You hear lots of terms in the current time. Everyone is tweeting about web3 and talking to each other, It's possible to see it walking down the street or on a billboard.
Because in most cases the desire to tell comes before the desire to listen, people find it self-sufficient to learn as much as they can tell. (sometimes it doesn't even need it). In short, person tweets with nice hashtags, and congratulations anymore you became metaverse expert, web3 discoverer.
“So how well do we know these terms, especially web3?” After saying that, I will not finish the article by explaining that web1 is this and web2 is that.” Of course, I'll tell you all, but as a matter of fact, that's what's killing us.
If you read this article, are in the early adapting group too. Now imagine you want to tell a friend about an innovative idea you heard about Web3 to a friend who knows nothing about web3. Your friend doesn’t know Web3 so it will take time for your friend to understand a new innovative idea. Honestly, someone while having so much trouble understanding and reaching the right information, how we did understand everything, or did we get it?
The surveys above were made for the crypto ecosystem, not to people who have never heard of it. It's worth remembering that.
Now for the main conclusion, All explanations were necessary for we accept two causes. First, we are in web2 clearly. Secondly, only a few people used the word web2 until we heard of web3. That’s why we are struggling when understanding web2 issues and web3 solutions. Let’s understand web history with web evolution that becoming popular.
From Web1 To Web3
Web 1 was the "read-only" era of the internet. Roughly from the 1980s to the early 2000s, it’s when most of the internet consisted of static websites. Internet users read online content or information without interacting with or generating content themselves — characterized by websites like Geocities, Yahoo, and AOL.
Web 2 is the "read / write" era of the internet that we're familiar with now. Internet users don't only consume online content, but generate much of it themselves — social networks like Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok are platforms supplied by user-generated content. Data is "written" to these platforms — centralized databases that own user data and can do whatever they want with it irrespective of users' wishes (including selling it to advertisers or arbitrarily taking down content and/or banning users for any reason they wish).
Web3 is the “read/write/own” era of the internet that is emerging. It leverages blockchain technology to enable users to own digital assets and their data. Web3 also represents a return to open-source protocols that cannot be altered or manipulated according to the whims of centralized companies like Google and Apple. As Chris Dixon has pointed out, blockchains are computers that can make commitments. In web3, users are able to create content and build applications on top of blockchain protocols without fear of being "rug-pulled" by arbitrary changes.
What distinguishes web3 from the two previous eras is ownership, and that ownership is enabled by tokens, which are the fundamental unit of value in crypto economies.
In the continuation of the article, the effect of the concept of ownership and token on web3 will be taken as a basis.
A Short Flashback to Web2
It's been a long time since we met the Internet. Actually, It’s been a long time since we met the web2. As we explained above, Mega web2 companies that store customer data on their own servers have become incredibly wealthy companies. Everyone who had stock at the time also experienced wealth.
If we consider the overall picture, We should not only talk about their client data stored at the same time we can talk about they sell client data to other companies. We are also seeing large-scale centralization, such as building their own VC (Ventures Capital) team and trying to change the minds of end customers.
We are talking about a world where end consumers were a product, their opinion were affected without even realizing it, screens were filled with cookies. Of course, there were those who saw that this was a big problem. But the world was not ready for web3 because there was no blockchain technology. Yes, there is a web3 idea since 2004 but something was always missing and it was always rough. Until tokenization.
Cryptocurrencies and the Principle of Equality
For example, you are an early investor in new exiting web2 project. Because you are a small investor, will not be prioritized and you will be thrown into the background before the product even exists. Just in this case, bitcoin, which came to the rescue, was destroying the inequality phenomenon in web2. Remember ICO disaster in 2017 and also our discovery of Bitcoin. Let’s we see together changes of the principle of equality in years.
Bitcoin was designed in an entirely open and equitable manner. Satoshi was a miner like us too. The best part is that the block prizes were the same for us as Satoshi and we can VERIFY because everything is open source. First miners were earners than you because block difficulty was lower and block prize higher than now but that doesn't mean they are superior to you. Whether you are the world's largest angel investor or a 13-year-old child, your conditions are completely equal. You just have to believe the idea that is innovative.
Unfortunately, the small investors in 2013 and the present are very different. Small investors were investing in the Bitcoin philosophy in 2010, but now they are investing according to the investment policy of companies like GrayScale and Microstrategy.
I would say that Ethereum ICO is also according to a proper equity principle like Bitcoin. When Ethereum was created, core devs prepared ETHs and they kept it open throughout the entire ICO process. They sold 60.000.000 ETH to inventors who wanted to buy. ETHs were sold for $0.30 per ETH. Ethereum founders kept some money for the Ethereum foundation and themselves. Vitalik, the founder of ETH and the largest single principal buyer, received less than 1% of the ETH supply, which is a fairly small ownership interest compared to traditional stocks.
While Ethereum's beginnings were slightly less "fair to all" compared to Bitcoin, it still had a relatively fair and open participation model. Until 2017, many new projects used the Ethereum model, however, this model began to deteriorate with pre-ICO sales and privileges. To protect small investors, the SEC tried executing some strict regulations. However, the founders notice they don't want to risk their safety and that dealing with experts was generally easier and had lower expenses.
Nowadays, NFT-lovers hard-working for days to be a whitelist member. They are interacting on projects' social-media accounts and draw pictures, write stories, and even tattoo their body to show their beliefs to projects.
In fact, it is easy to find the right investor if the founders are not known, but if everyone knows the founders or companies, it is very difficult to reach equality and find the right investor. We call it hype that it is so difficult to choose the right investors and to show yourself as the right investor.
Why Must Change Be Entire?
We mentioned that the preparation of the web was done years ago. Now, you can ask questions like ‘Why must change be entire’. The economy is composed of five fundamental building pieces that both support and, more importantly, need each other.
These five fundamental parts are necessary for modern economies and they serve to complement purposes. Without exchanges, goods would be hard to trade and the division of labor would become impossible. Without institutions, coordination and cooperation between different actors in the economy would be more difficult. Without money, exchanges would not have liquidity and we'd have to rely on a much more inefficient barter system. Without productive assets, there would be no goods, and without goods, there would be no economy.
As it matures, we are seeing that the crypto economy is recreating the same five basic functions organically to parallel the traditional economy.
Web2 adapts to the traditional economy completely but when we want to get DAOs to institutions, we must support DAOs with ERC-20, NFTs, etc. There is key-lock compatibility between them. It cannot be said exactly how the new world order is, but it is obvious that it is something. Because, while the traditional economy provides local management, the crypto economy provides global management.
We have actually come to the end of the article, but although I am not a pessimistic person, I think it would be beneficial to leave a somewhat pessimistic atmosphere for the reader.
On Web2, our data was being traded. This is how most Web2 billionaires made their money. Also for Web3, everyone wants to earn. If you ask someone around you who is interested in blockchain technology how he started this adventure, you will probably get similar answers.
Pessimistic future networks might be populated by coin-operated microtransactions that depend on local tokens for their products to function.
There may be a market that makes more money directly from selling worthless ERC20 tokens to retail investors than from spending years backing unsuccessful ventures and earning money from advertising.
Additionally, there can be a web with less capabilities to combat harmful content like child abuse or harassment.
Making everything financially viable might not prevent projects from being avaricious during the ICO. A large share of the pie entails a large amount of responsibility.
We should now have a better understanding of how developers and such communities behave. My only wish is that I start out on the right foot and make an effort to clear the gloomy clouds.