To have a complete picture of web3 , it's essential to have a glance on the history of Internet . In the beginning, there was the internet: the physical infrastructure of wires and servers that lets computers, and the people in front of them, talk to each other. In the year 1969 U.S. government’s ARPANET sent its first message . Then after a tons of changes and struggle , Internet emerged in better way in the year 1991 ,when HTML and URLs made it possible for users to navigate between static pages. We can consider it as read-only Web or Web 1.0 .
As the saying goes "परिवर्तन प्रकृति का नियम है" meaning "Change is the law of life" and we have observed it too decade after decade . From discovering of wheel and bullock-cart to aero-plane and rockets. Internet too started to evolve in the early 20s ,, things started to change. The internet was becoming more interactive; it was an era of user-generated content, or the read/write web. Social media was a key feature of Web2 (or Web 2.0), and Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr came to define the experience of being online. YouTube, Wikipedia, and Google, along with the ability to comment on content, expanded our ability to watch, learn, search, and communicate.
Web2.0 has been the centralization network , which a central authority has control over the platform . for example you-tube is centralization platform which is governed by You-tube officials. Companies listed above has scaled their business exponentially and have produced mind-boggling wealth for themselves and their shareholders by scraping user's data and selling targeted ads against it.
Web2 also created new ways for regular people to make money, such as through the sharing economy and the sometimes lucrative job of being an influencer.
"Problems in Web2.0 Ecosystem".
The internet is currently dominated by corporations and their data and ideas. Personal data is commercialized and public opinion is manipulated globally.
Following are the few problems with Web2.0 a)Censorship and Monopoly : About 90% of sites are hosted by just four companies that support Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, Uber, Reddit, Netflix. If they so wish, they can block platforms they do not like.
b) Need for attention : At first, the Internet business model involved few economic relationships between service providers and users. For instance, many users were hesitant to enter credit card numbers online. To attract customers, companies offered free content and ran ads that people couldn’t ignore. TV broadcasts similar content to large audiences, whereas content on social networks is different for each individual user.
c)Threat of hacking A lot of content (billions of records) created by different owners lies in centralized storages, that can be hacked. $172 billion was spent on managing cyber security and mitigating threats in 2022. And this number keeps growing.
As the web has grown up, centralized, and gone corporate, many have started to wonder whether there’s a better future and that brings us to Web3.
"So what is Web3.0?"
Web3.0 firstly came into existanse in the year 1991 when scientists W. Scott Stornetta and Stuart Haber launched the first blockchain — a project to time-stamp digital documents. Web3.0 came into wider use and in bigger picture in the year 2009 when digital currency "Bitcoin" was launched by pseudonymous inventor Satoshi Nakamoto ,in the wake of financial crisis. Bitcoin is actually a cryptocurrency which runs on blockchain network . "what is blockchain ?" Blockchain is a distributed immutable ledger which is completely transparent. "How does blockchain work?" Ownership of the cryptocurrency is tracked on a shared public ledger, and when one user wants to make a transfer, “miners” process the transaction by solving a complex math problem, adding a new “block” of data to the chain and earning newly created bitcoin for their efforts.
Web3 is an extension of cryptocurrency, using blockchain in new ways to new ends. "Web 3.0 — don't trust people, trust blockchain". Using blockchain technology to manage, will require a public decentralized digital registry of who owns what on the network: money, asset ownership, real estate, or medical records. Each registry entry will link to the previous entry so that they are all connected as a chain and cannot be faked or counterfeited.
To add a new record, miners are needed. Miners store copies of the blockchain on computers to prevent data loss; to verify and confirm transactions by solving mathematical problems. To solve these problems, they are rewarded.
There is no singular, central point of trust in this ecosystem. Each user follows one rule, which is not to trust anybody. They only verify the data they have obtained.
Benefits of web3.0
Data Ownership: Typically, only the site owner or webmaster could contribute content to a site on legacy websites. On Web 2.0, users can create their publications on microblogging sites like Twitter. However, everything the user (content creator) does on the platform is the website itself. Even the photos you upload to Facebook are not 'yours' per se. They are now the property of Facebook unless you delete them. On a decentralized internet, users will be able to trade their data assets without intermediaries, who usually dictate their own rules and possibly charge fees for transactions. Every person will have a wallet All the data the wallet account creates will be an asset in that wallet The wallet account can transfer assets to a different account without an intermediary through blockchain After smart contracts have checked that both 'wallet accounts' have satisfied the agreement terms, a blockchain transaction is completed.
Security & privacy : Web 3.0 will be more secure and private than web 2.0. Hackers and criminals will find it more challenging to penetrate the internet and create elaborate scams. Because each transaction must be agreed together on the blockchain. If not, it will be revoked and even tracked if they attempt to do so.
Main differences between web 2.0 & web 3.0 a)Centralization v decentralization problem: In Web 3.0, people can send their transactions via a decentralized blockchain like Ethereum. On web 2.0, people need to use a centralised platform like banks or Fintechs, with all web 2.0 applications controlled by centralised organizations.
b)Ownership of information, identity, data and your digital assets: Web 3.0 will allow people to own and control their identity, data, and digital assets. Nobody will be able to change their digital assets because they are immutable. However, in web 2.0, money is controlled by banks and Fintechs. User identity and data are owned by huge businesses that use them and sell them to third parties without your permission.
Web 3.0 will bring new levels of internet trust
Despite the hype and sneering at Web 3.0, if you consider the trajectory from web1.0 - web2.0, you will realize that the latter builds on the limitations of the former. In that same way, web 3.0 is doing this now - building on the limitations of web 2.0, and many applications focused on web 3.0 are rolled out by the day in various sectors.