So, who can venture out and explain to me in plain English, what is Web 3.0, should I start preparing myself for a demise of the current Web (whatever its version number is) and should I even care about this web 3.0?
My take is it is mostly science fiction. They have a lot of ideas but most all of them require you as an individual to “just trust” technology. Privacy will be a thing of the past as you agree to incorporate more and more aspects of your life into the cloud and computing systems. I have zero interest. But my kids or grandkids may someday experience it all.
BTW: they claim this will be more secure than ever. In my experience the greater the technology the more opportunity to capitalize on weaknesses. There is always someone who can break into firewalls, secure networks, etc. There are supercomputers working with 1024bit data encryption. Yet they still get broken into. The more intense the encryption the slower the web. Then we make faster computers. Faster computers break the encryption codes. And the cycle repeats! So “just trust” all your life to the computer. Don’t let your batteries drain or the power go out. Your life will be over! 😂
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We’re currently on Web 2.41a, so we’ve got a ways to go until 3.0. Knowing my luck, Web 3.0 will be subscription based and not compatible with my mac…
Just kidding of course, but please (please!) don’t fall for the marketeer jive that is web version numbering.
The web develops in a fluid way, with individuals and companies constantly coming up with new applications to run on the infrastructure and ways to transmit information. The whole versioning is just so that managers have a new buzzword.
Having said that, it seems the whole net is forking into platform based apps (e.g. running a shop on TikTok is apparently now a thing) and the more classic way of websites and apps on smartphones. The question is: will the generation that grows up with apps like Instagram and TikTok remain there for the rest of their lives doing business and ordering groceries or will they too "discover’ the joys of websites and apps as their needs change?
Or wil there be a new way or a new big player to upend everything before they get a chance to decide?
Who knows?
I do not. But i DO know that the parties that throw around web versioning numbers can’t possibly know either, that’s for sure.
The whole “zero trust” thing that “Web 3.0” is supposed to have, happens to be my line of business (I’m an Identity & Access Consultant for 8 hours a day)
Zero Trust has been the focus in corporate networks for a few years now. Just-in-time connections between client and server, based on certificates you have, means that the server that you’re not supposed to access won’t even answer your pings. It will, for all intents and purposes, not exist for you until you send along the right certificate with your ping. In theory very safe against hackers (unless, of course, those hackers find a way high jack those certificates first).
Everything else is, again, just buzzwords (very handily printed in bold in the article you link to).
Just to pick one out:
Artificial intelligence. Really? I have a device in my pocket right now that excels in machine learning. I can already tell NightCafe what I want a painting about dogs washing a car while balancing on a spire in the very bowels of hell and it will paint it for me in real time, no questions asked.
Imagine having to wait for that until Web 30 is launched by the likes of Gartner and O’Reilly.
Before I wrote the original post in this thread, I have read a bit about Web 3.0 and it always sounded to me like a marketing pitch (a lot of forced enthusiasm, generalizations and no substance).
The marketing angle has become even more obvious when I started noticing mentions of the ‘Web 3.0’ on websites dedicated not to web development but to financial investing. They were promoting ‘Web 3.0’ in the same manner as they used to promote cryptocurrency in the past. And look what happens in crypto realm: false claims, deception, thefts, account hi-jacking, government “recovering” funds lost to ransomware, overall crashing, etc.
As I understand (perhaps I’m wrong), Web 3.0 is based on same ‘blockchain’ technology as cryptocurrencies. And that makes me very suspicious.
Yeah, blockchain figures big in the hype around Web 3.0. Which doesn’t bode well for it, given that the Crypto collapse is now pulling in the ‘stablecoins’ on which the system depends, and looks like going into complete meltdown. More concerning still is that the Fintech industry, which is supposed to be the shining hope for the UK economy, is built on blockchain — a product of the age of paranoia where, apparently, nobody could trust a ‘mainstream’ bank to keep their money, but would rather hand it over to tinfoil-hat hackers. The whole thing is also unimaginably wasteful of energy — Bitcoin alone burns through power equivalent to the entire generating capacity of Argentina. So it’s really hard to see how this is any kind of ‘future’, except for WIRED readers. If my bank backs up their boringly conventional data, I’ll sleep happily.
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Ineed! “WIRED readers”, people who buy reports from Gartner and visit their seminars (although, to be honest, they’re quite fun and do have some interesting speakers but do come with a certain percentage of marketing babbel that will cost you thousands to receive in print form), buy management books from O’Reilly or hire marketing consultancy firms to analyse their website.
It’s a corner of corporate business that either has too much money to burn or too little knowledge of what they’re actually doing (and the leeches that latch onto those suckers and happily fix that for them… for a fee).
But I’m going off topic.
TL;DR: just like with Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, if you absolutely positively need to put a version number on it, we’ll only be able to establish what defines it once it has come to full fruition. In a few years we’ll look back at all the new stuff, services and players that have come to the stage between now and then and say “Yeah, this here defines Web 3.0”.
Comment of the week.
Take a bow sir.
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And just to round-up nicely this blockchain/crypto/web 3.0 thread, here’s this fresh story about the Bulgarian “missing crypto queen”. Not 100% relevant to this thread, I know, but what the heck…
Well i’m kinda excited about it. I understand it’s about privacy and control of your data. When a website bans you. You and your followers go together - out the door. So you don’t loose your followers. Internet Censorship will be a thing of the past. So Facebook YouTube Google Twitter Instagram & all the big tech empire collapses. Good Riddance. We’re back in the late 90s level of freedom.
What worries me about it is: Will it require I pay for it via crypto? Perhaps. But I’m not worried about Bitcoin / crypto really corrupting the system that much however. The price of crypto is irrelevant to whether web 3.0 is working or not.
It’s just a name for the unknown web evolution that is coming based on the technological advances we see today. For example, nobody saw ChatGPT coming. Web 3.0 never mentioned something like it. It is obvious that AI will grow to the point where using a computer will be just asking and getting. Literally. So, the fans of Web 3.0 need to adjust their predictions now that AI is becoming part of the normal.
Remember when we had to wait for a picture to load on a 56k modem? That’s AI now.
Off topic but my first high end scanner scanned 4K 35mm slides in less than 45 minutes per scan.
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I was so in love with my scanner, it was so big it had a table of its own! LOL
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