With a previous article We mentioned that there were terms that were used a lot but that nobody seemed to know very well what they were about. In this case we will mention something much easier to understand: what is web3.
It is a relatively new expression, coined by investor Packy McCormick who describes the evolution of the Internet as follows:
- Web1 (Approximately between 1990-2005) Based on open and decentralized protocols. It was governed by the community and contributions came from users and developers.
- Web2 (Approximately 2005-2020) A network controlled by large companies that generate most of the contributions and keep the profits.
- Web3: Returns control to users and developers, recovering decentralization without giving up the functionality of Web2.
what is web3
The great advantage of web3 is its integration with technologies such as the blockchain, cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
Advocates of web 3 argue that in this new stage of the Internet ownership and control will be decentralized as it will be held by users and developers by holding non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as fungible. These tokens will give users the right to vote on the destinations of the network by giving them ownership over part of it.
Supposedly this will avoid the control that large companiesjust as Google, Apple, Microsoft or Amazon have on the current Internet.
How do you obtain these tokens that allow you to acquire the right to comment?
One of the ways is the purchase, but tokens can also be earned being the first users of a new network, collaborating with its operation or selling products in the form of NFTs.
It must be said that web3 needs to work under Blockchain. This technology stores data in a network of computers that are independent of each other, located in different places and owned by different people. These computers store operations in blocks of pre-established capacity and use validation mechanisms that make it impossible to tamper with the records.
For now there are many promises. That of ending the power of technological oligopolies, that of allowing creators to be rewarded without the platforms keeping most of it or the end of annoying advertising on the Internet. Whether it is really going to come true or whether we are facing a new bubble like the one at the end of the XNUMXs is something that time will tell.