Web3 is one of those buzzwords that electrify the tech community. Crypto bros are singing its praises across the Twitterverse, often whilst peddling their own supposedly essential solutions for it. However, that doesn’t explain what Web3 is. Don’t worry, though. We’ve got you covered.
Essentially, Web3 is the internet on blockchain. It has been advertised a solution to the solution for the status quo where a handful of companies control our online interactions. These companies – the Googles and Facebooks of the world – collect our data and sell our attention as a product to other companies for profit.
Current Web2, full of photos, videos and user-generated content, costs us almost nothing – except our time and attention, oh, and maybe our mental wellbeing. At least, that’s what Meta whistleblower Frances Haugen has repeatedly told any lawmaker willing to listen.
Some crypto bros think this needs to change. They evangelize that control must be redistributed and decentralized. That’s where Web3 comes in.
So what is Web3? At it’s core, Web3 is an ideology born out of the rejection of the idea that Big Tech must be the guardians of the web and our online interactions. Web3 fanatics will advocate for an internet infrastructure overhaul built upon blockchain to reduce our reliance on Web2 middlemen and hand control back to users. In utopian Web3, Big Tech will no longer be gatekeepers of the web and all user-generated data. It could be a fundamentally different kind of internet.
Is Web3 the same as cryptocurrencies or the metaverse?
By that description, it might be easy to conflate Web3 with cryptocurrencies or the metaverse. So are they the same? No, but they all overlap.
So what are cryptocurrencies? The phrase is a shorthand that usually refers to different digital assets leveraging blockchain technology. Bitcoin is the most known cryptocurrency out there. By their nature, they are decentralized, meaning that they are not controlled by a central bank.
Continue reading: https://www.verdict.co.uk/what-is-web3-crypto-bros/
Essentially, Web3 is the internet on blockchain. It has been advertised a solution to the solution for the status quo where a handful of companies control our online interactions. These companies – the Googles and Facebooks of the world – collect our data and sell our attention as a product to other companies for profit.
Current Web2, full of photos, videos and user-generated content, costs us almost nothing – except our time and attention, oh, and maybe our mental wellbeing. At least, that’s what Meta whistleblower Frances Haugen has repeatedly told any lawmaker willing to listen.
Some crypto bros think this needs to change. They evangelize that control must be redistributed and decentralized. That’s where Web3 comes in.
So what is Web3? At it’s core, Web3 is an ideology born out of the rejection of the idea that Big Tech must be the guardians of the web and our online interactions. Web3 fanatics will advocate for an internet infrastructure overhaul built upon blockchain to reduce our reliance on Web2 middlemen and hand control back to users. In utopian Web3, Big Tech will no longer be gatekeepers of the web and all user-generated data. It could be a fundamentally different kind of internet.
Is Web3 the same as cryptocurrencies or the metaverse?
By that description, it might be easy to conflate Web3 with cryptocurrencies or the metaverse. So are they the same? No, but they all overlap.
So what are cryptocurrencies? The phrase is a shorthand that usually refers to different digital assets leveraging blockchain technology. Bitcoin is the most known cryptocurrency out there. By their nature, they are decentralized, meaning that they are not controlled by a central bank.
Continue reading: https://www.verdict.co.uk/what-is-web3-crypto-bros/
