What is web3.0?

The evolution of the web

Tim Berners Lee, a software engineer at CERN, the Swiss laboratory notable for creating the massive hadron collider, wrote “Information Management: A Proposal” in March 1989. It was a model for utilizing the internet, which was connecting computers at the time but lacked a common way for sharing information:

“In those days, there was different information on different computers, but you had to log on to different computers to get at it” Tim Berners Lee

Though his boss's reaction to the paper was unimpressive - “vague, yet thrilling” - it would establish the basis for the initial iteration of the world wide web, known in retrospect as web1.0, which spanned the 1990s.

Web1.0 provided three important technologies - now commonplace - that would allow the internet to adapt and grow, and because Berners Lee recognized the value of allowing anyone to use and build on them, he guaranteed they were royalty free.

• Urls: Uniform resource locators - website addresses

• Http: Hypertext transfer protocols - a method for linking web resources

• Html: Hypertext markup language - a language for building web content

The web really took off after browsers like Netscape Navigator were built that could integrate these technologies and allow users to effortlessly access the burgeoning content.

If you didn't grow up in that age, it's difficult to understand how primitive websites were and how difficult it was to simply connect. Forget WiFi; every home had a modem box connected into their phone socket, sputtering and whirring for several minutes as it attempted to connect your computer to this new information system.

Atttribution: Jeff Ogden (W163) and Jim Scarborough (Ke4roh), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The arrival of web2.0

Web2.0 refers to the substantial enhancements to the web experience that will occur over the following two decades. This is when tech behemoths like Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon arose, realizing the value of user-created content, mobile connection, and, most importantly, harvesting, utilising, and monetising the data provided by the expanding number of web users.

Despite the realization that sophisticated data use, personalization, and mobile usability could enable billion-dollar taxi corporations to develop while owning no taxis, there was an underlying tension, which could be summed up as 'the user as the product.'

This culminated in the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018, when a former employee of the consulting firm turned whistleblower, explaining how an App built for Facebook was used to covertly harvest massive amounts of user data, which was then used to feed political campaigns such as the 2016 US Presidential Campaign and the Vote Leave Brexit Campaign in the United Kingdom.

The cat was out of the bag in terms of user data exploitation, which was not restricted to that one rogue example, but was normal practice. The stage was set for the next web iteration.

The emergence of web3.0

One of the guiding ideas of web3.0 is to reverse the power dynamic in which web users give up their personal information in exchange for a more personalized experience. As it has become evident that this was a bad deal, web3.0 is about consumers managing and monetising their own data as they see fit.

The most visible manifestation of this sea change is the numerous cookie alerts you receive while browsing the internet. Previously, your data was extracted without your permission; today, websites must ask. That process may be inconvenient, but it is only the beginning of what might be a journey that redefines our digital lives.

The three pillars of web 3.0 can be loosely summarized as follows:

• Decentralisation

• Being Permissionless/open source

• Driven by user focused utility

If you're a regular reader of Learn Crypto, or any crypto-based information platform for that matter, you'll notice that the first two elements are fundamental principles of blockchains, the first being Bitcoin, which was created in 2008 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto and then gifted to the world.

Being decentralized and permissionless are mutually exclusive characteristics. If a tiny group has control of an idea or technology, they can determine its path, who has access to it, and who benefits from it.

Bitcoin foregoes usability features such as transaction speed in favor to ensure that anybody can participate by running a node, hence distributing power. In an ultimate gesture of generosity, Satoshi simply stepped away from the project in 2011, giving up any excessive influence he/she might have had.

As a result, web3.0 aspires to the decentralized values of Bitcoin and to utilize the crypto economics enabled by networks such as Ethereum. This enables new ways for people to derive usefulness and pleasure from massive volumes of data and material that they would gladly yield under web2.0. Token economies based on blockchains will supply the mechanics for web3.0, for which each participant will require a web3.0 wallet such as Meta Mask.

Web3.0 wallets are your means of storing, dealing, and spending the value you earn and produce in this brave new web. They safeguard anonymity because they are blockchain-based; many people expect that Social Sign On (using a Facebook or Google account to access other services) will be supplanted by something like Ethereum.

The web3.0 model already allows gamers to play-to-earn, for example, upending the traditional player-platform relationship.

The innumerable hours you may have spent on your favorite game, building player worth that was locked inside your XBox or Playstation Account, will suddenly be yours, represented by transferable NFTs.

The massive market for player skins (in-game stuff) in games like CS:GO, as well as the advent of professionalism in eSports, were the forerunners to in-game economies, which will be a crucial component of web3.0, and where it intersects with the concept of the Metaverse.

A Metaverse will not be a singular experience because one of the fundamental features of web3.0 is composability, which allows code and application components to be readily shared and reused.

The immersive 3D environment that the Metaverse promises will not only be where you play, but also where you work, and your employment contract may soon be an NFT that can be sold and transferred.

But, before we get carried away with web3.0's utopian goals, there are some reasons to pause for thinking.

Decentralisation is hard to scale

The most difficult difficulty is that true decentralisation is difficult to define and achieve. There is no accepted metric for determining how decentralized a network is, however there are certain key characteristics:

• Permissionless

• Borderless

• Censorship resistant

• Fair/Democratic

Unfortunately, most of the lauded web3.0 services flash red on some or all of these, which is the crux of Jack Dorsey's venture capital argument.

There is no utopian answer to digital economics, just as there are no equal alternatives to how society is managed. It's no surprise that DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) are gaining traction at the same time as web3. 0 is a popular issue, but they have yet to demonstrate clearly how technology can enable decentralisation, coordination, and democracy to coexist in order to forward a value proposition.

So, while web3.0 may become the new buzzword for 2022, on the surface, we may simply be seeing more of the same in terms of who profits from the expansion of digital economies.

Will web3.0 be a productive economy？

Aside from the philosophical debates about what web3.0 really means and if it is attainable, there is the question of whether it provides the foundation for a viable economy.

So far, much of what has been labeled web3.0 is theoretical and creates value that is only meaningful in terms of itself. What contribution does a play-to-earn metaverse game make to the'real' economy？ This is entirely dependent on how you define the “actual” economy.

Financial services are predicted to account for $93 trillion, or 24% of global GDP, but who benefits？ The same may be said about the type of value that web3.0 could generate and how it is dispersed.

We are barely scratching the surface of the web3.0 iceberg. So much is hidden beneath the surface, making it difficult to comprehend or predict. One thing is certain: conflicts like the one between Jack Dorsey and a16z will get more vocal, and the way we interact with the web will undoubtedly change. How much you benefit may be directly proportional to how much attention you pay.

As a reminder, WikiBit is ready to help you search the qualifications and reputation of projects in a bid to protect you from hidden dangers in this risky industry!