Compilation/Youya
Web3, the decentralized Internet running on the blockchain technology, as one of the hottest words of science and technology in 2021, is considered by some to be the next stage of the Internet today (namely Web2); But some people think that this is just a hype. This issue of Overseas Weekly compiles New York Times articles to discuss the explosion, cases, evaluation, and relationship with the metauniverse of Web3.
In Web2 mode, Facebook and Google And other technology giants control the platform; In Web3 mode, users will own the platform and application ownership.
What is Web3?
Web3 is the name given by some technical experts to a new type of Internet service, which uses decentralized blockchain technology.
The term Web3 has existed for many years, but it has only become popular in the past year. The investor, Packy McCormick, once promoted Web3 and defined it as "a new type of Internet owned by builders and users and encouraged by tokens".
Supporters envision Web3 as a variety of forms, including decentralized social networks, "play to ear" games (rewarding players with digital tokens), and NFT platforms (allowing people to buy and sell digital culture). more ideal People who believe that Web3 will overturn the tradition and change the current Internet. The world will usher in a new digital economy without intermediaries.
However, some critics believe that Web3 is just a rebranding of digital encryption technology, aimed at getting rid of some cultural and political burdens in the industry, and making people believe that blockchain is the next natural development stage of computing.
Others believe that this is an anti utopian "pay to play" Internet vision. Under this Internet model, every activity and social interaction has become a financial tool that can be bought and sold.
Why are so many people talking about Web3 all of a sudden?
Part of the reason is speculation, marketing and fear of "missing the next big thing".
The prosperity of Web3 also reflects the amount of capital, talents and energy flowing into start-ups in this field after a year long bull market in the digital cryptocurrency market. In 2021 alone, venture capital companies invested more than 27 billion dollars (about 171.388 billion yuan) in projects related to digital cryptocurrency, more than the total of the previous 10 years, and a large part of the funds went to Web3 projects. Twitter And Reddit and other large technology companies have also begun to test their own Web3 projects.
The industry has become a magnet for attracting scientific and technological talents. Many employees in the technology industry quit their jobs in large factories and chose to go to Web3 to seek wealth.
When talking about Web3, we can't help asking: What are Web1 and Web2?
In traditional terms, Web1 refers to the Internet in the 1990s and early 21st century. It is an Internet composed of blogs, message boards and early portal websites such as AOL and CompuServe. People read static web pages passively on Web1, and most web pages are built using "open protocols" such as HTTP, SMTP and FTP.
Web2 is the next stage of the Internet (Web1), which began around 2005. Its prominent feature is the birth of social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. In the Web2 mode, people begin to create and publish their own content and actively participate in the Internet, instead of simply reading passively. However, in the end, most of these activities were monetized by large companies, and most of the funds and control rights were also appropriated by large companies.
Source/DataDrivenInvestor In contrast, Web3 combines Web1's open infrastructure with Web2's public participation, and will replace these centralized enterprise platforms with open protocols and decentralized, community operated networks.
In a joint work, digital cryptocurrency investor Li Jin and writer Katie Parrott described the vision of Web3 as follows: "If the Web1 era is beneficial to publishers and the Web2 era is beneficial to the platform, then the next generation of innovation (Web3) is to let power (po we r) The balance of ownership and ownership is again tilted to creators and users. "
Although this sounds exciting, it is somewhat ambiguous. What do Web3 supporters think of this concept?
Supporters of Web3 believe that the blockchain based Internet (i.e. Web3) will improve the current Internet in the following aspects.
First, Web3 platform can provide creators and users with a way to monetize their activities and contributions, which is not available in today's large platforms.
For example, Facebook currently makes money by aggregating user data and selling targeted ads. The Web3 version of Facebook allows users to monetize their own data, and even get "tips" from other users by publishing some interesting content. A Web3 version of Spotify (streaming media service provider) allows fans to buy "shares" of promising artists and actually become their sponsors in exchange for royalties on streaming media content of artists. The Web3 version of Uber may be owned by the driver on the network.
Matt Levine, an industry writer, said: "A basic premise of Web3 is that each product is also an investment opportunity."
Secondly, supporters also believe that Web3 platform can conduct democratic governance in a way that Web2 platform does not have.
Internet giants like Facebook are autocratic in nature, while blockchain based social network (Web3) can delegate the decision to users, who can vote how to deal with it.
Third, compared with Web2, Web3 will rely less on the advertising based business model, so people will have more privacy. This means fewer tracking programs and targeted advertising, and fewer large companies that collect personal data.
Of course, this is a highly idealized version of Web3, which is mainly outlined by people (supporters) who have economic interests in achieving this goal, but the reality may be very different.
Can you list an existing Web3 application case?
A frequently cited example is the video game Axie Infinity developed by Vietnamese game studio Sky Mavis, which uses NFT and digital cryptocurrency based on Ethereum to reward players who achieve goals in the game.
In the game, players can "breed" characters called Axis and use them in the battle with other players. They can also collect virtual land in the form of NFT to earn a digital currency called Smooth Love Potion (SLP), which can be traded in cryptocurrency exchanges.
Axis Infinity has attracted millions of players, including some Filipinos, who even live by playing this game. However, the game's dependence on crypto token makes it unstable. If the value of tokens drops, players may suffer heavy losses.
