Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk are critical of Web3. Their complaint is that Web3 promises to give users control over their own data, but is failing to do so. They suggest that the reality of Web3 is that it is owned by VC’s and their limited partners.
However there seems to be some confusion between Web3 and Web 3.0. Web3 is a term created by Polkadot founder Gavin Wood, while Web 3.0 or the semantic web was coined by Tim Berners-Lee, who is one of the inventors of the world wide web.
The Web3 foundation was created to promote the ideas of Web3, but even they confuse the terms Web3 and Web 3.0 using both on their website. It might be helpful to understand what Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 are to better understand what Web3 is. Web 1.0 is known as the read-only web that contained read-only websites connected by hyperlinks. Web 2.0 is known as the read-write web and includes all the well known social media sites, such as facebook and twitter.
The major tenents of Web3 and Web 3.0 are listed below:
Four key features of Web 3.0:
- Ubiquity
- Semantic Web
- Artificial Intelligence
- 3D Graphics
Berners-Lee described the goal as:
“I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A "Semantic Web", which makes this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The "intelligent agents" people have touted for ages will finally materialize.”
Web3 Beliefs
- Users own their own data, not corporations
- Global digital transactions are secure
- Online exchanges of information and value are decentralized
The Foundation describes Web3 goals as:
“Our mission is to nurture cutting-edge applications for decentralized web software protocols.
Our passion is delivering Web 3.0, a decentralized and fair internet where users control their own data, identity and destiny.”
As you can see Web3 is completely different than Web 3.0. Web 3.0 sounds like dystopian nightmare that the NSA and the CCP would love and are actively working towards. I am not saying that was Berners-Lee’s goal. Web3 is trying to do the exact opposite and giving back control of the web to users, which is a goal I can support.
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