Author: Ling Xiang
Every life has its own cycle. The development of science and technology is no exception, whether people or times are good. Since its birth in the 1990s, the Internet has been upgraded all the way to web3.0. What is web3.0? Why does this word without a clear concept become one of the top 12 hot words in science and technology in 2021 judged by Reuters? CoinDeskChinese Explainer This issue will take 5 minutes to unveil for you.
Nobody doesn't know about the Internet, right? In short, web3.0 is the next generation Internet based on blockchain technology, including a series of concepts in the field of cryptocurrency and decentralization. If web3.0 is compared to a small universe, there are many asteroids in the universe. For example, decentralization is its "central" idea, blockchain is its technical support, and the hottest NFT at present may become a way of identity verification and ownership in the universe, while the decentralized autonomous organization DAO is its organizational form. We have explained these terms in the first five programs. Welcome to subscribe CoinDeskChinese's YouTube channel to learn about them.
To understand web3.0, we must not leave its predecessor, the web2.0 Internet world we live in, and its predecessor, web1.0.
Back to the source of the Internet life cycle, 1990-2004 was the era of web1.0. In 1989, Tim Berners Lee created an open decentralized agreement, which enables information sharing on the World Wide Web in any corner of the earth. As a result, various portal websites we are familiar with emerge as the times require, such as Yahoo, Google, Sina, NetEase, etc. This kind of website is static. When we click the mouse, open the web page, browse the news, there is almost no interaction between users, and there is little personal content, but its significance is groundbreaking. In the 1990s, there were not many computers and people who could access the Internet. I still remember the excitement of entering my aunt's laboratory in the university for the first time. I tried my best to dial up the Internet and saw the beautiful photos of football star Robert Baggio on the Italian portal website for the first time! With just a click of the mouse, we can break through national boundaries and territories and easily get the information we want. This is a revolutionary change. But web1.0 is the first generation of "read-only" Internet.
In 2004, the story continues. People with a gossiping nature like to discuss information in private after reading it online, and everyone starts to think, why not discuss it online? This opened the era of web2.0. At the beginning, there was only graphic interaction, such as forums such as Tianya, Douban, Tieba, and chat software such as msn; Gradually, with the development of technology and the improvement of network speed, there are more and more applications with high traffic loads such as video, live broadcast and voice. Social media has occupied our lives, which is the web2.0 era we live in. Facebook, Google, Instagram, Twitter, WeChat, etc. have replaced traditional portals and become the mainstream. The emergence of web2.0 also has epoch-making significance. You can create and release personalized content and output your knowledge and charm; You can also praise and pay attention to them and express your own views; You can also add friends via private messages to effectively socialize; After making live broadcast as an influencer, commercial cash can also be realized. Therefore, web2.0 is the second generation Internet that can read, write and interact.
When every vigorous life enters the mature stage, there will be some negative problems. How many of you will read those lengthy agreements before landing? Does anyone hesitate to click the "Disagree" option when the "Do you want to accept cookies" window pops up? We can't wait to agree. Don't delay me to see the "elder sister and elder brother" for a moment. We unwittingly give away our identity and big data we have. Even the content created by oneself may not have ownership on the platform.
Web2.0 still relies on the centralized platform built by giant enterprises, and information islands are formed between the platforms. All services are invisible to capture massive user data. At this time, a small number of technical geniuses not only realized this, but also wanted to change it. With the in-depth study of Bitcoin, they feel that this idea of decentralization and blockchain encryption can be used not only in the financial field, but also in the Internet field. Therefore, Gavin Wood, one of the founders of Ethereum, put forward the term web3.0 in 2014, hoping to return the ownership of Internet data and content to users. But until recently, many ideas were realized.
The beautiful Internet vision of Web3.0 follows the concept of blockchain decentralization. Users can create and consume content through tokens, and at the same time gain the ownership of their own creative content. This is like a symphony played by blockchain, token, NFT, etc. To give a few examples, banks are the central institutions through which we must conduct currency transactions at present, and blockchain is like a bank running on smart contracts without human management; NFT heterogeneous token is the unique ownership of the content you create on the blockchain. It can be a digital art, an article, or your name; Cryptocurrency or digital assets are the "currency" for transactions between users. You no longer need to give these information, content and asset data to social giants or Internet companies.
Let's compare the three landing pages. The login page of web1.0 requires your user name and password; In web2.0, you can use Google, Facebook, or WeChat to log in with one click; At web3.0, your login page may require you to connect to the wallet address of ETH Ethereum or other blockchain networks. Ethereum is an open source decentralized public blockchain platform. In web3.0, you don't need to create multiple identities. One decentralized identity will take all platforms. So web3.0 is the third generation Internet that can read, write and own.
However, the formation of Web3.0 did not happen overnight, but a series of developments. Today, it will change a little, and tomorrow, it will change a little. Until one day, you may not notice that Facebook's dominant position has been replaced by a DAO company, just like the beginning of web2.0, Who would have thought that a program called facemash used to judge the appearance in a university dormitory would evolve into a social giant called Facebook? Maybe one day you will find that it has become commonplace for you to use the eth in your metamask wallet to go shopping on Amazon, or to use digital RMB to go Taobao. Then you will suddenly realize that we are already in web3.0.
What changes will web3.0 bring to the lives of ordinary users? What are some companies with rudiments? How to develop? What are the limitations and disputes? In the next issue, we will continue to talk. Follow CoinDesk, the world's leading cryptocurrency and blockchain digital professional media! Follow CoinDesk Chinese and provide authoritative blockchain, NFT, Web3 and other industry news and interesting stories for Chinese speaking people around the world.
