Web3, short for web 3.0, is a vision of the future of the Internet, in which people operate on decentralized platforms, almost anonymously, instead of depending on tech giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter.
Image Ani_Ka / Getty
hide captions
switch captions
Image Ani_Ka / Getty
Web3, short for web 3.0, is a vision of the future of the Internet, in which people operate on decentralized platforms, almost anonymously, instead of depending on tech giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter.
Image Ani_Ka / Getty
There is a buzzword that various types of technology, crypto, and venture capital have become enamored with lately. For now, chats are layered with it, and you don’t get serious about the future until you add it to your Twitter bio: Web3.
It’s a general term for different ideas, all geared toward eliminating the big middlemen on the internet. In this new age, navigating the web no longer means logging into sites like Facebook, Google or Twitter.
Think of it this way: The early days of the Internet in the 1990s were Web 1.0. The Web is seen as a way to democratize access to information, but there’s no great way to navigate it other than going to your friends’ GeoCities site. It’s pretty disorganized and overwhelming.
Then came Web 2.0 starting in the mid-2000s. Platforms like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter emerged to bring order to the Internet by making it easy to connect and transact online. Critics argue that over time those companies have accumulated too much power.
Web3 is about getting some of the power back.
“There’s a small group of companies that own all of this, and then there’s us using it, and despite the fact that we contribute to the success of these platforms, we don’t there’s nothing to show for it,” says Mat Dryhurst, a Berlin-based artist and researcher who teaches classes at New York University about the future of the Internet.
And so the answer, according to Dryhurst and other Web3 fans, is a repeat of the internet where new social networks, search engines and markets spring up without a host company.
Instead, they are decentralized, built on top of a system known as blockchain, which has flourished for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Think of it like a kind of bookkeeping where multiple computers simultaneously store data that can be searched by anyone. It is operated by a collective of users, rather than a company. Everyone is given a “token” to participate. The tokens can be used to vote on decisions and even accumulate real value.
In a Web3 world, people control their own data and go from social media, email to shopping using a single, personalized account, creating a public record on their blockchain. all those activities.
“To the average person, that sounds like an evil thing,” said Olga Mack, blockchain entrepreneur and lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. “But when you push a button to turn on the light, do you understand how electricity is generated? You don’t have to know how electricity works to understand the benefits. The same is true for blockchain.”
Right now, the idea of reinventing the entire Internet sounds like a far-fetched digital utopia. But Web3 is promote new conversations – and create lots of new money, especially from crypto investors.
‘It sounds confusing at first,’ but Web3 is becoming more and more popular, and tech companies are taking note
The Web3 movement has been helped with the rise of NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, which are digital collections and other online files that can be bought and sold with cryptocurrency. Then there are the public stunts. Recently, a group of crypto enthusiasts gathered together to try to buy a copy of the US Constitution in digital currency. They organized under the name ConstitutionDAO. (DAO stands for a decentralized autonomous organization, the name given to an online collective of cryptocurrency advocates gathered together into a group governed by blockchains and tokens. It’s very Web3.)
Dryhurst admits that trying to explain Web3 can be frustrating, as it’s a loosely defined term and takes on a slightly different shape depending on who defines it but, he says, that’s the case. of all new frontiers of technology.
“Every new birth of the web has many surprises,” he said.
For technologists and cryptographers, Web3 has remained a theoretical vision for many years. But in recent months, the push for a blockchain-powered future has dominated tech conferences and social media conversations in certain circles. It even forced the big tech companies to assemble teams dedicated to Web3.
And that brought a certain irony to Web3’s growth: Enthusiasts hoped Web3 would mean sharing photos, communicating with friends, and making purchases online would no longer be synonymous. with Big Tech companies that are made possible through a multitude of small competing services on the blockchain – for example, where, every time you post a message, you earn a token for your contribution, gives you both ownership of shares in the platform and someday a way to make money.
In theory, this also means avoiding the fees, rules, and rigors of tech companies. However, major tech platforms are jumping on this idea as well.
That means all the value created can be shared with more people than just owners, investors and employees, said Esther Crawford, senior project manager at Twitter.
