What Does the Future Web Look Like, and What Does It Mean for Users?

At the beginning of October, Meta had a large-scale failure. For more than six hours, none of the nearly 3 billion users had access to any of the corporation’s services. Instead, some of them simply lost the ability to scroll through the Facebook and Instagram feeds, while others were left without access to the internet as such.

Because of these data difficulties, the IT world suddenly started talking with renewed force about “web 3.0” or “internet 3.0”, which according to its supporters, should solve all these problems.

The hype around the “metaverse” that began after Mark Zuckerberg’s presentation on Facebook’s rebranding to Meta has attracted additional attention to web 3.0. These two concepts — the metaverse and web 3.0 — are often combined into something common, which the internet will have to turn into at the next stage of development. But so far, in the form in which these concepts exist today, they are unrelated and in some ways even contradict each other.

What’s wrong with modern popular apps? Read more here.

What is Web 3.0?

Web 3.0 is an old concept; it appeared even earlier than what is now called web 2.0. In 1998, one of the main creators of the modern internet, Tim Berners-Lee, came up with the “semantic web” concept. According to his idea, all information on the internet had to be marked up so that computers learned to understand its meaning and context.

In 2001, Berners-Lee and his colleagues described the semantic web concept in an article in the journal Scientific American, and in 2005 his co-author James Hen described it in detail in a book published by MIT Press. But then, as now, this idea remains an unrealized concept — for a long time, it lacked technologies that could bring it to life.

But the notion of web 3.0, the internet of the next generation, has taken root. To understand it, you need to understand the internet of the first and second generation, according to researchers and theorists.

Web 1.0 is the very first stage of the development of the internet, which began in the 90s. Back then, the internet was a huge data warehouse, a library: all sites were read-only, and the user was only a consumer of content, but not its creator.

Web 2.0 appeared in the early 2000s. At this stage, a user on the internet can not only read content but also create it himself and interact with other users inside the platforms. This has become possible thanks to the emergence of new technologies, such as JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS3. Thanks to these, we have interactive platforms like YouTube and Facebook. During the same period, the internet has become a space where more and more resources are concentrated.

It was at the stage of web 2.0 that it suddenly turned out that, contrary to the assumptions of the first enthusiasts, the internet does not dissipate economic power, but rather centralizes it.

Over the next ten years, several tech giants appeared in the world, concentrating in their hands not only resources but also a huge amount of data about users – and their business models are built on the use and sale of such data. For example, Google and Facebook have gained access to data on almost all Internet-connected users. Apple and Google, through their mobile operating systems, also control user access to all content.

Find out why Google is the most insecure platform here.

Web 3.0 is the next stage in developing the internet, which has not yet arrived. Its main characteristic is decentralization. According to the idea of developers who are already creating services for the future web 3.0, the internet will cease to be centralized and controlled by a small group of tech giants in the next generation. And this will allow not only the redistribution of the resources concentrated in a few hands, but also make users the owners of their data, solving all the urgent problems with confidentiality and giving users the ability to share or sell their data if they so choose.

How should web 3.0 work?

It is assumed that the blockchain will be the basis of web 3.0. It is on its basis that web 3.0 services are being built now, betting on its main characteristics: decentralization, transparency, and mechanics of rewards to the community. This should prevent corporations from gaining control over any part of the internet.

The main thing is that all data inside the network will not be stored on the servers of specific companies but distributed — on the devices of the users themselves. And all the services inside the network will turn into something like torrents that will extract this information from user devices.

Different teams have expressed their own versions of how the decentralized internet should work. For example, TON, the blockchain that Telegram wanted to make before losing in an American court, was conceived to create a platform that could replace the regular web, making it encrypted by default, extensible, and based on crypto-economics. It provided its services and applications and something similar to websites and browsers.

The most private and secure browsers for use are here.

What is expected from web 3.0?

In short, the solutions to all the problems of the modern internet. Here’s what Techcrunch writes about the issues it will address:

Problems with data security and control. Any data that a user shares with a corporation is at risk — this is evidenced by years of leaks confirming the idea that there is not and cannot be anything confidential on the internet. Web 3.0 will be built on open source; that is, not one company will be responsible for data security, but the entire internet, and anyone will be able to look at the code and find errors. Transparency will become a competitive advantage.

Toxic platforms. In web 2.0, both regular users and content creators depend on platforms. In web 3.0, bloggers will not be controlled by the platforms they perform. The platforms on the future internet will be compatible, and the user will be able to decide where and to whom to give their data. The web 3.0 platforms themselves do not belong to companies but to users. They decide how the content will be moderated — for example, users vote for who can write and publish videos on the Mirror platform. And because all web 3.0 services will run on the blockchain, there will be no problem with censorship and content removal: the moderation decision will be made by consensus (and not like Facebook with its secret two-level moderation system that discriminates against ordinary users and protects stars.)

An unbalanced economy. If now all content creators always depend on the conditions of the platforms they work on, then in web 3.0 services they will be able to earn.

What are NFTs and why are they so popular now? Learn more here.

What’s the problem?

Everything that is known so far about the concept of web 3.0 sounds tempting — with the caveat that these are only concepts so far, and we don’t know exactly how this internet of the future will work (in this, it is similar to the metaverse.) It is unclear whether blockchain services will replace familiar and user-friendly, albeit centralized, internet 2.0 platforms. And whether users will be able to figure out what blockchain and cryptocurrencies are and how decentralized applications work.

Know more about decentralization advantages here.

In addition, for the new internet to work fully, it will be necessary to reconsider the entire principle of the network now. It is unlikely that this will happen very simply. And the blockchains themselves, whose transactions are still mostly too expensive and long, are now hardly ready to become the basis for a new version of the internet.

Is Web 3.0 already available?

Although web 3.0 is just beginning to emerge in many plans, it already exists and is available to everyone.

This possibility of a secure and free internet is provided now by Utopia P2P. Moreover, it is decentralized and anonymous, which means no one can get users’ data. In addition, it combines various practical tools for messaging, browsing, file sharing, anonymous payments, creating websites, gaming, etc.

Utopia P2P ecosystem is the future of the internet, available now.

Read more about Utopia P2P here.