Original title: “Three Revolutions of Web3” from the WeChat public account “Technical Trivia”
Written by: Tony Aubé, Product Designer at Google
Translation: Shi Taosheng
This article is based on the text version of Google’s product designer Tony Aubé’s speech at WAQ2019. The article expounds the logic of the three evolutions of Web3, summarizes the three fundamental characteristics of Web3, and especially emphasizes that most of the changes in Web3 will occur at the infrastructure level. For most people, this will be a slow and almost invisible Change. In addition, from the perspective of the historical pendulum cycle, the author points out that Web 3 is not intended to replace the Internet, but to push the Internet back into a more balanced and democratic Web.
Contents of this article:
1 Brief History of the Web
1.1 web 1.0
1.2 web 2.0 1.3 What is web 3.0?
2 The web has crashed
2.1 Advertising 2.2 Data Leakage 2.3 Monitoring 2.4 Review 2.5 Data Loss
3 Web 3
3.1 Value Native
3.2 Dapp
3.3 Data sovereignty
4 summary
5 The pendulum of history
6 Internet of Things
Last year, the Internet celebrated its 30th birthday.
Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Internet, took this opportunity to express his dissatisfaction with the direction of the Internet in recent years.
The Internet is 30 years old, but this is not the network we want. —— Berners Lee
In order to understand his point, and why this is important, it is necessary to review the history of the Web.
1 Brief History of the Web
Before the Web, it was the Internet.
The Internet was invented in the 1970s, at the height of the US-Soviet Cold War.
At that time, the United States had a central computer controlling its nuclear weapons.
The US government is worried that a single attack may paralyze the computer system, making it impossible for them to fight back.
Therefore, the US government has established a decentralized system that allows many computers to be distributed across the country. If an attack occurs, the defense system will continue to operate to ensure that the two countries can destroy each other.
This is a dark history for the Internet. But this is also the origin of the idea of decentralization.
Then, in 1990, Tim Berners-Lee created the Web (World Wide Web).
The Web is one of the earliest applications on the Internet. It enables people to browse content easily. However, it is a highly specialized tool, mainly used by researchers and students.
But this situation quickly changed.
1.1 Web 1.0
Five years later, new browsers like Mosaic and Microsoft Internet Explorer brought the Web to mainstream audiences.
These are the good old days. We surf the Internet. The web design is terrible. We have a dial-up connection. It took a long time to download a photo or a video. This is Web 1.0.
Web 1.0 is decentralized. It is driven by an ordinary computer. This is a computer photo of Tim Berners-Lee. There is a sticker on it, and it says Do not shut down. Because this computer powers the Internet.
Web 1.0 is open source. This means that anyone can freely build on this foundation. This makes it possible for new companies like Google and Amazon. This is impossible if the Web is private.
Finally, Web 1.0 is read-only . This means that for every thousand users who browse the Web, only a few have the technical skills to publish content.
1.2 Web 2.0
All this changed around 2005, and new websites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter brought Web 2.0.
This is the first time that anyone can post content online, regardless of their technical level. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are all simple ways for people to create their own Web. They have led to the massive popularity of the Web today.
But at that time, people have begun to see the problems of these new websites. Although they make our online life more convenient, they are slowly building walled gardens on the open Web. We started to deviate from the original vision of the Web.
In addition, the computers that previously powered the Web have gradually evolved into the large centralized data centers needed to power these platforms.
The invention of the smart phone accelerated this phenomenon. Today, we have incredible equipment that allows us to do many things. Yes, they can let us browse the web through applications such as Safari, Firefox and Chrome.
Unfortunately, these applications are submerged in many other closed, private, opaque applications.
1.3 What is Web 3.0?
First, understand that the term Web 2.0 is a buzzword.
It was created by Tim O’Reilly, and when he saw these changes happen, he created the Web 2.0 Summit. This is a large conference that brings together engineers and researchers to discuss the future of the Web.
With the widespread dissemination of Web 2.0 ideas, an inevitable question has emerged: What will Web 3.0 look like?
At that time, people had many guesses. People guess that Web 3.0 will be the Web of artificial intelligence or the Web of virtual reality. Although I think these are exciting technologies, I don’t think they will redefine the Web.