This sounds a bit like gambling, and it is true to some extent. But supporters of Web3 believe that if you spend several hours a day playing video games, you should at least have a chance to get paid from them.
Are there any other applications that can help you understand Web3?
Although not as famous as Axie Infinity, Helium is also a good example, which shows the innovation of previous technologies.
Helium is basically a crowdsourcing wireless network driven by digital cryptocurrency. By using a special device that can be plugged into a computer or router, users can register for the Helium network and share the bandwidth of the WiFi network at home or office.
When nearby devices use their bandwidth, they will get Helium tokens as a reward. The more frequently their "hot spots" are used, the more tokens they get. At present, Helium network has more than 500000 active "hotspots", many of which provide power for networked devices such as parking meters and electric scooters (Internet).
By persuading people to share their Internet bandwidth with nearby devices door to door, similar networks can be established without the participation of digital cryptocurrency. Telecom giants such as Verizon or AT&T can also spend billions of dollars to build such networks themselves.
However, Helium can establish a network without huge upfront costs. The premise is to allow people to earn digital tokens for expanding network coverage and effectively use the popularity of digital cryptocurrency to fund it.
Therefore, part of the attraction of Web3 is that it can motivate some people to do things they might not have done, such as playing video games or sharing WiFi with strangers.
Web3 advocates believe that such examples are just the beginning. Some advocates believe that Web3 may theoretically become the pillar of a new, token society.
Lior Messika, a digital cryptocurrency investor, said: "In the near future, Web3 will host financial institutions, social interaction, personal identity and other content."
There are many discussions about "decentralized identity" in the fan circle of Web3. In the near future, we can have a "blockchain technology based" reputation score, covering work, activities, projects and other dimensions. These records will become permanent records of our online life, which can provide reference for others to understand themselves. Application scenarios such as recruitment, dating, etc.
What are the objections to Web3?
The permanence of Web3 and its dependence on the unstable digital cryptocurrency are part of the reason why Web3's broader vision has encountered many obstacles.
Robin Sloan, a writer and technical expert, believes that the ability to delete content is an ideal quality of Internet services, but this runs counter to the concept of Web3.
What's more, Stephen Diehl, a computer programmer and digital currency critic, believes that Web3 is "the hyper financialization of all human beings". The so-called "super financialization" means that the development of financial capital distribution is seriously divorced from labor distribution, which is also the root of the contemporary financial crisis in the United States.
Some skeptics simply believe that Web3 is technically meaningless. They pointed out that the blockchain is much slower than the standard database, and its capacity is also much worse. The most popular blockchain at present cannot even handle the amount of data used by Uber, Facebook or YouTube every day. They believe that centralized services must be established if the performance of Web3 services is to meet the needs of consumers, which is just against the vision of Web3.
Others think Web3 is an attempt by wealthy investors. They verbally support decentralization, but at the same time, they are establishing new centralized services under their control, in fact, making themselves new intermediaries.
Is that why Jack Dorsey bombarded Web3 on Twitter?
Yes. Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter, is a big fan of Bitcoin. He believes that Bitcoin will replace the US dollar and bring peace to the world. But like many Bitcoin fans, he is skeptical of other digital cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum, the blockchain technology that hosts most of Web3's ecosystems.
Last December, Dorsey criticized Web3 in a series of tweets, saying that it "is, in the final analysis, a centralized entity with different labels". He also attacked the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which invested heavily in the Web3 project.
Dorsey believes that under the vision of Web3 envisioned by Anderson Horowitz, they will seize control from users and hold it in the hands of rich investors and centralized technology platforms.
What do regulators want to say about Web3?
At present, there is not much, although this topic was raised at the recent congressional hearing.
However, once regulators begin to focus on Web3, the industry may encounter obstacles. For example, digital token is a potential big problem. Digital tokens are critical to many Web3 applications and are currently in a gray area of supervision. Some regulators, including Gary Gensler, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States, believe that many tokens are unregistered securities, and the platform providing tokens should comply with the same rules as companies issuing stocks and bonds.
Digital cryptocurrency companies retort that tokens are not covered by the existing securities laws and should be regarded as a new asset. It is not clear whether they will win the argument. If U.S. Web3 start-ups are required to treat tokens as securities, many companies may have to close, change products, or move to other countries.
What is the relationship between Web3 and the metauniverse?
Metauniverse belongs to the current term of immersive digital world. In the "metauniverse" world, users can socialize, play games, attend meetings, etc., which is also the vision outlined by Mark Zuckerberg when he announced that Facebook would be renamed Meta.
Some supporters of digital cryptocurrency believe that Web3 is an important part of the meta universe, because it allows the creation of a meta universe that is not controlled by a single company or governed by a single rule.
If Web3 succeeds, many objects in the metauniverse may also be digital tokens. Your metauniverse avatar may be an NFT, and your metauniverse house may be attached with a supervision token, so that you are eligible to join the nearby "Decentralized Autonomous Organization" (DAO). The mortgage of this house may even be packaged into mortgage backed securities tokens, which can be sold on a decentralized exchange.
At present, most of these things are purely theoretical; The only thing that is clear now is that the word Web3 will appear more and more frequently in the future, because people want to further explore this vision, that is, the new experience, platform and money making opportunities that digital cryptocurrency advocates are trying to create.
