An Introduction to Web3: How the Next Generation Internet Is Evolving

According to Statista, the number of people who use the internet will reach the 5 billion user threshold in 2022. More than half of the world’s population, or 4.7 billion individuals, are active on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

Large tech companies limit user-generated content and make a lot of money from targeted advertising, which gives them a lot of power over the World Wide Web.

How It All Started

The Internet has taken a firm foothold and is rapidly becoming an integral part of contemporary life. It is likely that many people get the impression that it has been there for centuries. In contrast, the structure of the World Wide Web in its present iteration looks very different from how it did originally. You should look to history in order to get a better understanding of the core principles and defining characteristics of Web3.

Tim Berners-Lee first introduced the idea for the global hypertext project that would later become the World Wide Web in the year 1989, when he was working at CERN on the internal document exchange system Enquire. The initiative was given the green light and put into action.

Sites have morphed into programs that can be accessed via the web and used by users in their own time, allowing them to communicate with other users of the World Wide Web. Sites have changed into programs that users can access on the web and use on their own time. This makes it possible for them to talk to other people on the World Wide Web. Additionally, cloud services have come into being. Amazon, an online retail corporation based in the United States, is the industry leader in providing the latter.

Web3

The 1990s saw the conception of what would become the next generation of the Internet. Gavin Wood wrote an article that was published in 2014, not long after Ethereum was introduced to the world. In it, he described Web3 as a blockchain-based version of the web that is more decentralized than traditional web architecture. Most of his ideas were about changing the way data is stored and making it easier for users to remain anonymous.

The years 2020-2021 saw a resurgence in interest in the novel idea, which coincided with the rise in popularity of decentralized applications and NFTs.

Because the concept of Web3 is difficult to pin down, as is its name, the community is frequently perplexed by it, and the idea in and of itself is subject to criticism.

The phrase has evolved into somewhat of a catch-all for a modernized and improved internet. It’s possible that Him Gajria, investment director at Equation Capital, has provided the most profound insight into Web3’s core principles.

The following concepts can be identified in order to achieve a better understanding of the aspects of the World Wide Web and to identify the primary distinctions from earlier versions of the World Wide Web:

• Decentralization. Users, not giant businesses, are the rightful owners of the content;
• Publicity. There is no way to exclude anyone from the Web3 ecosystem, and everyone has equal access to the platform;
• Native payments. Use of decentralized protocols rather than banks and payment systems based on aging infrastructure;
• Elimination of the requirement to place trust in a third party as a result of the application of a variety of economic incentives and other processes.

Now, let’s have a look at the primary distinguishing characteristics of Web3, which will help us judge the significance of the new idea.

In a manner that has not been seen before, Web3 users can take full ownership of their digital assets.

The Bottom Line

Web3 is a relatively new ecosystem that is rapidly expanding in size. Despite the fact that the “new Internet” can trace its roots all the way back to the 1990s, the idea has only just started to garner serious attention.

Large corporations are making significant investments, experimenting with NFTs and metaverses, and assessing the possibilities of these technologies.

Developers are working on solutions for scaling and decentralized data storage in order to improve the overall experience that programs provide for their end users. It seems like wherever you look, people are experimenting with new ways of community administration and organization, and SSI is being implemented.