The early 90s gave birth to the World Wide Web. I remember my first PC being huge, and my Monitor being the size of a fish tank, dialling up and connecting to the internet (back then you couldn’t use the internet and house phone at the same time). In those days websites had limited functionality, we mainly consumed content from websites, like reading the news and looking at many terrible business websites (here’s Yahoo in 1995).
This was Web 1.0 as we knew it.
The mid 2000s saw the boom of user participation, marking the entrances of the giants we know now as Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Amazon and Google. As the users, we were starting to creat content ourselves, like sharing photos, blogs, videos and more. It connected people like never before.
The data is centrally stored and controlled by these companies, so in other words, you have little to no control over your data.
This was Web 2.0
The mid 2010s saw the genesis of Bitcoin, and this is a crucial driving force behind what’s to come after Web 2.0. Bitcoin saw the invention of blockchain technology, it reinvents the way data is stored and managed on a network in a decentralised way. Without getting too technical, in essence data, content, currency and more is collectively managed and stored everywhere. Instead of our data being managed by one institution, these networks are built, operated, and maintained by its users. They’re self-organising and completely open source. It has cutting edge encryption and is censorship resistant.
It’s predicted this will bring huge fundamental changes not only to the internet and technology but to the way we live.
Picture currencies completely regulated by its users and not banks (Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin). Information that can live everywhere, forever and can never be deleted (Arweave). Encrypted, unhackable decentralised platforms for electoral voting (Cardano).
It’s a ‘data democracy’. This is Web 3.0!
*No one really knows who invented Bitcoin, people thought it was this guy Dorian Nakamoto but he denies it.
No one really knows how big of an impact Web 3.o will have on our lives in the future, but what’s for certain is that things will be very different.
