Hello everyone and welcome to ZD Tech, the daily ZDNet editorial podcast. My name is Guillaume Serries and today I will explain to you why the Web3 is in fashion, and especially what it is not.
So here it is, 2022 is just beginning and everyone is talking about the advent of Web3. But what is Web3?
The term was first used in 2014 by Briton Gavin Wood, the co-founder of the cryptocurrency Ethereum. He then created the Web3 Foundation. The ambition of this foundation? “Fund the research and development teams that build the foundations of the decentralized web”, we can read on the foundation’s website.
To sum up, Web3 is defined by its promoters as the anti-model of Web 2.0. So, I have to talk to you about Web 2.0.
Return to Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is a concept forged in the mid-2000s, which covers the web as we still know it today. It makes it possible to distinguish in the history of the web the rise in importance of the interaction of Internet users via platforms, whether they are social networks or e-commerce sites.
And one of the consequences of the rise of platforms is the loss of control of Internet users over their personal data.
On the contrary, the Web3, according to its promoters, would allow users to regain control of their data thanks to a more decentralized architecture. And on web governance.
In short, the Web3 is a possible future internet where all data and all content is stored on blockchains, tokenized, managed and accessible on distributed networks in order to democratize the internet.
And how would that be possible? Well, thanks to the … blockchain.
Because yes, with NFTs for example, everyone would become an actor and owner of the web.
Because yes, with new communities based on these virtual microproperties, decisions could be taken jointly between micro actors, without taking into account the interests of GAFAM.
Because yes, with the use of the blockchain, the operating rules would be known to all, available to all.
However, the idea of a decentralized web is not new. The success of peer-to-peer technology a few years ago showed that decentralization worked. But BitTorrent and eMule have since almost disappeared. Blame it on piracy.
“You do not have the Web3”
“Platforms and applications will not be owned by a central player, but by users, who will gain their share of ownership by contributing to the development and maintenance of these services”, prophesies Gavin Wood, the main promoter of the concept.
Hence the scathing remark of Jack Dorsey, ex-boss of Twitter, about Web3: “you don’t own Web3,” he says. “Venture capitalists own the web. “
And the fact that much of the “decentralization” in the Web3 world relies on the Amazon Web Services cloud also seems to prove him right. Because it is one thing to have web services based on blockchain and tokenization. It is quite another to replace existing infrastructure.
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