We explore Web 3.0, the next major iteration of the Internet that promises to wrest control from the centralized corporations that dominate the Internet today.
In this article, we will look at a possible scenario in which the next major iteration of the Internet will allow users to achieve complete decentralization on the Internet.
The main reason that so many people are working hard to redesign the existing internet is that most of today's most commonly used internet platforms are controlled by just a few powerful companies that profit from users and their data.
Web 3.0 is essentially a new way for people to use the Internet without giving up their privacy and valuable data.
What is Web 3.0?
Web 3.0 is the next stage of the Internet. Currently, it is still in development, so there is not yet a single established definition of what Web 3.0 is or whether there will be one.
In general, Web 3.0 refers to the internet made possible by decentralized networks such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
The key innovation of these networks is the creation of platforms that are not controlled by any one organization, but can still be trusted.
This is because every user and operator of these networks must follow the same set of hard-coded rules, known as consensus protocols.
The second innovation is that these networks allow you to transfer value or money between accounts. These two things - decentralization and internet money - are the key to understanding Web 3.0.
Links
- Alexander Dolgin’s book “Manifesto of a New Economy. The second invisible hand of the market"
- Third generation Internet
- Internet of the third generation. Part 2
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Who invented Web 3.0?
As with previous versions of the Internet, there was no single creator of Web 3.0.
Instead, it was created by the collaboration of various people and organizations. In general, those involved in smart contract, blockchain platforms such as Ethereum, EOS and TRON are recognized as leaders in Web 3.
One of the most popular software libraries used to write Ethereum code is called web3.js. There is also a Web3 fund run by the founders of the Polkadot network.
Is search free?
“What product does the radio station sell?” — this is a question I often ask marketers in interviews. And it would seem that the answer is obvious, but they answer correctly very rarely. “Broadcast, advertising, commercials...” are all wrong answers.
The radio station sells - the audience ! A good seller, coming to a buyer, says: “Buy 100 thousand directors of enterprises from me, they gather at the receivers in their cars from 8 to 9, because at that time there is a program “How to make a million by spending one ruble” (the program is not accidental invented, by the way, by a radio station marketer) And your contact price will be such and such.
The same product is sold by a TV. By the way, is television really free? 
But let's go back to the Internet. Is Search free? And what product does Google and Yandex sell?
What's so special about this?
The main benefit of Web 3.0 is that it attempts to solve the biggest problem that emerged from Web 2.0: the collection of personal data by private networks, which is then sold to advertisers or perhaps even stolen by hackers.
In Web 3.0, the web is decentralized so no one controls it, and decentralized applications (dapps) built on top of the web are open source. The openness of a decentralized network means that no party can control data or restrict access. Anyone can create and connect to various applications without permission from the central company.
Changing the concept of media
If you have an audience, you can figure out how to make money from it...
In the 2000s, websites already learned how to make money from their audience. Selling advertising, subscriptions, articles - all this allows Internet media to develop very quickly. But there is some conceptual change in the concept of media.
How did media work before the Internet and in the era of Web 1.0?
An information feed appeared. They gathered the media for a press conference, announced information, and answered questions. The media published articles and videos on TV, news in newspapers, and so on. The audience of these media received information and discussed it in their narrow circle in the kitchen and at work (local bubbles).
The role of the media here is key! There is no way around them - it is the media that own the audience, and that is why they are invited to conferences. They are loved, bought and sold.
How does the media work today?
The audience gathers not only around the media, but rather more around opinion experts on Twitter, LiveJournal, and Social Networks. The news story can be dropped not at a press conference, but on Twitter, supported by a video or a website page. And what matters is not what your audience is, but how actively it will retweet and like you!
But the format of information consumption has also changed. The recipient of the news discusses it no longer in the kitchen or at work, but on a social network. A viral effect occurs. The news is propagated, and even changed by users according to the context they need, without control from the author of the news. The resulting audience reach exceeds all expectations and capabilities of pre-Internet media. The bubble becomes not local, but global and already lives according to new laws.
The media market turned out to be the first classical market to be forever changed by the Internet. Those who do not have time to adapt will die. "Survival of the fittest"
How else is Web 3.0 different?
Web 3.0 has its money. Instead of relying on traditional financial networks that are connected to governments and limited by borders, money in Web 3.0 is instant and global.
This also means that tokens and cryptocurrencies can be used to develop entirely new business models and economies, an area increasingly becoming known as tokenomics.
For example, advertising on a decentralized network should not rely on selling user data to advertisers, but could instead reward users with a token for viewing ads. This type of web application is developed using Brave Browser and their Basic Attention Token (BAT).
