What is Web3 and how it could change the face of the internet

In 2005, Wired magazine published an article entitled Are you ready for Web 2.0?, questioning the Web as we know it today. "No one can agree on what Web 2.0 means, but the idea is that this new, more collaborative Internet will create a buzz that reminds us of the late 90s," it read. In fact, when the journalist wrote these lines, the second iteration of the Web had already begun to replace the first, since it is estimated that the transition was made between 2004 and 2005, when Facebook emerged, for example. But it took several more years to figure it out.

It is clear that the Web is changing again, thanks to the emergence of new technologies and because of the many scandals affecting the major Web platforms. Our data is abused by those to whom we entrust it, which tends to rekindle the philosophical flame of a Web that must be built by and for users, in search of decentralization. Characteristics that we are supposed to find in Web3 or Web 3.0, which may well have already begun its transformation.

What is the Web?

For the less initiated, we must first return to the genesis of the Web. The Internet is a global computer network accessible to the general public, which is itself composed of millions of public, private, university, commercial, government, etc. networks. Information circulates via the Internet thanks to a standardized set of data transfer protocols, which has enabled the creation of various applications such as electronic mail, instant messaging, or the famous World Wide Web. It is the work of a British computer scientist named Tim Berners-Lee, who registered its name in 1990. In 1993, the first web browser appeared.

Web 1.0, the static Web

Web 1.0 thus extends over a period from 1990 to 2004-2005. It is a static, mostly advisory web with no major user interactions. The main use made of it is to adapt real content for the virtual, and to offer Internet users the possibility of consulting it. The most telling example is probably the duplicate newspaper article for the web.

Some speak of a "push" system, allowing the distribution of information in one direction only, from the creator to the reader. One proposes, the other consults. Web 2.0 began to take shape around the 2000s: Internet users wanted to create content.

Web 2.0 as we know it

We sometimes speak of a participatory Web, as opposed to the previously mentioned static Web. It is estimated today that this change began around 2004, when the first social networks emerged. Web 2.0 is largely defined by person-to-person content creation, such as blogs. Communities are formed, on forums, on recommendation platforms, on social networks. The idea is no longer just to use the Web to answer a question, but to bring ideas and people to life there. But here too, the user is overtaken by these ogres, the nastiest of which are today called Gafam. We exchange on Twitter, we like on Facebook, we comment on TripAdvisor, etc.

These companies regularly flirt with monopoly, suck up Internet users' data, generate a lot of money, are threatened with regulation... The Web, which was supposed to give people freedom, is finally centralized around a few big names who control the Internet. digital space and are torn apart with the States. And during this time, some people dream of a Web that would put the user back at the center of exchanges, which will fuel the philosophy of Web3.

“The system is failing”, alarmed Tim Berners-Lee, in an interview given to the Guardian in 2017. The same year, he published an open letter in which he exposed the three problems which, according to him, prevent the Web to realize its true potential as a tool at the service of all humanity: false information, political advertising and the misuse of personal data.

What is Web3?

Drawing the outlines of this Web3 is a balancing act. Overall, it is about creating a decentralized alternative to the World Wide Web, with several philosophical objectives: compromising censorship, giving Internet users back control over their data, fighting the power of the big platforms, reshuffling the cards of property on the Internet. Existing technologies are already shaping what will make this third iteration of the Web: blockchain, artificial intelligence, cloud and edge computing, virtual reality, the Internet of Things (IoT), decentralized apps...

“Web3 is about taking what bitcoin has done with currency and applying it to everything”, outlines Juan Benet, founder of Protocol Labs, in a long speech during the Web3 Summit in 2018. We often take the example of the traceability of products in the food chain, which could be achieved using the blockchain. “Making things verifiable is the main characteristic of this space”, continues the computer scientist. It is indeed difficult not to draw a parallel between the Web3 and the launch of countless projects around the blockchain and cryptocurrencies, innovations partly inherited from the Cypherpunk philosophy (see the excellent mini-series by Arte on Le Satoshi mystery).

Web3 can count on serious assets. Decentralization implies that Web3 would not be controlled by a central authority, but by its users. This decentralization would itself serve the security of the network: in the event of an attack on a platform, the target which is now unique (the central server) would be transformed into multiple targets, i.e. all the computers that make up the network. The information published would also be non-modifiable and traceable. Anonymity would also be better preserved: during cryptocurrency exchanges on decentralized platforms, the only data communicated is a digital wallet number, for example.

The promise is also the following: to organize a sharing of ownership between those who build the technology and those who use it. Understand, give power back to users, remunerate them. A utopia ? Not so sure when we observe the rise of NFTs, these titles of ownership of a file on the Internet, often mocked but used to certify the authenticity of a work or as a means of remunerating support for certain projects.

The Web3: an organized anarchy in cyberspace?

Guess what was one of the first large-scale uses of bitcoin, this digital currency independent of the international banking system? Buy drugs, weapons, child pornography videos on the darknet, and particularly on the Silk Road site, which ended up being caught by the courts.

This parallel is not trivial since decentralization implies a theoretical weakening of control. How to punish someone who makes racist remarks on a decentralized platform where their anonymity is preserved? How to erase these comments so that they are not massively diffused? If it is no longer the platforms and the States that ensure respect for fundamental rights, they then rely on trust between users. And we wade into the unknown.

There is one, in any case, who is not convinced by the idea of ​​Web3. Elon Musk, the boss of SpaceX and Tesla, yet an admirer of cryptocurrencies and very active on social networks, recently replied to a tweet by simply calling Web3 “bullshit”. Understand, “bullshit”.

What if we were already in Web3?

What if Web3 was already here? There is a Web3 Foundation, which has made it its mission to “develop cutting-edge applications for decentralized web software protocols” and whose “passion is to deliver Web 3.0, a decentralized and equitable Internet where users control their own data, identity and destiny”. At its head, Gavin Wood, an English computer scientist and co-founder of Ethereum, already portrayed as the “father of Web 3.0”.

In a blog post that could be quoted dozens of times and which we invite you to read, he explains: “The adoption of Web 3.0 will not be fast or clean. With entrenched interests controlling much of our digital lifestyles and interests often aligned between lawmakers, government and tech monopolies.” He takes as examples the programs of the NSA, supported by Google or Facebook, but also the Russian interference in the American elections, the various attempts to make bitcoin illegal, or even the United Kingdom which has expressed its desire to ban strong encryption. Gavin Wood asserts: “From the user's point of view, Web 3.0 will be little different from Web 2.0, at least at first.”

Just as it was difficult to date the beginnings of Web 2.0, it seems quite tortuous to date that of Web3. Has he already started his transformation? Is the metaverse promised by Mark Zuckerberg, announced as the future of the Internet, not an example of the digital giants' response to a movement already underway? Let's bet — the future may prove us wrong — that the Web risks not following a linear development this time. A libertarian Web3 could well develop in parallel with a Web increasingly controlled by the ogres of the sector, and glean little by little new followers. To a tipping point?