Last year, there was a large conference called the Web 3.0 Summit (Web 3.0 Summit).
Just like the Web 2.0 summit, this conference gathered a large number of engineers and researchers. The information obtained from this is clear: Web 3.0 is to re-decentralize the Web .
Why make the web decentralized?
Unfortunately, today’s Web has collapsed.
2 The web has crashed
Why do you say that the Web has crashed? The reasons are as follows:
2.1 Advertising
As you know, the Web today is full of advertisements.
Why are there so many advertisements? Back when the Web first appeared, there was no native way to deliver value. People are cautious when using credit cards online. Therefore, the best way to make money online is to provide services for free and then make money through advertising.
This is where companies like AdWords and DoubleClick come in. By providing an online advertising platform, they can start a business that provides free content.
Over time, advertising has become the default business model of the Web.
This has led to today’s Web, where everyone uses ad blockers, and the media uses ad blockers.
The media is losing revenue because online advertising is not as profitable as print advertising.
To compensate for this, the media relies on improper methods such as clickbait, fake news and misinformation to make better use of people’s attention. This is a vicious circle, mainly caused by the Web’s reliance on advertising.
2.2 Data leakage
As early as 2017, The Economist announced that data is the new oil.
Today, people are racing to collect as much data as possible online. This started with the idea that user data will lead to better advertising. Since then, the rise of artificial intelligence has only increased this demand.
Unfortunately, this data is collected on these large central servers, and these servers are hackers’ favorite targets.
In the Equifax hack in 2018, 143 million people’s information was stolen, including their social security numbers and driver’s licenses. People blamed Equifax, saying their security situation is extremely poor.
However, companies like Facebook and Google that employ the best engineers in the world also experienced data breaches in the same year.
The lesson here is that no system is truly secure. Once you start storing data in a centralized server, someone will be motivated to steal the data. Every system can be cracked.
In 2017, 6.3 billion accounts were hacked. This is close to having an account for everyone on the planet. I can assure you that this number will rise in 2019.
2.3 Monitoring
Unfortunately, companies are not the only ones hoarding data. The government did the same. Thanks to Edward Snowden (Edward Snowden), we saw it all in 2014.
In addition to the United States, there are government social credit systems in other countries that can use collected citizen information to rate citizens.
This is similar to the concept of credit scoring, covering your entire civic life. If your score is too low, you may be banned from buying airplane and train tickets. This is a worrying direction.
2.4 Review
Next, review. With centralized servers, the government can easily block access to them.
For example, Turkey has banned access to Wikipedia for the past two years. Because, as we know, Wikipedia is a threat to national security.
There are also firewalls. Countries such as Russia and India are also building their own firewalls.
2.5 data loss
Two thousand years ago, the Library of Alexandria was burned down. The fire destroyed thousands of precious documents in our history.
Everyone thinks this is a human tragedy. However, this kind of thing happens on the Web every day.
Everyone has had this experience. You try to access a link and get a 404 error. The link is broken and the page is lost.
The average life span of a website is about 100 days.
Every month, 2% of online links disappear forever .
These numbers are devastating when you think about how important the Web is in terms of culture and information today.
Non-profit organizations like the Internet Archive foundation are trying to back up the entire Web, but considering the speed of the Web’s development and disappearance, this is an impossible task.
In short, the situation is terrible.
The web has many problems. What can we do for them?
While preparing for this lecture, I read a book called “Designing the Internet” by David D. Clark, one of the founders of the Internet.
The title itself says it all: design an internet .
After reading this book, I understand: The Web as we know it today is the only possible explanation. The Web is made up of components, and these components are created by people like you and me.
In the past 30 years, the development of these components has not been able to solve the problems facing the Web today.
Web 3.0 is committed to updating these components to fix the problems I mentioned above.
3 Web 3
Web 3.0, or Web 3 for short, will bring about three major changes:
- Currency will become an inherent feature of the Internet
- Decentralized applications (dapp) provide users with new functions
- Users will have more control over their digital identities and data
As I mentioned earlier, advertising has become the default business model of the Web because there is no credible way to deliver value on the Web.
Fortunately, a recent invention has solved this problem. I believe this invention will have a significant impact on our society in the coming decades.
