{"id":9036,"date":"2022-03-04T23:51:33","date_gmt":"2022-03-04T23:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nftandcrypto-news.com\/art\/a-comprehensive-guide-to-web3-the-future-of-the-internet\/"},"modified":"2022-03-04T23:51:47","modified_gmt":"2022-03-04T23:51:47","slug":"a-comprehensive-guide-to-web3-the-future-of-the-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nftandcrypto-news.com\/art\/a-comprehensive-guide-to-web3-the-future-of-the-internet\/","title":{"rendered":"A Comprehensive Guide to Web3: The Future of the Internet"},"content":{"rendered":"
By now, you\u2019ve probably heard the phrase \u201cWeb3\u201d more than a few times. Maybe it came up at work, at the gym, or at dinner during a friend\u2019s ten-minute rant about why \u201cDogecoin is taking SpaceX to the Moon.\u201d<\/p>\n
All this talk about Web3 can be a little disconcerting.\u00a0After all, most of us are still adjusting to the new socio-political reality that social media created, so the thought of a new version of the web can be overwhelming. <\/p>\n
But we\u2019re here to define the necessary terms and unpack Web3 \u2014 the next stage of the internet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before we begin, it\u2019s important to note that Web3 is still in its infancy. As such, it\u2019s rapidly evolving, and it will continue to evolve for quite some time. But although the full impact and ultimate form of Web3 won\u2019t be realized anytime soon, we do have a firm understanding of its foundational principles. Namely, it\u2019s centered on an ecosystem of technology projects that are:\u00a0<\/p>\n
To break down exactly what these concepts mean and why they\u2019re so fundamental to Web3, it helps to take a trip down memory lane. Discussing the history of the internet makes where we\u2019re going a lot clearer. <\/p>\n
So far, there have been two previous iterations of the internet: Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. Web 1.0 was the dinosaur age of the internet, spanning from the mid-1980s to the early 2000s. It was born out of work that began in 1973 when the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) started research on protocols that would allow computers to communicate over a distributed network. For the uninitiated, protocols are standardized, predetermined rules that let connected devices communicate with each other across a network.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The earliest version of the web was decentralized, meaning that it was built on top of a series of free-to-use, open protocols. Unlike proprietary protocols, open protocols are not owned by a centralized authority or limited to a particular company\u2019s products. Many of these early web protocols, such as HTTP (web), SMTP (email), and FTP (file transfer), serve as the foundation of the modern internet applications we know and love.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During Web 1.0, the internet primarily consisted of a series of pages joined together by hyperlinks. There were no additional visuals or comment sections, like what we see when using the internet today. Internet users were nothing more than passive recipients of the information and couldn\u2019t interact or respond to what they encountered. <\/p>\n
In this respect, it was the \u201cread-only\u201d era.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Website owners\u2019 primary interest was disseminating information to as many readers as possible, not actively engaging with those who visited their site. When sites like IMDB were first born, web pages were just a smattering of links \u2014 and that\u2019s pretty much all there was to the internet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For the past twenty years, we\u2019ve been living with Web 2.0. It isn\u2019t characterized by a technical shift. Instead, it stems from a change in how we use the internet. Web 2.0 is a version of the internet that enables everyday users to create, share, and publish content. The average individual isn\u2019t a passive observer anymore. Instead, they play an active role in creating the internet. <\/p>\n
To illustrate exactly what this means, an e-commerce store in Web 1.0 was just a long list of product names and prices. Readers scanned through them, and then they went to the physical store to make purchases.\u00a0In Web 2.0, users can use an e-commerce site to make payments, track their orders, post reviews, request refunds, and more. In fact, Web 2.0 sites actively encourage users to participate and increase their engagement. Consider Facebook\u2019s like button or their notification system. Both are aimed at enticing readers to like, comment, or otherwise engage.\u00a0Google and Amazon encourage users to leave reviews in similar ways. <\/p>\n
Sadly, Web 2.0 is largely characterized and defined by these intermediaries.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To find a company or brand, people rely on a Google search. To find interesting artists, people rely on Instagram or Spotify. To find products, people rely on Amazon. Have you seen the trend yet?<\/p>\n
Platforms like Google, Spotify, Amazon, Facebook, and all the other big names in Web 2.0 serve as centralized data aggregators. They are intermediaries between suppliers and consumers, capturing nearly all the value \u2014 in the form of data and money \u2014 in the process.\u00a0<\/p>\n
These multisided platforms, which create value primarily by enabling direct interactions between groups, rose in popularity with Web 2.0. In fact, they now dominate the global economy and are some of the world\u2019s most profitable companies.\u00a0This came with some problems.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eventually, it became profitable for these platforms to make it more difficult<\/em> for groups to interact directly with one another, and so intermediaries became more of a roadblock than a thoroughfare. Let\u2019s use Facebook as an example.\u00a0<\/p>\n At first, Facebook provided a valuable service: come to Facebook, connect with your friends and customers, and share your thoughts and goods with them. As more people flocked to Facebook to see what friends and companies they followed were up to, Facebook\u2019s trove of user data grew. Every click, scroll, and like became a financially valuable data point. And Facebook recognized that businesses would be willing to pay to get their products in front of new (and even their existing) followers. So it started selling our attention in the form of ad space.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now, Facebook is an intermediary that determines when and how users and businesses interact and engage. Google does much the same with their ad platforms and Amazon with their featured products.<\/p>\n If you still don\u2019t see the problem with this, The Oatmeal summed things pretty well.\u00a0<\/p>\n