From the point of view of technological jargon, 2021 was particularly rich in neologisms: by DeFi (decentralized finance based on blockchain) to the GameFi (which allows you to earn through video games); from the explosion of the NFT to the science fiction promises of the metaverse. Finance, art, work, entertainment: in the second year marked by the coronavirus, the digital innovation sector has shown (not coincidentally) the desire to transfer an increasingly large part of our lives online.
In recent weeks, however, another tech label has begun to circulate with insistence: Web3, the third incarnation of the Net, which by exploiting the blockchain promises to decentralize the online world, steal power from the giants of Silicon Valley and also create a new economic ecosystem from which everyone can earn.
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From the Web to the Web 3
Before analyzing the pros and cons of this potential new incarnation of the Web, which currently exists only in an embryonic form, it may however be useful to review the fundamental aspects of the two previous and existing versions of the Web. The Web1 is the one that has spread since the 1990s, characterized above all by the online pages of the various corporate, information, amateur or other sites. At this stage, users had little opportunity to interact with each other and with the content.
Has been the Web2 (at the time called Web 2.0) to fill this gap. With the debut of Wikipedia in 2001 and the first blog platforms (such as Blogger or the Italian Splinder), it has become easier for all users of the Web to communicate, create content and have an active part in the Net. further leap forward with the birth of social networks, which are based entirely on user-generated content. A side effect of the spread of platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, however, is to have handed a large part of the Net into the hands of very few giants, centralizing a reality that was much more distributed in previous incarnations.
What changes with the third network
This is precisely the goal of the Web3: to decentralize the Internet again and create a widespread digital economy, no longer based on advertising or subscriptions, but on participation. All this, with the fundamental contribution of the blockchain and cryptocurrencies. A practical example can clarify the picture: Filecoin is a sort of Dropbox of the blockchain, which allows everyone to save content in the cloud. However, the Filecoin cloud is not based in the data centers owned by some giant in the sector, but in the hard drives of all the computers connected to this blockchain.
Instead of rely on a private company to save their photographs, you can take advantage of the free memory of the thousands of computers connected to the Filecoin blockchain, through which it is always possible to check on which hard drives our data are saved, to monitor the movements and automatically claim everything that belongs to us (more details are here). Those who rent the space on the hard disk of their computer through Filecoin obtain in exchange a proportional amount of the connected cryptocurrency, called Fil, which can then be sold on traditional cryptocurrency trading platforms. Another crucial aspect of some Web3 realities is to offer users the right to vote in relation to the decisions they concern the management of the platform itself, usually with a weight proportional to the activity carried out or to the cryptocurrencies owned.
An example of decentralized governance is that experienced by one important reality like Reddit. As explained on Slate, “Reddit is starting to make its way into Web3 by figuring out how to use cryptocurrencies to allow subscribers to own portions of the communities they participate in on the site. The idea is that users will use coins called Community Points, earned based on the number of posts published and based on how many positive or negative votes they receive. These coins will offer proportional voting rights, allowing those who publish more valuable contributions to have a say in the management of the community “.
The secret is in decentralization
Then there are platforms that distribute computing power (such as Golem), others that allow anyone to create guaranteed bets via the blockchain (this is the case of Augur), while ambitious projects like BlueSky (supported by Twitter) they are working to create decentralized social networks. Other realities are the basis of these platforms and are responsible for offering the necessary infrastructure (the best known is Ethereum). From a more technical point of view, OneZero reads, Web3 platforms are “networks built on the Internet that use consensus mechanisms such as the blockchain and allow the use of cryptocurrencies to encourage collaboration from all members of the network “. In jargon, this type of reality is called Dao, which stands for Decentralized autonomous organizations.
From a certain point of view, the Web3 already exists. However, all the projects mentioned are separate from each other, still experimental and above all they are not part of an overall and (as they say in the jargon) interoperable ecosystem. Furthermore, these platforms are complex to use for the layman. In perspective, however, the Web3 should allow users to move easily, via browser, from one platform to another. For example, in the near future I should be able to easily rent the free space on my hard drive on Filecoin and convert the resulting cryptocurrencies to participate in a bet on Augur, or lend them, in exchange for a small interest, on a platform of DeFi.
Some browsers, such as Brave or Opera, they seem to be going in this direction. The first, conceived by Mozilla cofounder Brendan Eich, already uses the cryptocurrency Bat to replace traditional advertising. Those who use Brave have in fact 3 possibilities: keep the advertising as it is now, replace traditional advertising with the one selected by Brave (which will reward both the sites that host it and those who decide to see it) or use the Bats (perhaps earned thanks to the second option) to pay a monthly fee to your favorite sites and be able to view them in a completely banner-free form. Opera, on the other hand, it already integrates a wallet to store cryptocurrencies today and has recently announced a partnership with Solana, one of the most important companies in the sector also active in the field of NFT.
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The future of the network of the future
Does all this mean that in the next few years the Web3 will take over the current incarnation of the Net? Most likely not. As much as it is fascinating imagine a network in which the governance of the platforms is decided on a community basis and in which all the users who take part in it have economic advantages, it is unlikely that most Internet users will be interested to collaborate in the development of this ecosystem.
The centralization of the network as we know it today has great advantages: it does not require any kind of commitment and responsibility, it is easier to use, delegates all decisions to the owners and does not foresee the need to expose oneself at an economic level. What a niche of crypto enthusiasts, privacy advocates and decentralization advocates might seem essential advantages, to most users it probably appears as a nuisance that makes using the Internet more difficult and complex.
The fact that decentralized applications are (probably) not meant to replace traditional online services doesn’t mean they don’t have a future. From a certain point of view, the Web3 platforms could represent the cooperatives of the online world: an alternative based on greater participation that goes alongside traditional companies, without taking their place.
From Dorsey to Musk, the contrary voices
However, not everyone is convinced of the potential of this next incarnation of the internet: Elon Musk has been around for some time engaged in a ridicule campaign from Web3, that has called a useless “marketing word”. Another surprisingly critical voice is that of a big supporter of cryptocurrencies and decentralization like Jack Dorsey (founder of Twitter and the fintech firm Block, formerly known as Square), who has underlined like investments in this world by lenders of the likes of Andreessen-Horowitz will inevitably compromise its decentralization. A similar criticism it also came from Evgeny Morozov, sociologist and great expert in the digital world.
It’s still too much early to take stock, but in a digital world in which blockchain-based technologies, such as the aforementioned NFT or DeFi, continue to increase (despite the great skepticism that surrounds them), the integration of the cryptocurrency-based economy into the Web does not seem like a ‘such a strange hypothesis. And this is even more true if really the blockchain will play an important role also in the metaverse: allowing not only to buy accessories with which to customize the avatars, but also to transport them from one virtual environment to another (for example, from the Facebook metaverse to that of Tinder).
At this point, there is above all an unknown factor to be solved: this 2021 will be remembered as the year in which the foundations for the future of the Internet were laid or in which technological promises as bombastic as they are without substance have been spread? To posterity the arduous sentence, as they say.
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