This invention is Bitcoin
. Bitcoin revolution
In 2018, I gave a speech on blockchain and Bitcoin. I don’t think it matters whether Bitcoin is just a short-lived one in the end. Because Bitcoin has a snowball effect. Bitcoin has completely changed our view of digital currencies.
Bitcoin brought two major innovations.
- It allows digital scarcity. For the first time in history, we can create objects that are both digital and unique.
- It allows you to consume online without any intermediaries.
These two innovations will bring people the Internet of value .
Internet of Value
To understand how great the Internet of Value is, consider how Web 1 and Web 2 revolutionized the free flow of information.
Technology has changed every kind of media: newspapers, telephones, television, books, radio, photography, encyclopedias, etc.
Information revolution
These are all parts of our society, but they have been completely changed by technology in the past 20 years.
Overnight, anyone can send information at any time, any place, for free and instantly. This completely changed our world.
Today, we seem to live in the future. We can talk to anyone anytime, anywhere.
However, if you look closely, it is strange that it is not the technological revolution we have experienced. Rather, despite this huge technological revolution, the rest of our society has strangely remained the same.
The components of our society have hardly evolved in the past 50 years.
Many things that have not changed are related to value.
Just as Web 1 and Web 2 brought about the explosion of the free flow of information, Web 3 will also bring about the explosion of the free flow of value.
Just like information, in the next few decades, the transfer of value will be global, instant, free, and accessible to everyone.
Although Bitcoin may disrupt cash or gold (depending on who you ask), the value revolution is much more than that.
Think about the need for scarcity in every component of society—stocks, bonds, identity, real estate, etc. All of these can be converted via Web 3.
This is huge.
The idea behind decentralized applications (Dapp) is to take Bitcoin’s innovations—blockchain, cryptography, peer-to-peer, and consensus algorithms—and add them to web applications.
As I explained, Bitcoin allows you to trade without any intermediaries. Why can’t we build other applications with the same idea?
For example, when I use a chat application such as Messenger. Just like the previous example, if I want to chat with my friend like a child, I need to raise my hand for permission. In the end, companies like Facebook controlled my conversations with friends.
Isn’t this strange? On the other hand, I can use a decentralized chat application like Orbit. This is a simple application, you can use it now. It allows you to chat with your friends without any intermediaries.
So there is a crazy idea to put every application we use today on the Web.
For example, Airbnb, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube all have decentralized versions without central authority or power.
From top to bottom: PeepEth, Minds and DTube
There are many decentralized applications today:
This is a movement. In all areas-whether it is currency, banking, payment, advertising, supply chain-people are building decentralized versions of the applications we use today.
How do we build decentralized applications?
As I mentioned earlier, this is about changes in the Web infrastructure itself.
The web infrastructure will have its own native payment layer, which contains projects like Bitcoin (of course, Bitcoin is not the only project, there are many other competing cryptocurrencies).
Then there are virtual machines like ethereum. These platforms will run code that supports decentralized applications.
On this basis, we can also add a decentralized storage layer. This will store the source files needed by the application, such as images, videos, text, etc. In this regard, the IPFS project is worth mentioning.
IPFS
IPFS (Interplanetary File System) is a project jointly developed by Protocol Labs and Juan Benet. Its goal is to become an alternative to HTTP.
Broadly speaking, IPFS allows you to create a local Web. What does it mean?
Today, if I want to download a picture, I will probably download it from the cloud.
IPFS uses the network capabilities of these devices (such as Wi-Fi) to create interconnected networks. With IPFS, I can still download a file from the cloud, but once I have it, anyone can get the file from my device.
This brings many benefits.
1. Anti-censorship. I mentioned earlier that Turkey has blocked Wikipedia for nearly two years. The hacktivists created a decentralized version of Turkish Wikipedia that runs on the IPFS network that Turkey cannot block. This is an innovation designed to solve the review problem I mentioned earlier.
2. More durable. I did a lot of preparation for this speech. I save these links in my bookmarks. I can assure you that if I try to return to these links in a few years, some of them will be lost.
However, using IPFS, I can decide to save these pages to my device, and anyone can access them from my computer. Even if YouTube or the media disappear, as long as there is a device in the world that stores the file, it can still be accessed.
