What is Web3?
A quick tl;dr covering the basics of Web3
Note: A lot of what I will share in the future will be about Web3. I don’t go too deep into it, but I wanted to cover the general idea to make sure that context is set before I start rambling about things that some readers may not understand.
What is Web3?
To many, it is only a buzzword. They might throw it around in conversation around crypto or NFTs because they know how it’s used, but do they actually know what it means for the internet or even themselves?
Decentralization
Web3, at its core, is another buzzword—decentralization. Decentralization means that your data will never be in one central place. It’s dispersed across the blockchain it was created on or added to. No one should own it. In my personal opinion, the most important thing to understand when it comes to this new generation of the web is ownership. That’s what dictates the rest of the primary differences of Web3.
Decentralization moves us away from a world run by VCs and corporate monopolies (who somehow own everything) into a collaborative open-source network of independent communities. So, no one necessarily owns Web3. In fact, the term alone is to describe a concept. The ownable part is who holds the majority of the tokens on the blockchain.
The Benefits
Really, the other parts of Web3 are all benefits due to being on a decentralized network. Privacy, censorship, tokens, and open permissions are all part of this.
Privacy
You control your data, who reads it, and how much they can read. Here’s the basic idea:
Let’s say you have a business card, and you hand it to me. I can, in that moment, read the card and see your name, phone number, email, and website. But if you take the card away, I can no longer read that information because I don’t hold that information anymore.
Censorship
Remember that you control your data, and no one can censor your data because your data is distributed across the blockchain and only accessible with your permission.
Tokens
We all love tokens (well, most of us). A token holds some economic, democratic, or informatic value. This is where ownership and governance factor into Web3, but again, we’ll get into that later.
Education is important
The idea of Web3 and the doors it opens is so vast, and I felt it important to summarize the topic before diving into it too deeply. I’m sure I will share more at some point, but for now, I’d recommend this article, “Web2 vs. Web3” by Sam Richards, Ethereum.org to understand this topic more.