A trendy concept that has plagued the technological sphere as much as human communication, “web3” has been presented as a new version of the Internet, more decentralized and based on a chain of blocks (blockchain), the technology behind non-fungible tokens (JNF or NFT) and cryptocurrencies.
It seems more of a marketing phrase than reality right now.however, the carmaker’s boss Tesla, Elon Musk, was criticized at the end of December for underlining the catch-all nature of web3like other popular concepts like the metaverse.
The web3 is the third age in internet history, replacing Web 1.0, which reigned from the early 1990s to the mid -2000s, and Web 2.0, hegemonic since the 2010s.
Content by actors like Yahoo! or AOL, Web 1.0 refers to the first uses of the Internet with its static pages that allow important information to be consulted, or the sending of emails.
Web 2.0 has marked the era of the social and interactive Internet, where the public can create and disseminate multimedia content. It assumes the dominance of several large centralized platforms such as Google, Amazon, or Facebook.
The concept attributed to Gavin Wood, co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain, web3 refers to the idea of a decentralized internet, where users control their own data, without the help of intermediaries.
At number three (three in English) thus added the definition of Free (Free), resulting in the return of an internet that is more independent of states and internet giants, as was the original case.
Web3 is closely linked to blockchain technology, a type of large digital ledger shared between multiple users, with no central authority and recognized tamper-proof, that lists all transaction history.
Born after the financial crisis in 2008, the most popular blockchain is Bitcoin and its associated cryptocurrency, which is completely virtual. Many others have been launched such as Ethereum, Solana or Polygon.
On these blockchains are based Web3 projects and applications, such as non-fungible tokens, non-reproducible digital certificates of authenticity that derive their value from the real or virtual object in which they attached. A person has both decision-making power and ownership over what they create or use on the network.
On web3, people create value but also capture some of it, which changes everything for artists, for example. It’s a web they own, where they regain control of what they do and what they ownexplanation to AFP Nicolas Julia, founder of Sorare, a French online game company that exchanges vignettes in the form of JNF.
This will make it possible to recreate an entire group of industries, whether it be art, music or sport.He added.
Metaverse Augmented Reality
Although they are linked, specifically to blockchain technology and the possibility of handling digital assets such as JNFs within them, web3 and the metaverse remain two different concepts.
Pushed to the front of the stage in the summer of 2021, the metaverse has designated a digital and social universe, which should expand physical reality through augmented or virtual reality, and move the internet from 2D to 3D.
Is its commitment enough to integrate it into the web3 revolution, as the metaverse is carried in particular by Meta (Facebook), one of Web 2.0’s flagship companies and a symbol of a centralized Internet perspective?
The answer will be given in a few years because, now, web3, we still don’t know what it issummarizes with AFP Julien Pillot, specialist in the digital and cultural industry.
Either of us is in the purist vision of a fully decentralized Internet, or in a sense based solely on immersion abilityhe added, predicting a controversy inevitable in the future between the two visions.
Radio Canada
Source: Radio-Canada
