What is Web 3.0? Its Concept, Advantages and Limitations

Some say it’s the future of the internet, others - that it’s a utopian idea that will never grow its following and most have not heard about it at all or have no understanding of what it is. So let’s break it down, what is Web 3.0?

1. The History of the Internet
2. The Concept of Web 3.0
3. Web 3.0 Advantages
4. Web 3.0 Limitations
5. Opinion

The History of the Internet

The World Wide Web and Web 1.0 started evolving more than three decades ago, with the first internet sites being static, immovable domains of knowledge, similar to encyclopedias. Then came user creator era Web 2.0 which we’re still in today, with most websites integrating ways for its users to interact with each other, create content and share information. This is the era of flourishing social media, forums and networking sites. What both of these phases of the internet have in common is ownership, because, in both Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, the data collected from its users belong to a small centralised group of companies better known as the “Big Tech”. When we browse the internet and read articles on Web 2.0 platforms, we agree to sell our data (by accepting cookies) to companies with an interest in persuading us to purchase from them. Thus, after reading about immersive technology, you will quickly find yourself receiving advertisements for VR glasses. Although most of us have accepted that we have little to no ownership of our data and even joke about it in our day to day, the privacy concern is one of the biggest deficiencies of Web 2.0 design.

The Concept of Web 3.0

Web 3.0 idea is to create a network, where each individual posting online would be the owner of the information they post. In Web 2.0, we’re all products to the “Big Tech”, we’re valuable in as much as we sell our data to the visited websites. Even if we can individually protect our data by having a VPN or an Ad Blocker, collectively, we continue to be influenced by the data collected from others. Contrastingly, in Web 3.0 our content would belong to us and even if somebody else decided to share our content or download it, it would forever have an imprint of the original owner in its history.

This next evolutionary phase of the internet is trying to incorporate artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, decentralization and a token-based economy. Now, to those with little previous knowledge about blockchain technology, it is a database system holding information distributed amongst various nodes of computer network. In contrast to a normal database, where data is monopolised and stored within centralised servers, blockchain stores its data in peer-to-peer network nodes.

When information from one computer is sent to another via email, for example, using Web 2.0, a copy of the original document is created and stored within the database belonging to the email provider. Not only does it require energy to store copies of billions of pieces of information, but it’s also incredibly inefficient to have a middleman (the email provider in this case) because of data leakages, hacks and privacy concerns.

Blockchain, on the other hand, groups its data in blocks of information, linking together with the previous block and creating a timestamp for when that block was filled, consequentially making it impossible to reverse, change or modify data in one of the blocks without impacting the whole chain. It is stored within peer-to-peer networks, where each of the computers has the same level of information and the data is transparent to everyone in that network. On top of that, cryptographic hashes ensure the privacy of the data collected. This technology has mainly been used for cryptocurrency transactions, which cannot be altered, deleted or destroyed.

Web3.0 Advantages

Perhaps the main advantage of Web 3.0, at least in theory, is the idea of ownership and data control. Within the Web3.0 system, it seems almost impossible to download somebody else’s work and capitalize off it, pretending it’s your own, because of the cryptographic imprint and timestamp, transparently showing to the whole network who was the original owner of the piece of writing, art or another type of digital creation. In Web 3.0 the power and ownership of the content would belong to the creators rather than the websites where their content lives. Meaning that your data such as likes, followings and comments would live on the blockchain and be transferable to any other interface if you decided to switch from one website to another. It could potentially mean the end of Instagram, Facebook and Twitter era, and monopolised social media.

Having peer-to-peer transactions without middlemen has the potential to transform the way we perceive our society, moving away from a top-down pyramid to a network-based community. The decentralised structure which lies at the core of Web 3.0 design creates a contrast to our currently known hierarchal reality. For instance, instead of going to websites such as Amazon, Etsy or eBay, you’d now buy directly from the suppliers of the products. Whether these are small business owners or big corporations, you’d not need to pay additional costs to the seller, because you could find the direct source of the product, and purchase from them.

Finally, Web 3.0 is revolutionizing money and value creation. Because its system is based on developers, users and miners working together in a peer-to-peer network, the governance of such a network depends not on trust, as it does in Web 2.0, but on the protocol. The stakeholders in Web3.0 don’t know each other, they can choose to stay anonymous, they are from all over the globe and have no incentive to trust one another. There is no centralised governing body regulating such a network, implementing rules, or forming contracts or legal agreements for the participating parties. Instead, they all follow the same open-source protocol, which incentivizes network actors by giving out network tokens such as Bitcoin.

Web3.0 Limitations

I am aware that so far I’ve painted a picture of Web 3.0 through rose-tinted glasses. Since the majority of the Web 3.0 ideas are still in the making, it’s much easier to have a utopian picturesque view of how the concept could look like. Yet there are various valid concerns about the concept. One of which attacks the fundamental principle of decentralisation within Web 3.0. Those who oppose the development of Web 3.0 believe that without a centralised governing body running and moderating websites, there would be an increase in bullying, harassment and hate speech on the internet. Is that the price we’d have to pay in the name of more liberated online space? Whilst it’s impossible to control everything that happens online, and an initial increase in unregulated harmful content is likely to happen, the optimism-stricken developers believe that a solution for this problem will be reached.

As it stands today, Web 3.0 design is still in its early years of development and could be compared to the first couple of years of the internet appearance, when nobody besides its developers knew how to use it. At the moment it is technical and requires at least an interest in programming and cryptocurrency to be able to use it as a creator. To sign into a website, a creator needs to connect their crypto wallet, which in itself can become a hassle. There’s also a concern about the sign-in process being inaccessible for developing nations, where transaction fees would be too high.

Opinion

I became interested in the idea of Web 3.0 when I heard about it on Tiktok and it sounded very similar to an idea that Mark Fisher described in his Final Lectures of Postcapitalist Desire. He envisioned a future where ideas are shared freely amongst each other in a similar way that Wikipedia is now free and accessible for all. I often find myself in conflicting statements, on the one hand advocating for content creators to be paid fairly and on the other, for content to be accessible for all. To give an example of how our current Web 2.0 system is failing its content creators, we simply need to take a look at the world of scientific research paper publication. To legally access research papers as a private user, you need to spend hundreds if not thousands of pounds, yet researchers do not receive any money directly from the journal which publishes their work and in many cases have to pay the journal to offset the cost of publication. Web 3.0 seems to be moving to a more egalitarian future, with perhaps fewer profits for the big corporations but much more spending power and complete transparency for its users.