Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Web 3.0

Mains level: Not Much

web

India has a rapidly-growing Web3 ecosystem with more than 450 active start-ups in the space that raised $1.3 billion in funding till April 2022.

What is Web 3.0?

Web3 help users interact with decentralized applications built on blockchain technology.
Web3 technologies like distributed ledgers, artificial intelligence, Metaverse and others aim to create the next-generation internet, which is accessible to everyone and offers benefits.
Web2 is what we know and use today.

Why need Web 3?

Centralization has helped onboard billions of people to the World Wide Web (www) and created the stable, robust internet infrastructure.
At the same time, a handful of centralized entities have a stronghold on large swathes of the World Wide Web.
They unilaterally decide what should and should not be allowed over Internet.

Immutable ecosystem, i.e., trust that people will download the digital product just as the original creator intended.
Enhanced transparency and security,
Quicker browsing performance,
Complete user anonymity and confidentiality,
Integrating cryptocurrency wallets with multiple blockchains,
Complete control over the content due to decentralization.

The Web most of us know today is quite different from originally imagined.
To understand this better, it’s helpful to break the Web’s short history into loose periods—Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.

(1) Web 1.0: Read-Only (1990-2004)

The first inception of ‘Web 1.0’, occurred roughly between 1990 to 2004.
It was mainly static websites owned by companies, and there was close to zero interaction between users – individuals seldom produced content – leading to it being known as the read-only web.

(2) Web 2.0: Read-Write (2004-now)

The Web 2.0 period began in 2004 with the emergence of social media platforms.
Instead of a read-only, the web evolved to be read-write.
Instead of companies providing content to users, they also began to provide platforms to share user-generated content and engage in user-to-user interactions.
As more people came online, a handful of top companies began to control a disproportionate amount of the traffic and value generated on the web.
Web 2.0 also birthed the advertising-driven revenue model.
While users could create content, they didn’t own it or benefit from its monetization.

The premise of ‘Web 3.0’ was coined by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood shortly after Ethereum launched in 2014.
Gavin put into words a solution for a problem that many early crypto adopters felt: the Web required too much trust.
That is, most of the Web that people know and use today relies on trusting a handful of private companies to act in the public’s best interests.

Although it’s challenging to provide a rigid definition of what Web3 is, a few core principles guide its creation.

Web3 is decentralized: instead of large swathes of the internet controlled and owned by centralized entities, ownership gets distributed amongst its builders and users.
Web3 is permission-less: everyone has equal access to participate in Web3, and no one gets excluded.
Web3 has native payments: it uses cryptocurrency for spending and sending money online instead of relying on the outdated infrastructure of banks and payment processors.
Web3 is secure: It operates using incentives and economic mechanisms instead of relying on trusted third-parties.

Ownership: Web3 gives you ownership of your digital assets in an unprecedented way. Web3 allows for direct ownership through non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Censorship resistance: The power dynamic between platforms and content creators is massively imbalanced.
Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs): As well as owning your data in Web3, you can own the platform as a collective, using tokens that act like shares in a company.