The Difference Between Web 2.0 & Web 3.0

If you are reading this article, then you’re also an avid user of Web 2.0, the sole stage of the internet that everyone currently is on. The concept of Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 ranges back to its sole origin, which began with Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the three letters you see in the URL of every website, WWW. As this may seem like a simple feature of how websites appeal to an average user, it is very much the core driver of how people connect to the information they seek on a day-to-day basis.

Like blockchain networks, applications built on Web 2.0 range from a large multitude of resources detailing social media, the use of mobile apps on your phone, as well as the management of financial information through central institutions. Altogether, the development of the web, which began with Web 1.0, is constantly streamlining but at a pace which an average person may not be able to catch up to as our needs must be align with what applications in newer eras of the internet can offer.

With that being said, we will be going over the difference between what we are using today and what may be used for the future in detail, going beyond the surface level of what everyone may perceive at the beginning. When it comes to Web 2.0, the main technicalities alongside its advantages and disadvantages is our ability to stay connected with each other, and that has been made possible by various CEOs and entrepeneurs to such an extent by communicating the packages we buy and sell through Amazon, using systems that help us to achieve productive tasks with the help of Apple, and being able to access a worldwide collection of information with the use of Google, and watching our favorite TV shows and movies through Netflix.

Compared to the 20th century, our ability to connect at ease with each other has significantly changed through Web 2.0, and will only become more privatized by the choice of the user. Though, this comes with its disadvantages, with the main ones being that regulation is not always in par with the content we see on a daily basis. Through Web 2.0 applications, we are the height of misinformation, where a centralized office of information reaching the viewership of internet users may develop a double-edged sword, where you’re accessing a user experience that makes your life more interactive and user-friendly, whilst also processing the limitless creation of platforms under social media applications, blogs, and various other online formats that can ensue discord if not carefully reviewed. That’s not to say that this isn’t the choice of the individual, as the information one consumes and reviews is entirely dependant on their own pursuit of interests.

The format of centralization, like decentralized applications, face similar security issues as everything is set to one office. As we’re transitioning into the Web 3.0 era, the central consumption of content is going to become decentralized, where one will have the right not to have to work under monopolies that have control over what they consume based on interests. Because there is a certain level of syndication that goes behind making sure applications let one take control over what they’re doing, applications that grow to show concern over this problem are still stuck in the Web 2.0 bubble, where companies mentioned before such as Amazon claim ownership of reviews that other post onto product pages on their site, as well as executives behind Google guarding the administration of its systems, networking processes, and hosting a query of search engine tools that the user may make use of to find resources they need becoming an addressal to security vulnerablities that have been taken advantage of in the past.

When it comes to smaller yet grandiose tools that we use on a weekly basis, such as GMail, the personal information we pass through is largely stacked through web user interfaces that suggest a traditional sense of richness to how you can handle your data under the control of a greater office, especially when its exclusively available to those using a laptop or mobile device. As this procedure of data management is largely dependant on coding languages, such as Linux, MySQL, PHP, Python, and et cetera, the methods of P2P (peer-to-peer) are widely advantageous for advanced uses of managing personal communications desired by people who are in great need of it within professional and casual environments. Though, treating the web as a platform for these kinds of activities at the hands of monopolies and oligopolies as well as their customers, was not always a general given approach to how tools were built on the internet.

In the first stage of the internet ranging from the mid-90s to early 2000s, especially before the creation of “www” in URLs, the competition between companies wanting to take over the interent systems wanted to create a mashup of tools that could access it in a convenient fashion. Throughout our modern day, it is relatively easy to find an app on a phone or a program on a device, and not have to make it specifically available through the device you initially purchased, hence why the Internet Explorer was a core driver of internet exploration at the time before other browsers such as Google Chrome and Firefox came along. More specifically, the ability to access internet to achieve all of the limits of software-based activity at the time was solely made possible by an application many of us have at least heard of at some point, “Netscape”.

The application was designed to make sure the internet was accessed as a platform through the software, by developing a market for internet access achieved through browsers to eventually act as a “webtop” which would make information easily accessible compared to before. This of course, in the PC market at the time, without Google’s centralized servers connecting from its browsers, to the search engine, to the content service all at once being at play, led to slower network connections considering the average internet speed at the time was between 15 – 50 KB/s. Eventually, when ISPs began to take over the market to enable this accessible internet to become faster alongside the applications that required its use at the time, especially with newer creations such as the ability to access a feed of information through RSS or being able to write articles on a wiki or individual document on Google Docs, the transferral between communications heightened with AOL messenger being the sole proprietorship of mentioned activities at the time.

With the way Web 3.0 will evolve our ability to communicate at a private and decentralized level, these applications that have been covered in terms of its history and capabilities will be viewed and controlled with the individual being the central office, therefore developing a network of peers that do not need to necessarily ask for permission to find their data but view it under their own terms, especially when making transactions which we’ve covered in the workshop series ‘How to Make Use of a Blockchain Wallet’. Throughout later workshops, what these applications are and how they’ll shape our ability to use our infromation in a decentralized space will be covered within our ‘Applications on the Blockchain’ series, which began as of three weeks ago.