Imagine a world without the web. Unless you’ve lived on a secluded island, it’s difficult to comprehend daily life without using the web and internet technology. Since its inception, the web has undergone a tremendous transformation from basic, limited hardware, chats, and email to social networking, blogging, and video chat to now, a semantic web with cloud computing, a multi-user virtual environment with cryptocurrency, and blockchain technology, which has become the basis of a global databank. This is the current state, referred to as Web3. 

When the dot com bubble burst in March of 2000, companies’ values dropped drastically, but the interest and use of the web continued to evolve. One of the most critical changes in the second phase was the web’s interactivity. It rapidly morphed into a technology you could participate in and now interact with. By the mid-2000s, it went from the one-directional, only consuming information on the hypertext web to a bi-directional, social web. 

A user could read information and provide their own information on the internet. Blog sites an d bloggers drew in an array of audiences. Billions of users worldwide were communicating with each other in real-time. The social network machine took off, and widespread consumer sites like eBay and Amazon began booming. Businesses and customers increasingly started to use the web to interact, sell, and buy. This new social, interactive web laid down the groundwork for what would become Web3.

The next and present stage in the web’s evolution is a concept where we utilize blockchain technology to maintain a secure and decentralized record of transactions. Web3 elements include anti-monopoly and pro-privacy models. Centralized systems that maintain control over their users’ data are not encouraged by it. A change with decentralization and privacy is at the forefront. Users currently have authority over their data, and since Web3 will be devoid of tech monopolies, data privacy infractions will be extremely rare. In this existing phase, Web3 has the potential to transform many industries and has already made an ever-lasting impact.

Web3’s influence has altered numerous Web2-based industries from art, gaming, media, infrastructure, finance and banking, governance and voting, user and storage data, and more. With a significant degree of internet decentralization, Web3 has evolved into a platform with a value exchange model as opposed to a straightforward information exchange model.

By eliminating intermediaries and boosting transparency, trust, and security for artists, collectors, dealers, brokers, and galleries alike, the entry of Web3 and blockchain technology into the art industry has the potential to transform the future of art. To construct Web3, a third version of the internet that restores user privacy, anonymity, and openness, several developers are exerting significant effort. It achieves this by re-decentralizing all digital information on the web by leveraging blockchain technology as an open ledger.  With less chance of online fraud or theft, these new technologies allow art enthusiasts to own their digital assets in a far more secure manner than they could with earlier technology. The advantages of owning your digital property are only one of these recent developments. Additionally, Web3 has fascinating ramifications for artists in terms of how they produce their work, make money from it, and share it with enthusiastic followers.

With the introduction of innovative ideas like blockchains, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs, Web3 is revolutionizing the game industry. The Web3 metaverse offers players the most chances for item ownership and interoperability, which are made possible by blockchains and NFTs. NFTs provide players the option to acquire any kind of in-game asset. The play-to-earn (P2E) strategy used by Web3 involves a player’s initial commitment to buying special NFTs. NFTs, which are digital collectibles with real-world value that let players make money as they play, have become increasingly popular as a means of making money. P2E has definite advantages over traditional play-to-win (P2W) Web 2.0 gaming paradigms.

Ownership is a strong motivator. Future media consumption will involve even more individuals having a stake in its success thanks to Web3. In small ways, this will happen through NFT ownership that embraces a collector mentality in sports and fandom, media brands created to serve specific interest groups and supported by shared equity structures like DAOs, and crowdfunding programs that support larger entertainment endeavors bind the funders to the success of IP. Or simply the development of a media subscription in which membership confers many advantages made possible by the blockchain, such as content access to Discord channels and admission to live events.

While the move toward decentralization is still in its early stages, the Web3 idea is also still being developed. However, one aspect jumps out, the need for an infrastructure that is prepared for the future. Technologies have resulted in an exponential increase in data production, some of which necessitated the construction of hyper-scale data centers. However, the need for capacity or even brand-new types of infrastructure will probably persist. Digital infrastructures must provide new bare metal configurations with high storage capacity and even reduced latencies in order for Web3 to succeed. A bigger role for artificial intelligence (AI) in Web3 is also a subject of conjecture. Due to the Web3 universe’s designation as a peer-to-peer environment, AI can assist machine-to-machine communication and decision-making, obviating the need for human involvement in some activities. 

Industries such as finance and banking where digital currencies have already established themselves as a cross-border, global store of value, and the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector is already a billion-dollar industry globally. In terms of governance and voting, online voting could be in the near future with Web3 providing independent, verified online identities, blockchain, artificial intelligence, and face recognition/biometrics to help solve these problems. User data owned by organizations like Google Drive can be costly, centralized, and subject to cyberattacks. A decentralized network of hundreds of computers storing data in spare space would be a better approach. Another resource for Web3 is network node processing power, and as Web3 develops, the significance of this decentralized infrastructure will rise.

These are merely a few examples of how Web3 has become integral to daily life. The development of Web3 implementations follows the advancement of the blockchain sector. A decentralized future is becoming increasingly popular, and new use cases are emerging. Web3 will continue to evolve and remake the metaverse and the physical world.