Web3 will be the future.
Recently I came across the piece of news that Visa announces web3 loyalty rewards and it shows that now big tech are embracing the new technology with time and preparing themselves for the future. Most of the web is in web2 but will surely transition to web3 in the future. I do not expect it to transform overnight but it is a good change and let us understand what it will bring to the end users.
Before deep diving into web3, its benefits, and why we need web3, let's quickly understand what are web1,web2, and web3 actually.
Web1
Web1 is the first generation of the web and it generally consist of static content or in other words it was only one-way traffic, End-user interaction was limited to the "read-only" in this form of web. Mainly this was used to broadcast the information by top research institutes or governments and general public participation was limited.
Web2
Web2 is the second generation of the web where we witnessed the mass adoption of the web by common users as it acted as a medium for users to interact with other users. Social Media sites are examples of web2 and they foster user-generated content. This gave users the freedom to interact with other users in real-time and it also consisted of the evolution of the whole E-commerce platform. Ordering a pizza and seeing its different stages from preparation to delivery is just an example of how fast and responsive web2 has become.
Web3
Web3 is the next generation of the internet that focuses on the Decentralization of the internet. Web2 is doing great but at the same time, it has given too much power to the platform owners. Let's for example, If you think that your "X" and "Facebook" profiles and all of the content created by you do belong to you, you are seriously mistaken. These are just governed by these big corporations and you can be banned, your content taken out any day without you having any access to your previous existing content. You are not even part of the revenue generated by you in the platform and the platform feels free to use your information to further monetize on you with their cleverly documented "TOS" and conditions.
Web3 is to break the monopoly of the centralized platforms and it uses a "Decentralized" web. When you go for decentralization, blockchain is the technology that powers decentralization. Blockchain can be natively linked to the cryptocurrency (or rewards mechanism). So in short we can say that Web3 is a Decentralized web with the inherent capacity to reward its end users.
What other benefits that web3 brings.
1.) Security.
Web3 uses blockchain as its base layer. so it is inherently secure from breaches and hacks. You will be surprised to learn that there is no 51% attack executed in the Bitcoin Blockchain.
2.) Privacy.
With decentralized infrastructure, you have more privacy as you do not have to agree on the absurd "TOS" of big corporations.
3.) Transparency.
Being powered by the blockchain, transparency will the one of the biggest features of the web3.
My 2 cents.
I see a lot of tech companies are taking steps to embrace blockchain technologies and web3 adoption is likely to happen. But it also contradicts the interest of many big corporation so which can spread fud among users or might try to retain user by providing their version of web3 that might not be the true web3.