Information / Media in Web 2.0 vs 3.0 (pt. 1/2)
Web 1.0.
Computers connected, HTTP, a simple markup language, starting as a project from the US Department of Defense. Then came the Netscape browser, Windows 95.
Web 2.0 is what we’re using now. A good example is Facebook. A private company, centered on user specifics and personalized. In exchange for using, users are tracked across the ecosystem, their data collected and used to market, advertise and sell for revenue. Amazon’s premise of studying user behavior, in intimate ways such as with Alexa, is a more pure example of a top-down ecosystem for selling. Twitter, LinkedIn, Netflix and so on have similar models.
In Web 2.0, there are gatekeepers, bureaucracy. Giant companies like Google dominate internet search, others (Quant, Bing) exist in tangent. Then service providers control access, speed of connection. Unwanted elements are relegated to the Dark Web or unsavory hotbeds like Gab.
Operation of services and data storage depend on geographic location subject to jurisdiction of Nation-Sates with laws. Oversight, such as through censorship, add another layer of bureaucracy.
So what is Web 3.0?
This Forbes link is gives a nice reference. We don’t know how it will turn out in the future, but the foundation will be dramatically changed: based on decentralized protocols such as IPFS instead of HTTPS, blockchain and peer-to-peer networks not centralized servers.
I think of Bitcoin. Everyone has a copy of the leger, transparent. It’s tamer-proof (unless one actor can control more than 50% of computation power). Location independent. Proof of ownership. Anonymity and privacy are built-in.
Basing a new internet on that framework is very radically different. Web 3 will be disruptive.
Today, Web 2.0 systems in place dictate our access and consumption of media and information. Commonly, someone will get news within Facebook (or similar), such as via New York Times on Facebook.
Apps direct users based on past behavior from data collection, with an objective for sales and marketing. Facebook seeks to keep users within the boundaries its world (and not deleting their accounts). Interaction is closed, contingent on those layers and filters in place.
Google, Twitter, Facebook are in a give-and-take relationships with governments. In the US, they collude with Federal agencies, and in exchange they are given favor.
Donald Trump saw a connection in his announcement of his class action lawsuit against the three. Section 230 from the 2018 US Communications Decency Act says these and other major social media apps/sites are immune from liability with regards to users (and providers) of their services. A very nice benefit from the US govt. Trump pointed to how these tech giants obliged to censor all content in contradiction to the US CDC relating to Covid-19, which in some cases turned out to be true (when the CDC got it wrong).
The state collusion, filtering, marketing and sales-directed fun house mirror is just the reality for media and information in Web 2.0.
Years ago, a book called Who Owns the Future by Jaron Lanier described the rise of what he called ‘Siren Servers.’
My summary: A warning that people will eagerly use free services (those from Google, Facebook, Apple). In exchange, we’ll eagerly give out our info / content (which will as a result have little or no value coming back to us). These Siren Servers (aka giant tech corps) will wipe-out smaller competitors and become behemoth centers of power. Basically, they’ll lord over and control us in an Orwell’s 1984 kind of way.
Considering Lanier’s prediction largely turned out true, now seeing how Blockchain / Decentralized / P2P is the literal exact opposite, Web 3 sounds like a utopian fantasy.
How do we go to 3.0 from where we are now???
I don’t think tech giants are about to give up their power. Maybe a war would need to happen first (IDK). I don’t have the answer.
The above is part one of two. There are some things, small steps (owning content through tokenization, decentralizing like with DAOs) that are a start. Pt. 2 at capxul.medium.com.