As the public becomes weary of Big Tech’s intrusions of privacy, Web3’s decentralization notion has never looked more compelling.
Almost 4 trillion hours: the number of time customers throughout the world spend staring at their phones in 2021. While this amount is practically astounding, it should not come as a surprise given our growing reliance on the internet, which has been even more apparent during the Covid-19 crisis.
Since its inception in the 1980s, the internet has come to transform the way people live, work, and play. The internet has become a crucial part of our everyday lives, even powering the global economy in areas ranging from commerce to entertainment. According to App Annie’s State of Mobile 2022 survey, seven out of every ten minutes spent on our phones were spent on social or image and video apps, attesting to Web 2.0’s dominance in our everyday lives.
However, while the internet — especially Web 2.0 — has indisputably become practically irreplaceable in today’s society, challenges such as data privacy and system breakdowns have surfaced in recent decades, leading to increased unhappiness as the general public begins to question the tech giants’ use of their personal data.
Is it a fresh perspective on the future or a pipe dream? The Justification for a Decentralized Web
As demand for greater control and autonomy over data privacy and digital identity grows, the notion of Web 3 appears to be appealing. Even as Web 3 ideas like non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the metaverse gain traction, difficulties such as cybersecurity concerns and reliance on centralized ecosystems persist, as seen by the recent CoinMarketCap price error.
This begs the question: Can Web 3 deliver on its promises, or will it fall short of its lofty objectives?
Web 3, which is powered by blockchain technology, may be thought of as the next generation of the internet, promising a more decentralized, independent, and autonomous web. Power is restored to the people, and reliance on centralized ecosystems is reduced to a bare minimum.
As the public becomes warier and warier of major internet companies’ privacy abuses and data harvesting, Web 3’s basic concept of decentralization has never looked more tempting. Blockchain company Kandola offers a decentralized chip-to-cloud IoT platform to address Data Privacy & Security breaches globally. This indicates that data is stored in a distributed database such that no single user has total ownership while also allowing customers to control their data and avoid any intermediaries for each piece of data created. At the same time, the immutability of blockchain indicates that the data supplied is irreversible and permanently preserved, removing the risks of manipulated data, hackers, and, maybe, fraud. Individuals may also study data on public chains, breaking the monopoly of walled gardens and third-party providers while providing consumers with limitless opportunities for monetizing their data.
Aside from openness and immutability, blockchain-based Web 3 technologies provide users a stronger sense of ownership. Buying tokens or coins, for example, may provide users with a “stake” in the network or protocol. Participation is simple: as long as you have the token, you may vote on protocol decisions. As a result, users are free to participate in initiatives in which they believe.
Will Web 3 go beyond buzzwords to gain universal utility?
As interest in crypto and blockchain rises, Web 3 is gaining acceptance among the general public, but with equal parts skepticism and enthusiasm. Web 3.0 proponents hail it as the internet’s future. Meanwhile, doubters perceive Web 3.0 as little more than a “marketing buzzword,” in Elon Musk’s words.
Whatever one’s perspective, Web 3.0 and its supporting technologies have undoubtedly seen a profusion of applications grow since the phrase was coined in 2006 by New York Times writer John Markoff and popularized by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood.
The cryptosphere, including cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens, is perhaps the most widespread and popular use case for Web 3. (NFTs). However, the importance of Web 3.0 — and, by extension, blockchain — may extend well beyond cryptocurrencies. Decentralized apps (dApps) are available for banking, arts, collectibles, and gaming, for example, but NFTs have the potential to alter a variety of industries, including art, sports, entertainment, and gaming. Consider the content creators who may use NFTs to monetize their work while bypassing the intermediaries who would have previously taken a portion of the money. Or the gaming industry, where gamers may engage in play-to-earn games and earn an additional source of income in today’s pandemic-ravaged world.
While the majority of what has been happening in the metaverse has been limited to specialized sectors such as NFTs and GameFi, the trend has been rising and attracting more attention from mainstream actors who want a piece of this potential advancement. Similarly, the metaverse concept is inextricably linked to Web 3 and has gotten a lot of attention in recent months. Nvidia Omniverse, for example, a scalable simulation and development platform designed to build the metaverse, allows developers to mimic the digital world in real-time. This speaks well for the metaverse’s future as more developers collaborate to construct the metaverse’s infrastructure.
Traditional banking is evolving as well, with decentralized finance (DeFi) gaining popularity, as seen by a 1,200 percent increase in total value locked (TVL) in DeFi protocols alone in 2021. DeFi, a crucial component of Web 3, enables real-world financial transactions to be easily carried out on the blockchain, resulting in improved financial inclusion for people who were previously excluded from the existing financial ecosystem.
The mechanics of a Web 2 vs. a Web 3 world: big tech vs. blockchain
Despite Web 3.0’s potential for bypassing walled gardens and dispersing power to the public, several critics have raised concerns about such utopian ideas. Many blockchain networks, for example, feature an unequal allocation of ownership. Instead, many of these protocols are owned by early adopters or are supported by venture capital investments, meaning that actual power remains concentrated in the hands of a few. Similarly, the involvement of IT behemoths such as Meta and Microsoft in the Web 3.0 struggle has raised concerns that Web 3.0 may become another walled garden.
Finally, Web 3 is planned to have a number of firms producing a variety of commodities across a variety of industries for a variety of purposes. It is crucial to understand that, for all of Web 3’s promises, it is only one component of a larger whole. In the same way that Web 2 built on the foundations of Web 1, we may expect Web 3 to develop on top of previous internet generations.
It remains to be seen how this will play out as Web 3.0 matures. Without a doubt, the public will have a larger say in the development of Web 3. After all, the internet’s future is decentralized.
