Blockchain is not about Cryptocurrency its about Web3 — The Next Evolution of the Internet
To understand where we are we must first know where we have been. When the internet first became a “thing” I was a kid. In the 90s my mom would take me and my brother to the local library where we would spend all day sitting in front of computers.
Similar to what you would experience at your local library today we would have to sign up. When I would finally get to use a computer I would get on Netscape and immediately go to yahoo to join group chats that were for adults. I would spend hours talking to people twice my age or most likely other kids pretending to be adults. It was a thrill for me to be able to connect with people in Philadelphia or Australia or North Dakota. I would talk to adults and teenagers who had no idea they were talking to an 11 year old kid in Chicago. This was Web2 or at least it’s “pre-teen” years.
The beginning of the internet as we know it is now called Web1 where you would go and read articles about who knows what! I couldn’t tell you what those articles were about because it didn’t involve connecting with people in a meaningful way. The internet only became interesting to the world when we saw that we could talk to people from around the world. It became even more interesting when the world realized you could use the internet to not only interact with others but also make money(Ebay).
It wasn’t until the 2000s that the internet became more interactive with the advent of Myspace, BlackPlanet, and Facebook. These websites allowed people to connect with others in a more curated and intentional way. We were able to talk to people that were from our communities, colleges, cultures and subcultures in a public square. In high school I remember discovering peer to peer networks(p2p) and being able to hear new music that I would have never had access to if it were not for Napster and Limewire. I think it’s fair to say if it were not for Napster we would not have the iPod, Apple Music, and Youtube. The sharing of not only written content but also music and video content was the beginning of a new internet.
The Jack Dorseys and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world understood the power of the technology and went on to create new online experiences that evolved the internet even more. The issue with Web2 was that even though it helped evolve human interaction it also created silos of information. These silos were replications of the real world. An example of the differences between Web2 and Web3 would be similar to the current school system. In this system teachers, administrators and students are the only people who know you attend a certain school. To go to college or transfer to a new school and be admitted as a student in a specific grade-level you have to get your “transcripts” and send it to the new school. In fact even though they are your grades you have to pay the school for a copy of it.
Web3 is the next step in the interaction of people and information. Web3 allows you to own your transcript and every time you get a grade you give it to your professor to add the grade. You then take that same transcript and share it with any other college, school, or organization. Another example of ownership in the internet age is real estate. In real estate you can own a property or land but unless there is a verifiable way to show proof of ownership then anyone can come and say that they own that property or land. To create a marketplace that enables land ownership and ensures that the true owners can sell that land, build on the land, or lease the land there has to be a central authority that everyone can put their trust. This is where the local government comes in and provides land records. This central entity requires trust by all parties. The central entity usually gains that trust through network effects i.e. as more people that trust the entity it leads to more people trusting it as well.
So when a legal contract is created and given to the trusted entity that entity can verify that the contract is real and that the involved parties have all signed it.
The internet is similar to land in that you can not “hold” it. The internet is “stateless” i.e. without a central entity there is no way to confirm that a contract exists or intellectual property is owned by a specific person. On the internet there is no way to trust that someone is who they say they are or someone owns or created something that you see or hear on the internet. Web3 enables people to create trust in a space where trust was once only facilitated through known and trusted entities such as Facebook, Twitter, Redfin, etc. Blockchain technology enables us to create trust where previously we could only go on the internet and trust that Facebook, Twitter, and Redfin had measures in place to ensure that people are who they say they are and are the owners of content they’ve shared online. The central entities are also responsible for ensuring that the owners and creators of content are compensated for their intellectual property while taking a small or big cut(see Spotify and record labels) of their own profits or selling ads to ensure that they also make money by providing the technology and entity that facilitated this trusted exchange of ownership of ideas and intellectual property.
Web3 and blockchain is the next evolution of how humans can use the internet to create community, facilitate trust, and take ownership all things pertaining to their ideas and creations.
