Tech
Web3 Explained: From Blockchain and Cryptography to NFTs and the Metaverse
Last week on Twitter, Jack Dorsey trashed the tech trend known as Web3, telling consumers to be wary and dismissing it as a tool for venture capitalists to hype it up cryptocurrencyTim O’Reilly, the author who coined the phrase Web 2.0 in 2004, also warned this month that it was too early to get excited on Web3. Time magazine’s Person of the Year, Elon Musk, simply quipped, “Web3 looks like bullshit.”
Is that so? Web3 is the technology most popular passwordHowever, the term is amorphous and rapidly evolving, and its meaning often changes depending on who speaks it.
Used by enthusiasts to describe the next phase of the Internet, Web3 is characterized by Internet services and mobile apps rebuilt ON decentralized blockchain technology. It often includes a broad spectrum of emerging technologies such as cryptocurrency, DAOand digital resources such as NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. Some passionate also associate gambleTHE metaverse AND augmented and virtual reality with Web3 because some virtual worlds rely on blockchain-based digital goods.
Web3 seems like bullshit
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 2, 2021
“Web3 is the Internet owned by builders and users, orchestrated with tokens,” said Chris Dixon, managing partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, in an article about the company. website.
Web3 advocates like Dixon To say that the building on Blockchain The technology will force companies to be interoperable and “give users ownership rights: the ability to own a piece of the Internet.” Skeptics, however, argue that because VCs are so heavily invested in bitcoin and the mechanisms that underpin Web3, their defense of decentralized technology from a user perspective is dishonest. Dorsey said Web3 is “ultimately a centralized entity with a different label.”
You do not own “web3”.
VCs and their LPs do it. It will never escape their incentives. Ultimately it is a centralized entity with a different label.
Know what you’re getting into…
— jack⚡️ (@jack) December 21, 2021
Okay, what does this mean to you? CBS News asked tech experts to explain the basics of Web3 and why — or if — it matters.
What’s all the fuss about?
Facebook’s rebranding as Meta in October, alongside the tech giant renewed support of cryptocurrency, probably Web3 ideas pushed on blockchain and decentralized technology, said Brian McCullough, host of the podcast “Techmeme Ride Home.”
“Web3 is a repackaging of some particular technologies,” McCullough told CBS News. “Blockchain has kind of hit a dead end in tech culture, and consumers have grown tired of the hype. Traditional cryptocurrencies never became a currency; NFTs have become a cult thing; and virtual reality has been ‘the next big thing’ for decades. Web3 is a brand that has brought all of these ideas together into a plausible whole.”
McCullough says Web3 is popular now because Silicon Valley influencers like Dorsey and Musk and Andreessen Horowitz and other venture capital firms have started talking about it since Facebook’s pivot. “The technology is not new,” he said, “but the marketing is.”
Made for Business, “Not for Consumers”
Ignore the Web3 hype and focus on enterprise technology, says TechRepublic Editor-in-Chief Bill Detwiler. Core blockchain technologies that Web3s are “real and powerful and made for the businessperhaps not consumers.”
In our current technology paradigm, Detwiler said, we think of the cloud as companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Oracle that provide data storage, computing power and software-as-a-service. The founder of Ethereum and Web3 Pioneer Gavin Wood imagine a new economy built around blockchain, where individuals can provide services directly to each other, where no one entity owns or controls the system, and where the ability to exchange goods of value exists inherently within the system.
But revolutionary decentralization? It’s still a long way off, Detwiler said.
“Wood’s vision will require major social, political and economic changes. Corporate companies are now using blockchain to track how lettuce gets from farm to supermarket,” Detwiler said. “It’s not revolutionary, but it’s real.”
Marcus Estes, founder of cannabis distribution company Chroma Signet, agrees that Web3 technology was built for businesses, not consumers. “We’re using public blockchain to help small cannabis businesses release limited-edition products in specific neighborhoods in Detroit,” he explained. “We couldn’t do that with previous Web technology because we’re offering a permissionless solution that’s enforced by blockchain, not by people. It’s an evolution of open-source business models.”
Bottom line
Musk, Dorsey and other big tech founders may have their reasons for advertising frame OR attack Web3, said Drew Olanoff, a startup analyst and former TechCrunch VC reporter. “It’s fun to watch them fight on Twitter, but I don’t take it seriously.”
“I collect sports jerseys and I understand the appeal of collectibles” like NFTs, Olanoff said. “It could be revolutionary in the future, but I doubt it. Web3 is just marketing language. Web 2.0 was the same thing.”
Podcaster McCullough agrees. A new form of cryptocurrency could indeed become the currency of the metaverse, he noted. “NFTs and digital objects could be our clothes, our identities, our status indicators. And VR could be more than just a sideline to gaming. That would be awesome, but it’s not reality,” he explained. “Web3 is still very primitive right now. It’s possible that blockchain and AR and VR could be the next big thing, but not today.”