Where will Web 3.0 Be by 2026?

Currently when the general populace hears the phrase "Web 3.0" they have little clue what it really means.?In fact most people still don't truly understand what Web 2.0 is.

As with any major paradigm shift, especially within the internet space, users actually define the technology rather than the technology defining the users.?In the case of Web 3.0, just how it develops and how quickly it develops will depend mainly on three things: 1) Investment into the projects which make up Web 3.0, 2) User needs and 3) Global trends.?The next 3-4 years will be crucial in determining what Web 3.0 ultimately becomes.?With that said, it's pretty clear that we are on a trajectory that will change the internet as we know it.

When I look out four years from now, I see Web 3.0 as a mesh of hundreds of different blockchains, all working in unison with one another to decentralize the world's information.?I see a paradigm shift from corporate control of information to user control and ownership of information.?Just like Web 1.0 decentralized the reading and writing of valuable information away from a small number of major sources to place it into the hands of everyone with a modem, Web 3.0 will do the same thing for the social layers of the internet.?Instead of a few major corporations controlling our data, our identity and our ability to monetize our creations, Web 3.0 will place those powers into the hands of us all.??

By 2026, we will see hundreds of blockchains working together to decentralize and democratize our daily lives and our online and offline identities.?Twitter and Facebook will no longer be in control of our social identities and will also no longer be gatekeepers for what can and can not be posted under our identities.?Instead social sites will merely be a lens into multiple decentralized databases full of information which make up our social profiles.?If any single node that pulls material from these blockchains were to decide to ban us, or delete our posts, we will no longer feel "canceled".?Instead we would be liberated by any such action to merely pull up our identity, our posts and our history on other nodes running these same blockchains.??

While corporations will form around these blockchains, enabling profit to continue to be driven to them, the business models of such companies will drastically change.?Instead of a user's data being a corporate asset to sell advertising against, these companies will view data as a faucet that anyone can tap into and built a product around.?Corporations will be forced to monetize based on how they display the data rather than how they obtain and sell the data.?This would lead to much better user experiences and also allow for fluidity for users to move from one corporate web property to another as quickly and easily as typing in a new web address.??

For nearly a decade, analysts have been touting "blockchain technology" as the next big thing, yet until this last year or two, little besides cryptocurrency use-cases have existed.?2022 will be a defining year in which the blockchain expanded outside of the cryptocurrency space. The next 4 years will see this trend exponentially push forward.?By 2026, the blockchain will be the new data framework of the internet, leaving localized databases, owned by corporations, only a minority of the data users rely on each day.?

2026 will be the year that we all wash our hands of corporate governance of our data, if not sooner.