"Has anyone seen Web3?" I didn't find it." On December 21, Tesla founder Elon Musk once again mentioned this fiery concept.
Not long ago, Web3 was named the annual technology hot word by Reuters, and many technology companies and frontier workers have said that they want to embrace Web3, but now the concept is still too vague and general, and the hype has taken the lead. Musk has bluntly said that Web3 sounds like "gibberish."
In Reuters' definition, Web3 is used to describe the next stage of the Internet: a "decentralized" Internet based on blockchain technology. In this model, users will have ownership of the platform and applications, which will be different from today's internet.
At present, a small number of Internet giants control the identity and privacy data of users, and even on Twitter, the world's largest social platform for users, there is no trace of Web3 features.
In the view of Ethereum technology contributor Josh Stark, Web3 is a set of technologies designed to reconstruct control of the Internet. In the Web3 world, users no longer rely on centralized subjects to provide services, have more control over personal identity and data, and then individual users are more likely to divide the business value owned by the previous Internet giants.
There are multiple obstacles to reaching Web3, including how to efficiently complete the early launch and subsequent iterations of decentralized projects, decentralized network performance upgrades, and regulatory pressures. In addition, users also need to awaken to the awareness of "taking back control".
Musk teases Web3 "like gibberish"
Although the Web3 concept is increasingly appearing in the public eye, the emerging concept remains vague and general until it really arrives.
On December 21, Tesla founder Elon Musk tweeted, "Has anyone seen Web3?" I didn't find it."
This isn't the first time Musk has poured cold water on Web3. On December 2, he bluntly stated on social media that Web3 sounded "like gibberish." On Dec. 20, he added that the current Web3 is more of a marketing buzzword than a reality, "curious about what the future will look like in 10, 20 or even 30 years." 2051 sounds like crazy futurism."
Musk, who has always embraced the future of technology, has been conservative, positioning the current stage of Web3 development as a "marketing buzzword", suggesting a strong atmosphere of speculation. Previously, he shared a cartoon about "urinal etiquette" that more vividly described the marketing sense of the Web3 concept. In the comic, a man enters the bathroom and walks up to a strange man who is urinating, promoting popular concepts such as encryption, Web3, and DAO to him.
Musk satirizes the Web3 hype through comics
What Web3 is hasn't been sorted out yet, but the word seems to be pervasively entering the space of discussion.
Not long ago, Web3 was rated by Reuters as one of the hot words for technology in 2021. In Reuters' definition, Web3 is used to describe the next stage of the Internet: a "decentralized" Internet based on blockchain technology. In this model, users will have ownership of the platform and applications, which will be different from today's internet, known as Web2.
If you look for Web3 in this definition, Ethereum seems to be the closest one. In this decentralized network, a large number of decentralized applications have been established, including Uniswap, Compound, etc. Users use these applications without registration, authentication, privacy protection, and greater control over personal identity and usage data.
However, the Ethereum network application is still more in the single field of finance, its coverage is not wide enough, and even many applications are not so decentralized, and the frequent project party self-theft cases are an example.
In this situation, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey believes that users do not own Web3. The actual owners of Web3 are the venture capital firm (VC) behind the project and its limited partners (LPs). "Web3 can never escape their inspiration. It ends up being a centralized entity with different labels."
As a centralized social media giant, Twitter CEO's skepticism about Web3 clearly has his starting point. The remarks quickly sparked a rebuttal from a16z partner Chris Dixon, who said that in Web3, all code, data and ownership are open source, and venture capitalists (including A16z) own very little.
When some Internet opinion leaders talk about Web3, an important core point is "whether it is decentralized enough" or not. So, what exactly does the ideal Web3 look like? What are the challenges of "finding it"?
The core of Web3 is "user control"
Web3 can be seen as another evolution of the Internet. Over the past few decades, the Internet has undergone many major upgrades, including the expansion of performance, functionality, and scale, from the Internet of Words to the Internet of Streaming Media, from static web pages to full-featured applications under the Mobile Internet, and from list services to global social networks.
The performance of the Internet has jumped dramatically, but the trend toward centralization is becoming more and more pronounced. The data shows that Google gains 74% control of search traffic based on search services. Facebook built the largest social network, gaining control over the online identities of 2.2 billion people.
All internet services currently used in people's daily lives are provided by centralized subjects. These centralized companies control people's identity data, privacy data, and push endless ads to users.
Ethereum technology contributor Josh Stark believes that compared to the current Web2 era, the core of Web3 is no longer about speed, performance or convenience, but about "control". It's about who controls technology and our daily applications. Thus, Web 3 is a set of technologies designed to restructure control of the Internet. These include financial projects (cryptocurrencies), basic communication technologies (end-to-end encrypted messaging), mass consumption scenarios (open social networks, p2p markets), and key Internet facilities (decentralized DNS).
In Josh Stark's view, in Web3, money (money) will become a native function of the Internet, thus unlocking many new business models, including intermediary-free lending, low-cost cross-border remittances, etc. The builders of these business models will shift from centralized to decentralized subjects, such as a decentralized Twitter or Medium that allows users to share content, comment, like, and so on. The platform incentivizes users to contribute through a built-in mechanism without having to consider the use of indirect methods to monetize fans and traffic.
In decentralized social platforms, users don't have to wait for Twitter to add new anti-spam or anti-harassment features as usual, because the ecosystem of the service grows on open source protocols, and users can control all of this.
This social scene is just the tip of the iceberg in the ideal Web3 world. With blockchain technology, in Web3, users have more control over their identities and data, and thanks to the use of decentralized services, there will be no centralized companies collecting, storing, and selling personal data when people use services such as social media, renting or renting a car. Industry insiders believe that individual users will be more likely to obtain the billions of dollars of business value owned by previous platform companies.
The vision of Web3 is undoubtedly good, but there are still many obstacles to realizing.
First of all, in decentralized services, the business value is owned by the user, so who will provide substantive incentives for the early start of the project? A typical example is that Didi and Uber have engaged in a money-burning war in the taxi market, which eventually changed the way people travel, and when there is no centralized company to drive it, the development speed of Web3 applications may become slow, and the iterative efficiency may be significantly lower than that of centralized giants.
At the same time, the realization of Web3 also requires a strong blockchain network to provide support, but there is still no mature public chain to carry a huge Internet application service migration, take the current ecological scale of the largest public chain network Ethereum, a blockbuster application can make the network congestion, the handling fee is often exploded.
In addition, regulatory hurdles may be greater than expected, as Web3 includes techniques to avoid censorship and regulation, allowing users to avoid financial regulation and enforcement. When regulation perceives risks, Web3 will face significant headwinds. In the case of Twitter, although it was born in the United States, which advertises freedom of speech, not all speech can be openly discussed on Twitter, and speech that does not conform to Western political correctness is also a minefield of discussion, and it will also face censorship and concealment of platforms.
When Musk tweets that Web3 will not be found, one must also acknowledge that centralized companies still play a key role in the internet. The migration from Web2 to Web3 not only requires overcoming technical and regulatory difficulties, but also requiring users to awaken the awareness of "taking back control". (This article was originally published in ChainDede, authorized by Titanium Media App, author: Hive Finance News)