If you take an interest in new technology, you’ve probably noticed a lot of people getting excited about something called Web3, but you might be unsure what the fuss is all about.
Web3 refers to a step-change in how we interact with the internet, but if you didn’t get the memo about versions 1 and 2, it could understandably seem like confusing jargon.
Our job here is to explain what Web3 is by taking you back to the origins of the world wide web, so you might then share the ESF's enthusiasm for where it's heading next.
Tim Berners Lee & Web1.0
The origins of web1.0 can be traced back to March 1989, and the work a software engineer called Tim Berners Lee. At the time Lee was working at CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research) and thinking about ways to make access to the information on the internet more universal.
He wrote a paper on information management proposing a solution he called a distributed hypertext system, which became the foundation for the first iteration of the internet as we know it today - Web 1.0.
“The original idea of the web was that it should be a collaborative space where you can communicate through sharing information”
Tim Berners Lee
Web 1.0: Read-Only - the 1990s
Tim Berners Lee's framework for Web 1.0 introduced three components we take for granted today.
- website addresses which he named URLs: Uniform resource locators
- a system for linking those web addresses called HTTP: Hypertext transfer protocol
- a language for building websites themselves: HTML: Hypertext markup language
This framework provided the foundation for exponential growth in both website content and users.
If you’re not old enough to remember the 90s, we were getting excited about an amazing new mobile technology called SMS and early web browsers, like Netscape Navigator, that created user-friendly ways to explore the wonders of Web 1.0.
Netscape’s iconic logo sat on the screen of a huge monitor the size of a crate connected to a noisy processing tower that was then hooked up to your phone line via an antiquity called a modem, allowing access - eventually - to the internet.
Software packages emerged that allowed anyone to use html, http and urls to build their own websites and early search engines enabled you to find them.
At that time, the web was mostly read-only, meaning website owners were the sole creators, and users had little to no input on what they read.
But the web’s story could have been so different if its inventor hadn’t insisted that this new technology was open to everyone, at no cost , allowing anyone to utilise it and build on it, for free.
Web 2.0: Read and Write - the 2000’s
The second version of the web doesn’t have a specific anniversary date, but it was marked by the emergence of behemoths that we’re all familiar with today - the likes of Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon. Welcome to the age of big tech platforms.
These general themes can summarise the key to the growth of the big four:
- explosion in mobile web usage
- focus on user-generated content (UGC)
- leveraging increasing amounts of data that users generated.
This is the current dominant model we experience today, where massive Silicon Valley gated platforms rely on user-generated content and proprietary technology to turn users into the actual product.
Our online experience became more personalised and engaging because we allowed web services to capture everything we did on more sophisticated mobile devices, tablets and laptops - that data was like gold dust.
When that indiscriminate data harvesting began to be exposed, there was a huge backlash.
The grilling of Mark Zuckerberg in Senate Hearings on privacy in 2018 was a watershed moment, turning one of the poster boys for Web 2.0 into a villain and providing the momentum for a new era of web services that not only put users in control of their data, but removed the need for centralised storage.
Pioneers had been working on methods of trustless record keeping since the 1990s, but it was a nine-page whitepaper for a new form of internet money, called Bitcoin, released in 2008 without fanfare under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, that would provide a crucial catalyst for the development of a new way to interact with the internet.
Bitcoin’s breakthrough was its ability to create a new form of money that functions without trust (so no KYC and sharing your data), removing the need for central authorities like banks, using a form of distributed ledger technology (DLT) called a blockchain.
Different types of blockchain applications followed Bitcoin’s example, applying the same principles to the distributed and anonymised storage of any kind of data and the permissionless function of any kind of application.
The decentralised web or Web3 marks a real paradigm shift and, confusingly, is one of two visions for the third iteration of the web with similar goals but different technologies and a subtle difference in naming conventions.
Web3 vs Web 3.0
So DLT, the secret sauce behind Bitcoin, is a key component driving the next iteration of the decentralised web, aka Web3, and the ESF exists to promote its use for the common good.
Web3 has so much untapped potential, but its crucial characteristics focus on decentralising the power of the internet and putting power into your hands:
- you no longer have to trust a central service with personal information
- you can own and monetise the value that you create online
- it removes the power of gatekeepers to decide what services get deployed
Open-source DLT is an effective way to realise the potential of Web3 because it allows anyone to build decentralised applications without needing approval from Apple or Google. These open applications utilise other key pieces of the Web3 puzzle, which you’ll also have heard plenty of mention of:
- cryptocurrencies (for transferring the value you create)
- self-custody wallets (to store that value without a central authority)
- NFTs (non-fungible tokens) - as a way to represent unique forms of value, like tickets, songs, art or collectables
It’s important to note that open and permissionless blockchains, like Bitcoin, are just one form of DLT and that there are other solutions to the issues around privacy and data which aren’t predicated on DLT, confusingly under the banner of web 3.0, or the semantic web.
Tim Berners Lee, for example, has a vision for the next phase of the internet that doesn’t rely on blockchains. Inrupt, his new startup is focused on giving back control to users of their data, and how it is used and stored under the web 3.0 banner.
The ESF feel passionate about any technology that produces positive change for society, whatever the naming convention.
If the idea of an internet where you control your identity and the value you create excites you, we’d like to hear from you.
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