Yeniree Taborda, Full Stack Developer https://www.linkedin.com/in/ytaborda/
Sofía Acher, IT Copywriter https://www.linkedin.com/in/sofia-acher/
Technology grows fast and is increasingly transforming the different areas of our lives. It has changed the way we access information, the way we interact with each other, the way we buy products and services, the way we work and even our conception of what we consider work. What is the future of the Internet?
The new upcoming stage of the World Wide Web that uses blockchain technology is called web 3. In an article from the New York Times it is defined as a new type of internet service built using decentralized blockchains, which is the shared register systems that cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum or Bitcoin use (Roose, 2022). This new phase arises with the purpose of giving users back their content’s ownership, by way of decentralized blockchains. Why? If users publish videos, pictures, texts, etc. from their accounts, aren’t they already owners of their content? One may believe this, but this is not entirely true. Let’s review some history to answer this question and understand web 3 better.
In addition to users not being entirely the owners of their content, they are not entirely the owners of their data. At the beginning of web 2.0, users published content on social media to share with their friends and families. As time went by, companies saw the opportunity of advertising their products or services on these platforms, which started competing to make users spend more time on them. To achieve it, they gather users’ data about their behavior and preferences to offer them personalized content.
As a consequence, Web 3 is about ownership, decentralization, and censorship resistance, which means every person is the owner of their own content. “In a blockchain technology model, only the user can alter their content, and its monitoring and judgment would depend on the rules of the community instead of being dictated by the platform’s provider”, explains Yeni Taborda, Full Stack Developer in our team.
The fact that absolutely any transaction on the Internet could be tokenized means that a completely new economic model could be created through the Internet. Today, in web 2.0, Torrents work this way but without crypto currency. As time goes by and content stops being important for users, it disappears. If a more permanent content is wanted, the crypto currency model is needed for every content generator on the Internet. It should be borne in mind that every content has its preparation, script, production time, and creative ability that should be rewarded. Different from web 2.0, in web 3 this reward is generated by the community rather than by the ads of the platform where the content is displayed.
Even though web 3 is a technology with a lot of potential, it is still in investigation. It may not get to the extent of a world in which a token would give people access to their passport, their bank accounts, and their whole identity on the Internet (and maybe it should not, this has positive and negative consequences as well). However, it may be applicable to e-commerce sites and social media so that users gain privacy of their data and ownership of their content, which value would depend on the community. What do you think about the new sequel of the world wide web?
This is a summary of the whole article, visit https://www.onetree.com/blog/web-3-what-does-the-future-of-the-world-wide-web-await-us/ to read it completely
