What is the Web?
Let's see what Wiki says: The World Wide Web is an information system where files and online resources are located by Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) and internally connected via hyperlinks over the Internet. Web resources are delivered via the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), published on web servers, and accessed by users using browser applications.
In simpler terms, the Web we understand is primarily an information system; it's a system in itself. Furthermore, it's an information system on the internet that provides basic functions such as information storage, transfer, linkage, and services.
To people born in different eras, the Web may mean different things. Yet, for most, their understanding stems from the application layer, like when we use browsers to visit websites, chat with QQ instant messaging, or shop and browse on Taobao.
Clearly, the Web is not synonymous with the Internet.
But many conflate the two, viewing the Web as the Internet itself. The Internet is more like the roots of a tree, with the Web resembling the trunk and branches.
So, what is Web3?
Currently, Web3 is widely perceived as a web that incorporates decentralization, particularly blockchain technology. Bloomberg has described the concept as "hazy", roughly indicating the integration of financial assets into nearly everything we do online in the form of tokens.
The concept itself indeed possesses significant experiential, linear, ambiguous, and application aspects.
Experientially, the term Web3 is simple, but it leans on our collective understanding of the Internet. However, common sense often tells us that the future is often vastly different from the past. In this respect, Web3 may have narrowly defined our imagination and the possibilities of decentralized technology.
In terms of linearity, when technology doesn't change drastically, linear progression is reliable. But with the emergence of decentralized tech, when the issue transitions from efficiency to trust, this linear progression starts to falter.
Ambiguity is also inevitable. Words like Internet, WWW, Crypto, Blockchain, Web1, Web2, and Web3 initially carried substantial vagueness, which is typical. One way to address this ambiguity, which I personally favor, is the intersection of non-web and non-blockchain, which is very Web3.
Regarding applicability, discussions about Web3 often overlook that breakthroughs in infrastructure, architecture, and middleware technologies are still in their infancy. The very nature of the Web carries application implications, leading many to superficially view Web3 as merely an economic model transformation.
Simply put, Web3 describes a trustless information system for user interaction. It's worth discussing and will likely arrive, but maybe not in the form or name we anticipate.
In a broader sense, Web3 mirrors a more decentralized Internet, a deeper-rooted decentralized trust computer. This dimension differs from Web1, Web2, and the Internet. The Web3 we discuss may well coexist with a more decentralized Internet.
How should we understand this broader Web3?
From a user perspective, Web3 might deliver more machine-computed, trustless information. Instead of unverified information, users receive knowledge. Currently, users rely on platforms like TikTok and Weibo but can't always determine the trustworthiness of the information received. With Web3, trustworthy information combined with specific algorithms might provide us with the genuine knowledge we seek.
For users, Web3 is more private, more "mine," clarifying what's "ours." In the Web era, from a user's viewpoint, it's hard to distinguish between what's mine and what's the platform's. Web3 will likely make ownership and privacy clearer. Issues like photo ownership or ad targeting preferences will become more transparent. On both storage and information transfer fronts, privacy safeguards will ensure greater authenticity in our interactions.
Also for users, Web3 is more interconnected. Whether it's a more decentralized ID or the current state itself, the underlying confirmation of ownership clearly ensures the emergence of a more general, deeper, and meaningful interconnection. We may no longer need an ID for each application, and service providers don't need to obtain data ownership to provide vertical services. This allows us to have various trust-free services that are more interconnected and interoperable. Many service innovations that used to rely on centralized servers and entities have become richer and more diverse.
For users, the Web is more like an eyeball economy, where capturing attention is crucial. But Web3 is clearly more asset-based, meaning that real assets are directly adopted by the community through Tokens. This direct economic model makes indirect performances and collusion cumbersome. In other words, users might use Tokens to vote directly for assets, and more valuable assets will be selected and encouraged. Simply put, the originality, uniqueness, and authenticity of future creators will be voted on and encouraged by the community directly. The presented structure may surprise us. The metaphorical Token economic model might not be monotone; we might have economic models that we haven't thought of before because the behavior of Web3 users is different.
For users, Web3 is more like a collaborative organization. In the Web era, we collaborated across time and space through efficient information, which made decentralized office work possible during pandemics, albeit with centralized management and incentives as a guarantee. Web3 can clearly take this a step further, allowing us to redefine organizational management and incentives from day one, with a certain foundation of trust. Every user might be a builder and creator, a fact that is being recorded by various DAO organizations.
Culturally, Web3 is more open to users. From a cultural perspective, in the Web era, our culture had a tendency to converge at certain times. When open systems quickly evolved into a few centrally controlled closed systems, our information dissemination model often became top-down indoctrination. Although individuals with different cultural attributes still had a say, they were gradually marginalized in confrontations with centralized entities. This is the world of Twitter, Facebook, and the media we are familiar with. The broader Web3, because of its inherent open technology, drives diverse economic and community development at the top, making each community more distinct. We might not have multiple Satoshi Nakamotos, but many different Satoshi-like figures will emerge, as will many communities with different cultural attributes. At different times in Web3, everyone will belong to different cultural communities.
So, the broader Web3 is about low-trust information, about individual privacy, individual ownership, data liquidity, simpler and unique economic models, a new collaborative order, and open and diverse culture and ideology.
In summary, the broader Web3 is a decentralized internet. Our data must be ours, our privacy must be protected, the services we get must be richer, our economic model simpler and more elegant, our collaboration built on trust, and our culture more diverse and open. And it's certain that many people are more willing to believe in this future, bravely create it, and be inspired beyond expectations. I will genuinely become "me," and "we" will genuinely become "us."
If the old world and the new world each had a mirror, we would just come together to rub off the thick dust on the mirror. When a clearer and cleaner mirror emerges, it will surely reflect the things we always believed to be precious - things about creativity, beauty, love, and knowledge.