Web 3.0

## How has the Web evolved from Web 1.0 to Web 3.0?

Before understanding the ins and outs of Web 3.0, it makes sense for us to understand what the web was in the past, currently looks like in the present, and how it contrasts with what it can be in the future.

What is Web 1.0?

The WWW was invented by Tim Berners Lee in 1980, whereby. It started when he created a simple project which allowed one page to reference other pages in the same system using hyperlinks. His idea gained momentum slowly but surely, and a combination of technologies, browsers, and protocols gave rise to an era of information sharing which is now referred to with the retronym Web 1.0.

Web 1.0 or Syntactic Web was the first stage of the WWW which is attributed to be in between 1991 to 2004. In the Web 1.0 era, the vast majority of users in the WWW were consumers of content. In other words, there were very few creators who were behind the WWW while users were only allowed to view or read the content provided by these content creators. Web 1.0 used static HTML where the content was provided by using frames and tables instead of using dynamic languages. Data was stored in filesystems rather than relational databases.

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Web 1.0 did not have the option of allowing users to communicate with content producers. It was very common to have static websites and personal sites where content creators simply fed information to users without ever communicating with them. This drawback led to the evolution of Web 2.0.

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What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 (also known as the *read-write web* or as the social web), is a version of the web that we see today. It came about with the advent of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but is not just limited to that.

In Web 2.0, websites allow users to provide feedback to content producers, and focus on user-generated content, interoperability, and participation. Users can both provide and control the data they can share on Web 2.0 pages, thus providing a rich user experience. Web 2.0 also saw the advent of Software as a Service (SaaS) models, mass participation, free classification of information, and dynamic programming technologies like HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript-based frameworks. This contrasts greatly with Web 1.0 websites, which limited users to viewing content passively.

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## Why do we need Web 3.0?

Web 2.0 generated a wave of user-centric information and gave more control to users in general. It changed the paradigm by turning consumers into content creators and changed how we interact with the world.

However, people are still under the assumption that a small group of companies: Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Meta (former Facebook), Apple, and Microsoft, have control over all data and content shared in the world.

In essence, Web 2.0 is thought to have the following issues:

Compromised Security

In Web 2.0, users are at the mercy of the Big Tech companies which can easily use and misuse their data for economic benefits. Do you remember The Cambridge Analytica Scandal? While the services of these Big Tech companies are free at first, the monetization model for these companies is based on gathering personal user information, providing this information to third parties, and subjecting users to target marketing practices.

Censored Information

Yet another issue with Web 2.0 is censorship. The Big Tech companies can censor the information created by individual users, and can also filter the type of information that users can access. This mechanism contrasts greatly with why Web 2.0 was introduced and can lead to obscured truth, and the adoption of views and principles that the Big Tech prefer. Let's remember that the Former USA President - Donald Trump - was locked out of his Twitter account in 2021 and remained banned until today.

Economic Benefits for Digital Giants

Since the Big Tech companies can gather user content and get the revenue out of it, the economic benefits of user created content is centralized to these companies.

Also, the take-rates of web 2.0 giants are extortionate. See below a comparison between web 2.0 and web 3.0 take-rates. Looks crazy, right?

Centralized Finances

In addition to the above issues, Web 2.0’s financial system is also centrally managed by central banks and financial institutions, thus making users use intermediary services, share their personal data, and pay charges to these intermediaries for transferring their payments.

## So, what exactly is Web 3.0?

In contrast with Web 2.0, Web 3.0 (also known as *read-write-own web*) is an era dominated by blockchain-like technology, Metaverse, NFTs, Machine Learning (ML), and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The term was founded by Polkadot founder and Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood, and it is a concept that introduces the concept of decentralizing the control of content and data from Big Tech companies to users.

The Web 3.0 concept uses blockchain technologies as the base of everything you do online. Content and data owned are controlled by decentralized autonomous bodies, and there is no censorship of information by the Big Tech companies. Some characteristics of Web 3.0 include:

* Twitter can censor any account or tweet in Web 2.0, but Web 3.0 tweets are not censored.
* Web 3.0 payments are token-based and do not require sharing any personal data with third parties. In the absence of a centralized control, there are no intermediaries to pay.
* Web 3.0 servers are not controlled by the Big Tech and are instead based on a decentralized network of 1000s of computers. Hence, in the absence of a single point of failure, Web 3.0 servers never go down.
* User authentication occurs via blockchain-based private keys.