In addition, IPFS has a built-in version history.
This is similar to functions such as Time Machine on the Mac. This is a popular feature of many software today. It allows you to browse files of previous versions. This is built directly into IPFS.
This is also a project aimed at solving data loss.
So far, the government has managed our identity by issuing passports and driving licenses.
But the strange thing is that in recent years, private companies have also become identity management companies. Today, we have been receiving various forms on the Internet requesting us to provide various personal information.
For small companies, identity is difficult to manage. Therefore, recently, large technology companies like Facebook and Google have facilitated various operations by becoming identity administrators on the Web.
Once again, isn’t it a little strange that private, profit-seeking companies now control our identity?
This is a problem that our friend Tim Berners-Lee (Tim Berners-Lee) has been trying to solve for a long time. He wrote a lot of speeches on this issue.
Last year, he announced a new project aimed at changing this status quo. This project is called Solid, which means Social Linked Data.
Here is a quick introduction to how Solid works.
Solid’s idea is that users store their personal information in a personal online data storage unit pod instead of providing the information to private companies. Users can store their name, address, phone number, etc. In other words, any information related to your online identity.
Pods are encrypted and can be hosted anywhere users need them: on their devices, servers, and possibly even on the blockchain.
The idea is to be able to connect to a Web application through such a button. However, since we still control our data, we can precisely control which application can access which information.
To understand what I mean, please consider how you currently manage the notification list on your phone. You have this list of apps, and you can choose the type of notifications that each app can send. Imagine having the same control, but who has access to information instead of notifications.
Solid is a recent project. It’s still under construction, but you can try it here.
To be honest, it’s not very good now, not very easy to use. However, there are many other projects in the field of cryptography, such as uPort and Blockstack, whose goals are to solve the same problem in slightly different ways.
Some projects focused on decentralized identity
Although there are many projects, the core idea remains the same: people are responsible for their own data. This brings many benefits.
1. No more forms
The first is that there are no more tables. I don’t think anyone likes filling out forms. This is repetitive and frustrating. The idea of decentralized identity is that you only fill in your information once, and all services will connect from there.
2. One-way data flow
Credit card is a completely obsolete payment technology. When you use a credit card, you give the merchant your card number, expiration date and security code. In other words, you give them the password of the money.
With this information, the merchant can charge you without your consent. This is why there are so many credit card frauds.
On the other hand, when you send a bitcoin, instead of giving your password, you encrypt and sign the transaction. The signature is unique and only valid for the transaction. Therefore, without your consent, the merchant cannot charge you again.
If you think about it, we have the same problem in terms of identity.
When I give my social security number to a website, I give my ID password. They will save it on an insecure server, and soon it will be stolen by hackers.
Why can’t we use passwords here? Instead of revealing the password to my identity, I can also sign a transaction with the password to prove that I am the person I want to prove. Well, no one can steal my identity.
This is the foundation for a more secure, decentralized identity.
3. Safer
Decentralization is more secure.
As I mentioned earlier, no system is truly secure. There will always be data leaks and hacker attacks. We cannot guarantee that no one can enter your pod. But since this data is not stored on a central server, we will not see hackers hacking into the server and stealing 150 million social security numbers. To steal 150 million decentralized identities, someone has to hack 150 million pods, which is almost impossible.
These innovations should help solve problems such as data hacking and surveillance.
Make developers’ lives easier
I have shown how Web 3 will bring a new local web layer to payments, storage, and identity. These innovations should also make it easier to develop Web applications.
Consider an application like Uber. To build such an application, you need to assemble many components, such as payment, storage, and identity management systems.
Then, another company like Lyft also launched a similar application. They need to rebuild these components. A lot of work is repetitive.
The idea of Web 3 is to take these components out, disperse them, and then return them to users. The user wins and the developer wins, because each component only needs to be built once.
If Uber and Lyft don’t want to use these decentralized components, it doesn’t matter, because the decentralized versions of Uber and Lyft will use them.
This innovative infrastructure should help prevent monopolies, because it makes it easier for developers to build Web applications.
What does Web 3 look like?
All of these are interesting, but you might ask yourself: how do we browse Web 3? There are many ways:
- Add extensions to the browser, such as @metamask.
- New browser, like Brave
- .