Information is money
According to UN estimates, between 2000 and 2015 the number of Internet users increased from 738 million to 3.2 billion. A colossal amount of information is transmitted every second, and IT giants realized that they have a very valuable resource in their hands - personal data . Currently, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter are leading the way in global data collection (on centralized servers). People sacrifice privacy for convenience: their personal information, browsing preferences, search queries and online purchases are sold by these companies, whether people want it or not.
Conclusion
The future of the Internet is about increasing its use, convenience, and scalability. For the Web 3.0 dream to become a reality, many more people will have to start using Web 3.0 dapps.
Finally, with Ethereum, the largest and most popular smart contract platform, regularly running at near capacity, Web 3.0 networks will need to expand and be able to quickly process millions of transactions if they ever want to compete with their Web 2.0 counterparts.
And now the times of web 2.0 have come
Gone are the beeping modems and monotonous interfaces. Fast Internet connections have created a completely new user experience: the network now offers not observation, but participation. The global spread of information has created Wikipedia, Flickr and Facebook, giving voices to the previously unheard and allowing countless communities of like-minded people to flourish.
It took me 30 seconds to publish this post - a big change from the days when minor changes to a site required the collaboration of designers, developers, and admins. The current era of the Internet can be called the era of reading, writing and publishing, because spreading information has become as easy as saying these three words.
But this begs the question: if web 2.0 is so good, what are we missing?
Music
When was the last time you bought a music CD in a store? Shelves with CDs in supermarkets have disappeared, specialized stores are experiencing big problems. Everything changes without us noticing.
Yes, we in Russia are not really big fans of buying music. And they buy it all over the world - through iTunes from Apple it is sold for fabulous sums.
Another way to monetize the audience has appeared - with attention. They let you listen to music from the site and show advertisements.
Sales of CDs with films are falling - sales of TV and films via the Internet are growing. Already today people prefer to watch films on sites like ivi.ru and imdb.com.
The music content distribution market has changed once and for all under the influence of the Internet.
Software consumerization
Users want joy. And if you don’t get joy, then at least worry less.
In general, this is a completely incomprehensible term for corporate software developers and experienced IT specialists. We are so accustomed to working with complex software that we do not understand the problems of ordinary users associated with mastering programs and devices.
A modern user receives easy-to-manage things in his everyday life. But when he gets into a company, everything causes stress. Enterprise systems are very complex. Local servers, authorizations, complex systems that require training - all this frightens users and reduces their productivity.
Consumerization is closely related to mobilization, as company employees increasingly work from mobile devices and expect that their corporate systems will be similar and beautiful like other software.
All this leads to irrational choices by users. They vote not for more functional and complex software, but for simpler and more beautiful software, even if it is less functional and solves user problems worse.
For example, the concept of Bitrix24, in comparison with the design of the Corporate portal in 2010, sells many times better, it is easy and understandable for users. Although the functionality is either the same or even greater than before.
Self-learning and self-service are the favorite concepts among users today. Different departments of companies will prefer software or services that they can handle without IT involvement.
Online services
A program in a browser is a web service :).
An online service is the same program for performing certain functions, accessible through a browser and located on the Internet.
The Internet and services are a great opportunity to reshape the software market. If you made CRM in the cloud, you can easily compete with the leaders of the boxed CRM market. ERP, task management, mail, files... - all this can be and is already being turned into services, and compete with market leaders.
But the services also created new categories of products that were previously absent from the market or were very difficult to deploy within companies.
Everything has changed so much that it is worth developing a service, not a software product.
Software segment
Once upon a time we installed programs on floppy disks, then on CDs. When it became possible to download programs via the Internet, we paid attention to the size of the program for some time, but today this is not important to us.
Initially, the Internet changed the software distribution market. Buying programs over the Internet is no longer scary.
But software companies are always in a hurry and show us the future...
Today, I buy almost all programs for my Mac through the AppStore, which is built into the operating system. Microsoft also built a software store right into Win8, which means that in a few years this segment will change completely.
And what great results the AppStore for iPad or Google.Play shows! Even those people who had never bought anything like that before began to buy programs from them - our mothers and grandmothers :).
The distance between the buyer and the creator of the operating system ceased to exist. You can buy a program while in Russia without intermediaries - a fresh, freshly baked program from an American program manufacturer...
There are no boundaries, no barriers for software products. We are facing even greater globalization of the software segment. It can be assumed that most software products will be sold through stores built into the Mac and Win operating systems.
The Internet has already changed the segment of software products, and will change it again irrevocably.
