Web3 is NOT the same as Web 3.0: Read on to find the differences.
Web3 is the talk of the town. Enthusiasts are eagerly waiting for it and calling it ‘the future of the Web’. There are also many people (especially Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey) vocal against it.
If you think ‘Web3’ and Web 3.0 is the same thing, you are wrong. The two are entirely different terms, in fact, terms that contrast with each other, which you can’t use interchangeably.
The Web then and now:
When the Web first made its appearance, it was completely static. Everything on the Web was composed of only text and images. Since it was only informative, you never interacted with it. You just opened Internet Explorer to research topics.
Web 2.0 is an extension to Web 1.0. Users can interact and communicate. A simple example is any social media website, where you can post tweets yourself, not just read them. It is dynamic, which means that the websites can change as per the instructions given to them by users. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Skype, YouTube are among many such sites with which you can interact.
Web 2.0 follows the client-server mechanism, which means that the Cloud stores all these websites. These reside in infrastructure owned by Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc. When you visit a website, you contact these servers to receive data (Web 1.0) and post data back to these servers (Web 2.0).
Disadvantage
Meta (then-Facebook)’s servers were recently down, which resulted in WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram crashing for almost 6 hours. A disadvantage of Web 2.0, where all content is stored centrally, is that one problematic server can affect the entire platform. Web3 is supposed to fix problems like these.
Web3
About Web3
Let us start with Web3: Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood coined the term in 2014. Web 2.0 is centralised, which means servers of the Big Tech companies store most data. Web3 is supposed to be decentralised, which means one single company would not ‘rule’ the Web anymore. As of now, Web3 is more philosophical than technological. The foundation of Web3 is giving more control to users, not specifically ‘taking tech forward’.
The idea of Web3 is similar to the concept of Linux. Richard Stallman founded the GNU movement in the 1980s to give more freedom to users.
Composition
Web3 will be composed of blockchain technologies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs). You might know about Web 2.0 phenomena SSO (Single Sign-on) and see ‘Sign in with Facebook’ or ‘Sign in with Microsoft’ on any other website. One trusted authority verifies if your username and password are correct and lets you access the protected content. Web3 introduces Self-sovereign identity, which is decentralised authentication. It also promotes the concept of cryptography.
If you don’t know what these mean, you can watch videos about them, which will solve a lot of your confusion.
Disadvantages
- A fully open web isn’t completely safe. It can also mean no censorship of cyberbullying or hate speech.
- (Public opinions) Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey have claimed that Web3 is more ‘marketing than reality. As per people on Twitter, Web3 is more like a business model, not a tech stack.
- At this point, it is too immature, and most of it is still in development.
Web 3.0
About Web 3.0
Web 3.0 is vastly different from Web3. It is a far older concept. The father of the Web, Tim-Berners Lee, coined the term in 1999. Web 3.0 refers to a semantic Web. Web 3.0 is a data-driven Web, where machines can process data in a humanlike way. It makes the Web more intelligent and connected.
Composition
Web 3.0 is composed of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, and of course, data.
Conclusion
Web 3.0 is an ironic contrast from Web3. Web3 is built around the concept of privacy, whereas Web 3.0 plans to take technology further with human data. At this point, Web 3.0 is far more developed than Web3, so it would be interesting to see which one becomes the ‘future of the Web’.
We should also consider other upcoming technologies, such as the Metaverse (which seems to pair more with Web 3.0 than Web3). Web 3.0 could be a great data source to help build the Metaverse. On the other hand, cryptocurrency is gaining popularity and blends with Web3 more than Web 3.0.
Which one do you support?
