Get Versed: What is Web3?
Get Versed: Web3
If the clicks don’t lie, plenty of you read the first of our Get Versed, which schooled you on the Metaverse. We’ll assume you passed with flying colors (or at least you could fake your way through a dinner conversation) and keep it moving to a new chapter. If you thought the metaverse was a squishy concept with few agreed-upon definitions, it will look positively solid as a rock in comparison to Web3. But fuzziness be damned—you’re a Verse subscriber so we know you can handle the tough stuff.
The definition.
Our friends at WIRED gave the most simple explanation. “At the most basic level, Web3 refers to a decentralized online ecosystem based on the blockchain. Platforms and apps built on Web3 won’t be owned by a central gatekeeper, but rather by users, who will earn their ownership stake by helping to develop and maintain those services.”
The origin story.
Also from WIRED, “Web 1.0, the story goes, was the era of decentralized, open protocols, in which most online activity involved navigating to individual static web pages. Web 2.0, which we’re living through now, is the era of centralization, in which a huge share of communication and commerce takes place on closed platforms owned by a handful of super-powerful corporations—think Google, Facebook, Amazon—subject to the nominal control of centralized government regulators. Web3 is supposed to break the world free of that monopolistic control.”
Why now?
Mainly, blame it on the blockchain—the technology underpinning cryptocurrency—the central public, digital ledger that allows ownership to be verified and tracked. Think of the artist with a song who, instead of getting paid by Spotify, could have it purchased directly by individuals, track it across the web and be paid directly and know exactly where their work is being used.
What the superfans are saying.
This. Will. Change. Everything. Of course, cheerleaders believe that decentralization will result in the democratized place that we’ve all been talking about since Web 1.0.
What the haters are hating.
Not so fast. The opportunists are already trying to carve up the new landscape and decentralization means no one is in charge when things go badly. Also, Web3 components are still closely held by the usual suspects which threatens to leave marginalized groups further behind in another wave of wealth creation.
Extra credit reading.
Web3 is the future, or a scam, or both
