Web 3.0!!! What is it?? Why should we learn about it??

 

Hey There,

Welcome again to my blog! 😊

 

In this blog, we will try to learn about this buzzword called …yeah, you guessed it right, “Web 3.0”! 😂

 

Simply put "Web 3.0 is internet decentralized!"

 

You might say,

"Sanket, last time you wrote something about decentralized data architecture...amm what was that...yeah...Data Mesh!

(Check: https://paradiseofanintrovert.blogspot.com/2022/02/data-mesh-is-it-here-to-kill-data.html)

Is it like these days we need to apply this 'decentralized' term everywhere....like literally everywhere??"😅

 

Well..your question is apt and we shall try to understand more on this new term for sure! 

 

So, what exactly is Web 3.0???  🤔🤔

 


 

 I tried to do a Brave search on this and look what I found:

 

So..there is no clear explanation for this!!!?? How do we understand about it then???

“Wait…what??? You did a Brave search???

Don’t we normally do a Google/Bing/Yahoo/whatever else search??” You might ask!

 

Yeah..Brave is another search engine which I’ve been using for some time on Brave browser!

Co-incidentally, this tool is helping me get somewhat experience of Web 3.0!!

 

“This is all confusing …. can you explain this??”

Yeah..sure! That’s why we are here, aren’t we?? 😉

 

Okay..so I did a few more Brave searches(yeah!) to understand more on this! Let’s try to see what is that makes this concept so unique!

 

Web 3.0

In order to understand what is it, we need to go back in time and understand what its previous versions were.

When internet gained major traction in 90s, there were static webpages on any site which one used to visit. Here the role of user was limited to reading the information available and not much to contribute! This is referred to as Web 1.0.

Now, after that the time came around 2005 for next generation, so to say, for the internet! Here, different web technologies (like HTML5, Javascript, etc.) enabled users to interact with the web via different methods be it commenting or creating user pages! Famous examples of this could be Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube, etc. where we, as users, not only consumed the content but got chance to contribute in any form. This, we can call as, Web 2.0.

Okay..so we get it! All the social media platforms then come under Web 2.0. We interact heavily on daily basis with this!

So, then what is Web 3.0???

 

Since users gained interest in these platforms, companies like Google, Facebook (Now Meta!), Amazon used it tactfully to generate business out of it! Advertisement business grew many many fold and people became to product despite people thinking they were using these platforms as product!!😯

Yeah, those ads you see while scrolling Insta feed, on YouTube videos or Google search pages are the result of so many operations combined mainly profiling based on your activity using Data Analytics and Machine Learning! These helped these companies become so big that they now, in a sense, own the internet and can influence people to act in a manner! (You might have heard of Cambridge Analytica scene!)🙄

 

So, in order to have an alternate solution to this, this new term has been coined…which is Web 3.0.

Here, decentralization is at the core so no one owns anything and the users are the actual rulers! Although, there are certain challenges against it, but we have to accept that it is emerging field and would go through lot of iteration in its development!

 

In traditional web – Web 2.0 (well, soon it will be 😉), the users didn’t get much back if we look at it..like what benefit did you get from that ad that you saw, of course other than ending up buying non-required item in most cases!?

So here in Web 3.0, they are trying to give back to the users who come, interact with the web and the users have the choice if they want to see any ads or not! So, let’s say I agreed to see ads, first point is these ads will not be target based on my activity and second point is, I’d get fraction of the revenue made by the web platform through advertiser!

 

“Wait …. what???”

 

I know..I know sounds a bit difficult to digest! So, let me try to explain with an example. Remember, the Brave search I showed in the beginning?? Yeah, that is a perfect example of this. So, I’ve installed Brave browser on my Desktop and have enabled ads, so whenever I see ads in any form, I get something called as BAT which is Basic Attention Token! Yeah, we’re being paid for our attention! :P

 



As you can see in the snapshot, so far, I’ve earned 0.25 BATs and in current month, so far, I’ve earned 0.103 BATs and counting! 😬 This I can have in my wallet here and then spend on things!

Oh..yes, here we’ve an option to give back to the content creators as well via the same method! This is what giving users the control means in its true sense!

Another definition:

Web 3.0 is the upcoming third generation of the internet where websites and apps will be able to process information in a smart human-like way through technologies like machine learning (ML), Big Data, decentralized ledger technology (DLT), etc. Web 3.0 was originally called the Semantic Web by World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, and was aimed at being a more autonomous, intelligent, and open internet.”

Source: Coinmarketcap (https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-web-3-0)

 

Okay..so now that we know something about this, let’s try to learn how can one benefit from this!

Well, for starters, we need to be educated in order to benefit from any new technology! For which, we have taken the first step today! 😊

 

Then, we should try to utilize the same in any way to generate parallel source of income! As, it is the future of the internet, we could utilize DeFi (another decentralized term for Finance..which I’ve tried to cover in one my previous blogs) Check that out if you haven’t already!

 

Another small step is to start using browsers like Brave where you have control over your data and you’re getting paid for your attention!

 

There are certain challenges for this tech as any emerging tech this world has seen. Will try to list down briefly and if one wants to know more about it, will have all the reference links at the end!

 

 

The challenges facing Web 3.0

Cost - The cost of Blockchain, which is underneath platform to support this, is increasing! But there are developments happening in this space to reduce the cost.

 

Scalability - Since every transaction on any decentralized network has to be put on the entire peer-to-peer network, the more the number of transactions, the slower the network might get due to congestion! A good example of this can be increased ‘gas fees’ on Ethereum network! Again, Solana is trying to overcome by building fast network and the work is in progress!

 

User experience - We are so used to of the Chrome interface, that this new platform might feel overwhelming in terms of learning to someone. The wallet setup in order to have the tokens and all might feel too much! But I believe, with time, this will evolve to a better level!

 

Accessibility – The final one is internet accessibility itself! There are still certain areas in the world, where traditional web hasn’t got full penetration and we’re talking about next generation of the Web which will come with whole lot of changes with it!

 

So, in summary, we tried to learn about this buzzword and also talked about challenges and applications!

 

In order to not have this blog too much lengthy, I want to keep this discussion till this only.

 

Will definitely try to learn more and share in my next blogs!! 😊

 

Till then, chao 🖐 and thanks for stopping by!!😁

 

Oh…yes!!! If we are not already connected on LinkedIn, do hola at me! 😄

Sanket Mehta | LinkedIn

 

 

 

Reference Links:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/415525

https://medium.com/fabric-ventures/what-is-web-3-0-why-it-matters-934eb07f3d2b

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/21/1056988346/web3-internet-jargon-or-future-vision

https://search.brave.com/search?q=how+do+you+define+web+3.0&source=web

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Should Data Engineers care only about technical knowledge???

How are Data Engineering & Data Science related (if at all)? Which has good scope in the future?