Web 3 Challenges Part 1: Introduction to Web 3 and Blockchain
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‘Web 3’ is here - no one fully knows what it is or how it will manifest - but it's exciting. Buzzwords like ‘decentralisation’, ‘blockchain’ and ‘NFTs’ have flooded the space. Talk to any individual working in Web 3, they'll tell you how this will change the world and that this is going to be the future. However, the current web, Web 2, is riddled with problems that need to be solved, such as content moderation, cyber security and data privacy. These topics won’t go away in Web 3.
As exciting as Web 3 and new technologies are, there is still scope for it to be abused and I think it’s worth talking about and attempting to fix as we go along, rather than running forward and dealing with the consequences later.
Over the next few blog posts, I will be exploring the lecture by Molly White about how blockchain can be abused, particularly around the drawbacks of immutability and decentralisation, as well as challenges with current projects built on Blockchain. These ones might get a little meaty, but hopefully I can shed some light on some of the new words and you can follow along with the future.
But first, a quick intro to the web.
What is Web 1, 2 and 3?
When talking about the new Web, it’s easy to think that the underlying infrastructure of the internet is changing. However, when talking about the Web, we are in fact talking about the culture of content creation and consumption. Web 1, the original web ‘culture’, was when a select few group of people created content; these people would host their own servers and websites, create content and put it up online for the masses to see. The average user came online just to consume. This was around the 90s till the mid 2000. Most people didn’t know how to put something on the internet, you went online to play some flash games, or go and read something on a website.
Web 2 was when the tools to create were handed over to the average user. Now to have your own blog, you didn’t know how to create a website or host a server. You just went on Livejournal or Blogger, or whatever service you wanted, and just created content for everyone to see. Anyone can upload videos and create a business on YouTube, or start an Instagram page. You just care about the content, not the hosting. You don’t have to worry about how the photos are displayed, stored or whatever. But what that did was give control to a select few corporations, or everything was centralised. At first no one cared, but eventually these corporations started taking actions that bothered people - and people quickly realised how much control these corporations have. This era spanned around mid 2000 to around 2020 - and we haven’t really left Web 2 properly yet. The big tech companies still have most of the control.
So now we are at Web 3. Web 3 promises to decentralise everything - you aren’t locked into a specific platform or application - but still give the average user the tools to create and distribute their content without needing to know the nitty gritty details. The creator has control of their work and aren’t at the mercy to an external gatekeeper. The current leading technology that people say will allow this to happen at the moment is blockchain technology.
Most prominent Web 3 projects are cryptocurrencies and Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs). For the sake of this post, NFTs are a certificate of ownership of an art piece.
Common criticisms of Web 3 right now is that it is too immature, cryptocurrency is mainly taken advantage of mainly by criminals and things like NFTs are a vehicle for the rich to get richer. With all things, the primary uses of a new technology will be around money - you need to prove that you can make money through anything before the capitalist society sits up and listens and enables an environment for it to thrive in a non-money driven scenario. Proving that it can generate money will fund further research into it to become a mature technology. Criminal activity in itself is harder to solve, although I think with enough attention, activity can be reduced, but also, money laundering in general is hard.
Blockchain is at the heart of it all
The technology that is driving and enabling Web 3 to thrive the way it is right now is Blockchain. Blockchain is another way to store data, like a database. The idea of the future being that things will be built on Blockchain, with the role of Blockchain to store information.
I’m not against the idea of new technologies such as blockchain, cryptocurrency and the other projects associated with Web 3 - I’m all for adopting new technologies that will push society forward. I personally like the concept of blockchain. I won’t go into how blockchain technology works, as that’s a whole different article in itself and there are many others who will do a better job than me - if you want a very high level overview, this 6 mins video is a good introduction.
In short (and I’m really simplifying a complicated topic here), blockchain is a growing list of public records (blocks) that are linked together using cryptography. There is only one accepted chain of blocks (be that a chain of transactions, ownership changes of an artwork, etc.) which is verified with everyone else. Everyone can see it (unless it’s a private blockchain) and can add to it as and when things happen. If you wanted to create a branching chain of records, and edit some transactions so you have 1 million Bitcoin in your wallet, you can, but you have to convince everyone else around you on the chain that you have the correct chain and keep up the chain for the rest of time. It’s basically not easily feasible.
So now we’ve covered the basics of Web 3 and the role of blockchain in Web 3, we can get deeper into the problems with it and how it has already gone wrong for other projects - which I will cover in my next post (it was meant to be in this post, but it was over 5000 words!).
If you have a better idea than I do, if I’ve missed out anything or you think I am talking absolute rubbish, feel free to reach out either by commenting on the post, or by emailing me on tanvirtalks@substack.com
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