Everyone is talking about Web2 vs Web3 these days. But what do they mean by Web2 and Web3? I hope this article will help you understand the basic differences between the two.
Web2 is a term that describes the internet we know and use today. It allows us to dynamically interact with websites on the internet. An example of a web2 app would be YouTube.
The fundamental difference between web2 and web3 technologies is their architecture.
Web2 architecture consists of;
- A place to store essential data (user credentials, likes, comments, etc)
- A backend to define business logic.
- A frontend to display what the app/website looks like and what happens when a user interacts with elements of the app
Web3 architecture is very different because it;
- Uses smart contracts for backend logic
- Uses blockchain to build apps on a decentralized state machine (eg. EVM) that is maintained by nodes on the network.
By looking at the difference between Web2’s & Web3’s architecture we can see that the main issue here is centralization vs decentralization.
In Centralized Systems participation in the network is controlled by the central authority but in Decentralized Systems ideally, anyone can participate in the network.
In the past few years, we have seen issues with web2 companies harvesting search histories, email topics, likes, political and religious affiliations, sexual orientation, relationship status, health information, purchase histories of all sorts, and selling this data to marketing and advertising firms as part of their business models. Owning the user is part of the web2 “ethos”.
Essentially, Web3 can be regarded as the next-generation internet, where everything that could be done in Web2 can still be done but in a decentralized way meaning
participants can interact without permission from a trusted intermediary or governing body.
no central authority can control content and impose indiscriminate censorship
Web3 technologies are hoping to shift the power away from big tech corporations to individual users.
The Nigerian startup Nestcoin is helping bring web3 technologies to Africa by building web3 apps and helping the ecosystem grow by training new blockchain developers in collaboration with ZuriTeam and Blockgames. You can check out their youtube here.
Another resource I REALLY like (that is also one of Nestcoin’s products) is the Breach blog which you can check out here.
Top comments (3)
Web3 is another push from the blockchain community to force the solution 'blockchain' for problems that don't need it.
It is a technology that operates with the processing power equivalent of a 1960 relay computer with equivalent power consumption to host some websites even tough it runs on server farms with hardware that would make millions of gamers happy.
Maybe you can see, I am not very hyped.
Haha, I noticed you aren't very hyped. Does that mean your against Blockchains in general as well?
I think there are some good ideas, however the sheer amount of resources we put into this is crazy.
When I was younger I imagined a bitcoin like thing but instead of just wasting power on crunching worthless numbers these processor cycles should be put to good use. Imagine you let your machine compute and instead of calculating worthless hashes you help the science community. You get Token which can be uses as an equivalent of a currency.
My main con argument is: It's a big waste of resources + energy.
So in the current state I think blockchain + crypto-coins + nft is a big pyramid scheme and a enormous waste of resources.