The road to Web3

In this video, Darcy discusses with Associate Professor Chris Berg, one of the founders of RMIT’s Blockchain Innovation Hub, what Web3 means and how it evolved from previous versions of the internet. Watch the video and then read the following to better understand the road to Web3.

What Web3 allows us to do

One way to distinguish Web1, Web2 and Web3 is by the capabilities that users have.

Let’s delve slightly deeper into these different generations of the internet.

From Web1 to Web2

In Web1, the first generation of the internet, users could read information online. Web1 was remarkable for the liberation of information. It took us beyond the print age of information. But, as described on Liquid, Web1 was just the first generation of the internet, and looks primitive to what we have today:

Web1 was the internet at its most primitive stage. In this era, websites were read-only informational pages. There were no options to comment or suggest. You could send emails but only texts and not photos or upload any images.

We saw less censorship here (though still dominant) compared to print. Due to this, people started questioning the credibility of the quickly growing database of information. There were loose social networks on Web1 and only a few “internet companies” controlled content. Web1-esque websites still exist today, but they aren’t very typical. Craigslist is an example you are likely familiar with.

Web2 refers to the version of the internet most of us know today. An internet dominated by companies that provide services in exchange for your personal data.

Web3

• Web3 is more open. The code of many Web3 businesses, as we will see throughout this course, is open source. That creates opportunities and challenges for building businesses.
• Web3 is more trustless. In Web3, trust comes through a network (e.g. on a blockchain, through consensus), rather than being produced by centralised intermediaries.
• Web3 is more permissionless. Because of a lack of intermediaries, Web3 enables more permissionless access.

Web 3.0 enables a future where distributed users and machines are able to interact with data, value and other counterparties via a substrate of peer-to-peer networks without the need for third parties. The result: a composable human-centric & privacy preserving computing fabric for the next wave of the web.

Web3 businesses must be built in this context. The fact that users can own digital assets, and transfer value, opens up entirely new types of business models. These business models must be built with an ethos of decentralisation.

Why decentralisation matters

Web3 isn’t just about new tools. It also has new ethos and missions behind those tools. As mentioned above, one core ethos is decentralisation. Web3 is revolutionising the way that users engage with the platforms they use online. Users now have more control of their data (including their identity), the way that platforms are governed and their choice between platforms.