< General Studies Home Page

Content

• Background
• Concerns
• Significance
• Future

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Background: Understanding Web 1.0 and Web 2.0

Web 1.0 is the world wide web or the internet that was invented in 1989. It became popular in 1993. The internet in the Web 1.0 was mostly static web pages. Here most of the users visited websites and read and interacted with the static material available there. It was a closed environment and users themselves couldn’t create post content and reviews.

Web 2.0 started in some form by late 1990s. By 2004, most of the features of web 2.0 was available for implementation. Here websites were more dynamic where users could create content, post comment, write reviews etc. They could also upload photos and videos. Primarily, a social media kind of interaction is the differentiating trait of Web 2.0.

Concerns of Web 2.0:

Most of the data on internet is owned and controlled by a few behemoth companies. It has created issues related to data privacy, data security and abuse of such data. It has kind of disappointed experts that the original purpose of internet has been distorted.

Web3 or Web 3.0 is a term used to describe the next phase of the internet.

• It runs on the decentralized technology of blockchain and would be different from web 1.0 and web 2.0. Here, users have ownership stakes in platforms (unlike now where tech behemoths control everything). Here users will control their own data.
• Thus, the need of intermediaries (like Amazon, Facebook, etc.) is removed. This will end data monopoly.
• The key concepts in Web3 seen so far are peer to peer transactions and block chain.

The spirit of Web3 is Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) which is that all business rules and governing rules in any transaction are transparently available for anyone to see, and the software will be written conforming to these rules.

• Crypto-Currency and Blockchain follow the DAO principle. With DAO, there is no need for a central authority to authenticate or validate.

 Significance of web3.0:

• Prevents monopoly over data.
• Promotes data privacy.
• Increase competition in fields like search engine businesses as control over content now restricted to just a few companies would end.
• New technology, will give India an opportunity to innovate and develop.

Future of Web 3.0: Will it take off?

• It is still in its formative stage and only the future would tell if this would be accepted by wider internet users or not. Tech honchos like Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey don’t see a future for Web3.
• There are technological changes required: For e.g., it will require deviation from the current architecture where there is a front-end, middle layer and back-end. Web3’s architecture will need backend solutions for handling block chain, persisting and indexing data in block chain, peer to peer communications and so forth. Similarly, middle layer would also need to change to handle block-chain based backend.

Conclusion: Web3 may or may not become dominant mode of internet, but it has definitely raised some relevant questions.