The world has come a long way compared to how it was decades and even centuries ago. We have witnessed (well, some of us) the invention of the tv, the radio, the telephone etc. You can probably recall what the first ever computer looked like. It was massive. It is 2022 now a lot has changed.
The internet has also evolved in many ways, as we’ve gone from web 0.1 to web 0.2, and now we are looking at the possibilities of web 3.0.
What exactly is web3, and how is the future of the internet going to be shaped by it?
We cannot explain this without first looking at the history of the internet, starting with web 1.0.
History Of The Internet: Web 0.1-Web3
Web 1.0
This was the first evolution of the internet and it was what we refer to as “read-only”. During this time of the internet, users could only use it to get information and it wasn’t interactive. The webpages were made of static pages hosted on web servers run by an internet service provider or on free web hosting services.
Web 2.0
This is a step-up from Web1. Introduced in the early 2000s, web users moved from the read-only web to the read AND write web. With web2, users were now given the opportunity to contribute to web pages by posting to blogs, and leaving comments. Web 2 brought about the inception of social media. With social media, users can post information and visuals on these platforms. A long road from the read-only Web1 era.
With Web3, most platforms are grouped under certain major providers and these providers have your data. How? They get information from you when you give consent to tracking. So, they can track your activities on different websites and pages on the internet. A bit creepy, to be honest. That explains why you noticed your Instagram is stalking you by showing you adverts for things you previously searched on Google and other sites. Hmm
Web3 and What It Means For The Future Of The Internet
Also known as web 3.0, this is the latest evolution of the internet. In web 2.0, we talked about how large organizations have free access to your activities and information gotten through web pages you visit on the internet, but with web3, it plans to take back this ownership of your information through tokens.
Web 1.0 was read-only, Web 2.0 is read and write, and now Web3 is a read-write AND own system.
Web3 is completely decentralised and examples of what will look like are cryptocurrencies and NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) and DAOs (Distributed Autonomous Organizations).
Instead of giving out your information for free services, Web3 rewards users with tokens and crypto for their contributions to the space for example- crypto mining. Users can then trade these tokens and crypto with other users.
With Web3, users have total control over their information and online identity. Although transactions are completely transparent, the online identity of users is completely in their control.
This has come a long way from web2 where you can easily find out people’s information from almost everywhere on the internet.
Web3 has some components from the other generations of the internet. It has the decentralization of web 1.0 and the functionality of web 2.0.
This latest generation of the internet is giving people their power and privacy back. It has brought about lots of applications such as cryptocurrencies, NFTs, DeFi, dApps, DAOs etc.
Conclusion
Web3 is now in the works and we are witnessing its evolution. A lot has changed from the web 1.0 generation and we cannot fully appreciate web3 without looking back to the beginning of the web.