- Portal sites like MyEtherWallet.
- Mobile applications such as Coinbase Wallet.
MetaMask
Let’s talk about MetaMask. I believe this is one of the most elegant solutions for browsing Web 3 so far.
It is a browser extension that you can add to your browser, such as Chrome or Firefox. After adding, you will see this small icon in the upper right corner.
Then you can connect to your wallet and let your browser have new features to interact with the blockchain (such as ethereum). This enables you to use Web 3 applications, such as Robert Leshner’s compound finance or Cryptokitties’ crypto kit.
Brave
Brave is a new project of BrendanEich. BrendanEich is a very important figure. He participated in the creation of Mozilla, Firefox and JavaScript.
His new project is a browser called Brave that can block ads and trackers by default. This makes it the fastest browser on the market. It is four times faster than Chrome.
Brave has been developed to use a cryptocurrency called Basic Attention Token. For example, when I use Brave to watch YouTube, I can click on the BAT icon to access the wallet.
With this, I can tip any content creator online directly through their website.
There is also an automatic payment function that sets aside a certain amount of money every month. Once I do this, I can browse the web and Brave will automatically distribute the money to the different pages I visit.
Brave is currently available on desktops, tablets and mobile phones, as well as on Android and IOS. It has 5.5 million monthly active users. This is a good entrance to the world of cryptocurrency.
Ultimately, Brave’s goal is to completely reform the advertising industry by using blockchain and cryptography by establishing a decentralized advertising market.
This type of project should allow us to reduce our dependence on Web advertising and allow us to pay directly through the browser.
4 summary
In this article, we have seen how the Web has evolved over the past 30 years.
The evolution of the web
We learned about Web 1.0, which is read-only and decentralized. Then, large technology companies appeared. They make the Web easier to use, but they also make the Web more centralized. This is Web 2.0. Now, Web 3 will allow us to interact with each other without any intermediaries. It will re-decentralize the Web.
Because most of the changes will occur at the infrastructure level, this will be a slow, almost invisible transition for most people. Maybe they need to learn how to use the wallet, or learn how to interact with the blockchain. Maybe they need to use a different browser. But in general, for Web users, the situation will remain basically the same.
5 The pendulum of history
If you think about it, human history has been oscillating between centralization and decentralization.
For example, in the cave era, everyone had to rely on themselves. This is survival of the fittest.
Eventually, people realize that they are stronger and more efficient together. So we slowly began to gather in the form of tribes and gradually developed into cities and countries. This reached its peak in the monarchy, where a few kings ruled everyone, leading to a terrible abuse of power.
People are fed up. They resisted and cut off the king’s head, leading to another form of decentralized anarchy.
After centuries of repetition between the two extremes, we have proposed a balanced system: democracy. It has not only a centralized component such as the president, but also a decentralized component such as each referendum.
If you think about it, you will find that this is the same as technology. We started with these huge centralized mainframes, which initially occupied the entire floor.
After seeing the weaknesses of such a system, we created a decentralized system: Web 1.0. It is good, but difficult to use.
Then, big companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter joined in to make the Internet more accessible. This is Web 2.0.
It should be noted that I don’t think these companies are bad. On the contrary, they have brought incredible contributions to the Web and our lives. I believe that their existence is a net benefit to mankind.
Web 3 is not meant to replace them. It just pushes the Internet back to a more balanced and democratic Web.
6 Internet of Things
This will be very important, such as where we are going, everything in our home will eventually be connected to the Internet.
Such as Nest’s thermostat. This device will collect your sensitive data, such as which room you spend most of your time in.
In 2014, Google acquired Nest. This makes many people worry about whether Google will use these data.
Therefore, Fadell, then CEO of Nest, assured people that the privacy policy would remain unchanged. I believe that Sundar is sincere and kind.
The question is, why should I rely on his promise to protect myself from the thermostat? Before using Nest, I didn’t have to worry about the thermostat sending my private data to the Internet.
We should not rely on the promises of Google, Facebook, or Mark Zuckerberg to protect us from equipment. This is what Web 3 is all about.
Web 2.0 relies on promises such as “do not be evil,” while Web 3 changes the infrastructure itself to build a Web where people and large companies “cannot be evil.”
