wikipedia might say about their interchangeability), they actually represent completely separate ideas.?

But before we delve into the details between Web3 and Web3.0, it’s important to take a look at the history of the internet and how we’ve arrived at the problems we’re facing today.

History of the world wide web from Web1, Web2, to Now

Few people knew how to set up websites during the internet’s early days. For the average user, the internet functioned a lot like a static, read-only magazine. Sure you could visit websites if you knew the right address, but there was very little that you could do to indicate whether you liked what you read, share your thoughts on someone else’s work, or pass them onto your friends. This primitive phase of the internet was known as Web1, where websites simply existed in silos.?

Web2 marked the era when the internet became a lot more interactive and social. The act of liking and sharing quickly became mainstream. But more importantly, far more people learned to operate their own accounts and websites and share content that they created. The problem came when people realised that they didn’t own the rights to their uploads. Instead, intimate details of our lives were (and still are) traded to advertisers and companies to inform their marketing strategies. In other words, users became the product.?

Both Web3 and Web3.0 seek to fix this problem in different ways by giving users greater control and autonomy over how their data is stored and shared on the internet. The idea is to take back power that is now centralised in big players like Facebook, Apple, TikTok, and Amazon. Now, let’s take a look at how the people who respectively came up with Web3 and Web3.0, Gavin Wood and Tim Bernes-Lee, hope to go about realising this version of the internet.

Differences between Web3 and Web3.0 at a glance

Web3

Founder: Ethereum Co-Founder Gavin Wood

Technology: Blockchain

Purpose: Empowerment and security

Characteristic: Data is difficult to alter

Web3.0

Founder: Inventor of World Wide Web Time Bernes-Lee

Technology: Data interchange technology e.g. RDF, SPARQL, OWL, and SKOS

Purpose: Efficiency and intelligence

Characteristic: Data is easy to alter

What is Web3?

Web3 refers to the idea of a decentralised open web that is run on a blockchain. For the uninitiated, the blockchain is essentially made up of a network of computer systems. Any information recorded on the blockchain is duplicated and distributed across the entire network, and in theory will be harder to alter or corrupt. The idea is to make data storage on all parts of the internet secure without having to resort to trusted third party apps or programmes — hence why it's known as a decentralised web.

The idea is to build an internet where crimes such as identity theft and privacy invasion become a lot harder to commit. Web3 is also meant to be a place where information can circulate more freely with much less censorship from social media websites or the government. But as with any kind of technology, its impact lies in the hands of those who use it. Just as it is difficult to erase or alter hard truths, the flipside is that hate speech and disinformation will also be harder to correct on Web3.?

What is Web3.0?

Instead of a blockchain, Web3.0 is meant to allow people to store data securely in decentralised data stores known as Solid pods. Also known as the semantic web, the idea behind Web3.0 is to give people the power to determine where and how their information gets distributed. Information flows are dictated by WebIDs instead of cookies and trackers, allowing users to sign up and gain access to different websites while still controlling which websites get access to what types of data from their Solid pod.

Because all of a user’s shared data is linked back to the Solid pod, data points such as a person’s email address or phone numbers can be altered across all platforms in an instance by simply correcting the information within the Solid pod. This means that profiles across multiple job application sites, for example, can be immediately updated without requiring the user to visit these sites individually. And once you’re done with the job hunt, you can simply remove your data from these job sites by shutting off access from your Solid pod.?

What will Web3 and Web3.0 look like?

The truth of the matter is that it’s still too early to tell how the third iteration of the internet will unfold. Few of us predicted how Web2 would revolutionise our personal lives and the economy when it first started out, and Web3 or Web3.0 will probably take on a life of their own in similar fashion.?

What’s important to note is that Web3 and Web3.0 will bring about their own sets of problems. For example, analysts are already speculating that Web3’s blockchain security might be undermined by quantum computing (if successfully developed). That means that cybersecurity developers will probably have to come up with more ways to further safeguard the blockchain against threats that will undoubtedly rise up.

In the meantime, keeping up with the latest developments in the internet is probably our best bet for staying prepared for new changes in the digital landscape when they arrive. If you found this article insightful, give it a like, let us know your thoughts about how the internet will transform, and follow our TTAB page for more articles that will help you determine your next career move.