The idea of Web 3.0
The concept of Web 3.0 was created by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood in 2014 and refers to a decentralized online ecosystem based on blockchain technology.
Industry insiders divide the Internet into three eras. In the Web 1.0 era, netizens can log in to major portals to browse and read fresh information, but they can only watch and not interact. The era of Web 2.0 refers to the addition of social media to the Internet, and users begin to interact, but a lot of communication and business activities are concentrated on closed platforms owned by a few tech giants.
And people’s idea of Web 3.0 is that users’ online communication will no longer need to go through large technology companies, but can be realized through many small competing services on the blockchain. All users who use the content need to “pay” the author with tools such as virtual currency or NFT, and the creator also retains 100% of the ownership of the work.
The Power of Web 3.0
The Web 3.0 concept is currently being interpreted by many as the next phase of the Internet.
Gavin Wood once pointed out that Web 3.0 will give birth to a new global digital economy, create new business models and markets, break the monopoly of platforms such as Google, and generate a large number of bottom-up innovation ecology. Web 1.0 and 2.0 are centered on the Internet platform, so they are called the platform economy. In the Web 3.0 era, users co-create, co-build, share and co-govern. They are not only network participants and builders, but also network investors, owners and value sharers. Anyone can set up their freely defined ownership rules and transaction methods in smart contracts to develop various distributed business applications. A smart contract may be a business model.
Challenges of Web 3.0
At the same time, Web 3.0 faces many challenges.
First, the core of Web 3.0 is to let users have the right to control their own data, which means that the distributed application technology must be very mature, but the realization of this technology is difficult. Second, the basis of the blockchain is a mechanism for reaching consensus among all participants, and this mechanism must be unique and universally trusted, which is also challenging to achieve. Third, the idea of decentralization proposed by Web 3.0, in essence, puts forward high requirements for supervision.
Therefore, there is no lack of doubts in the industry. Tesla founder Elon Musk said he doesn’t think Web 3.0 is real, it’s more of a marketing buzzword. Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter, also criticized Web 3.0. He said frankly: “Users do not actually own Web 3.0 products. The actual owners of Web 3.0 are the venture capital institutions behind the project and their limited partners. Web 3.0 can never be Get out of the incentives they set.”
So will Web 3.0 be the next phase of the Internet and a “god-making” machine? Time will tell us the answer.
