What is Web3, and how is it different from Web2?

Where the web began

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989, while working at CERN in Geneva.^3,1 It was built so that scientists in universities and institutes could share information automatically.³

In April 1993, CERN made the Web's software free to use, with no royalties.³ By late 1993 there were over 500 known web servers.³

Web1: read-only

ethereum.org dates "Web 1.0" from about 1990 to 2004.¹ It was mainly static websites owned by companies. Users seldom made content, so it is called the read-only web.¹

Web2: read-write

Web 2.0 began in 2004, with the rise of social media.¹ People could now write as well as read, because platforms let users share their own content.¹

A handful of big companies came to control much of the traffic and value. Web2 also gave rise to the advertising business model.¹ Users could create content, but they didn't own it or share in the money it made.¹

Web3: read-write-own

Gavin Wood wrote about "Web 3.0" on his blog in April 2014.² He called it a "post-Snowden" web, with a new model for how people deal with each other online.² In his plan, information that people agree on goes on a shared "consensus-ledger".²

Today, ethereum.org calls Web3 a catch-all term for a vision of a new, better internet.¹ It says Web3 uses blockchains, cryptocurrencies and NFTs to give users ownership.¹ It lists four core ideas:

• Decentralised: ownership is spread among the people who build and use it, not held by big companies.¹
• Permissionless: everyone can take part, and no one is shut out.¹
• Native payments: people send money with cryptocurrency, not through banks and payment firms.¹
• Trustless: it runs on incentives, not on trusted third parties.¹

Goals, not guarantees

These ideas are goals set out by Web3's supporters.^1,2 ethereum.org itself admits that Web3 still leans on central services such as GitHub, Twitter and Discord.¹

NIST, the US standards body, warns that the phrase "no one controls a blockchain" is not strictly true.⁴ Software developers, the computers that publish blocks, and users all play a part in governing one.⁴