Crawford said Twitter is working on ways to incorporate Web3 concepts into the social network, such as being able to one day log into the social network and tweet from an account linked to the cryptocurrency, not a Twitter account. She sees the future differently: not a cryptocurrency version of Twitter replacing Twitter. But rather Twitter showcases Web3 features over standard Twitter.
“For a long time, Web3 has been very theoretical,” she said. “But now there’s an increase in momentum to build.”
Will Web3 be the new standard?
Experts say that, in the best case scenario for Web3 enthusiasts, the technology will work alongside Web 2.0, not replace it entirely.
In other words, blockchain-based business, transaction and social networks can and will grow and thrive in the years to come. According to technology scholars, completely knocking out Facebook, Twitter or Google is unlikely.
“I am not in a position to say who will win,” said Dryhurst. “But Web2 companies will put Web3 ideas into their services to stay relevant.”
He thinks many people will want to be able to get their data and interaction history online wherever they go on the Internet, rather than staying on single web platforms – what some call it. The “walled garden” of big tech companies.
“This is a fundamentally different experience from what we are used to today,” says Dryhurst.
But he admits that boundless freedom can lead to troubling results for some.
“Faustian’s bargain is for the same interesting reason that there’s nothing stopping people from building whatever community they want, I can’t stop someone from building something horrible,” he said.
Decentralized social networks have be attractive for white supremacists and other far-right groups, but Sam Williams, founder of Arweave, a blockchain-based project for online data storage, said he trusts most small community to determine what speech is allowed online.
On balance, he said, collective voting on rules of engagement would be better than what users experience on today’s major social media platforms.
“If we stick to the current model, we’re going to move further and further into an area where a handful of companies run by a small number of people are already using our experience in the air space,” he said. cyberspace. “And in that world, Big Tech’s problems are getting worse.”
Another problem, of course, is government surveillance. Blockchain-based tokens are currently in a regulated new world, but that could soon change as Biden administration begins process establish new rules for the industry.
How does Web3 fit into another vision of the future of the Internet – the metaverse?
Facebook recently rebranded itself as Meta and said its priority will be to build the “metaverse,” a digital future where people live, interact and work together in virtual reality.
Among the companies stated principles is “strongly interoperable,” which means that users can seamlessly take their account or avatar from one site or service to another for service, instead of having to log into an account. accounts controlled by separate companies each time they visit new websites.
It is also one of the ideals of Web3.
But true believers argue that there is no place for Facebook in the Web3 world, no matter how the social network tries to be part of the next generation of the Internet.
“Facebook will always be incentivized to enrich Facebook,” Williams said. “And that’s not how cyberspace should be managed.”
What’s the chance that Web3 is just an exaggerated fantasy?
It didn’t take long to find Web3 skeptics.
James Grimmelmann, a Cornell University professor who studies law and technology, voiced his doubts.
“Web3 is malware, referring to a product that was announced but never shipped,” Grimmelmann said.
“It’s a future internet that promises to fix all the things people don’t like about the current internet, even if it’s contradictory.”
He said if part of the motivation is against giving up personal data to Big Tech companies, then blockchain is not the solution, as that would make more data public.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “The vision says the problem with the Internet is too many centralized intermediaries. Instead of having many different apps and websites, we’ll put it all on the blockchain, put it all in one place.”
For Grimmelmann, Web3 represents technologists reaching for the ideals of the dawn of the internet – free access to information on the freeway by everyone! — that has long been overtaken by tech companies.
The growth of the Internet has always been a tug-of-war between fragmentation and centralization, he said. When it oscillates too far in one direction, a backlash tries to pull it in the opposite direction.
“Blockchains are exciting and solve some tough problems in new ways,” he said. “They will probably end up in the toolkit on which the next internet is built, but that doesn’t mean the internet will be built around them.”
But many people who have found wealth during the pandemic by investing in crypto are looking for something to cash in beyond the NFTs of “tailless monkeys.” who is a member of a cartoon “yacht club.”
Right now, he said, Web3, although mostly theoretical, is the thing.
“There are a lot of people with money to invest,” he said. “And they need some visibility to throw the money in.”
