A non-technical introduction to web3

Behold the great digital evolution is upon us all and it’s a new internet termed Web3 the internet of the free the era of decentralization, permissionless, trustlessness, security, ubiquity, and ownership “to the moon”🚀

You might have heard of those terms and be filled with so many questions like…

how can I be part of it?, what is it really all about?, what will happen to the old internet ?, am I too late to join? hold on don’t FOMO(fear of missing out). In this basic introduction for everyone who uses the internet, I will demystify the concept of web3, its features, and how to be part of the web3 train. you don’t have to be a crypto expert, a software engineer, or be in tech to benefit from the features of web3.

Introduction to the internet

The internet is one of the greatest inventions of man that has become an essential part of human lives. The internet is a globally connected network of computers that ease and solve lots of social problems in the world through connectivity, sharing of information, entertainment, education, services, and a lot more. The creation of the internet brings about the networks and connectivity that will power the web, so the web lives and exist on the internet and there are other things that existed on the internet too. Since the existence of the web on the internet, it has grown through different phases with several advantages and disadvantages, which then brings about the era of web3 to improve and fix some of those disadvantages of the past era, so let’s deep dive a bit into the predecessors of web3.

What is web 1.0

Web1.0 describes the initial creation of the internet and the world wide web which is characterized by static websites which are served from cloud servers. Web1.0 most compose of read-only pages and links without any form of interactivity from the user or simple user data input. This era was mainly for users to read about information and get updates on things passively without being able to contribute or react to information on a web page, just imagine the Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram timeline which only the company can make a post through uploading a new page to the server and you can’t like, comment or react to it, you can only just read and move on, funny right😁

The core aim of web1.0 was for people to share and access information across different computers.

What is web 2.0

Web 2.0 transformed the web experience from just a read-only internet to a read/write internet. This era of the internet depends mostly on user-generated content. Web2.0 gave internet users the ability to enter information into the web through web forms and submit them to the hosting server in real-time which brings about interactivity in the web, where major social software services took off like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and lots others. Over time the web became dominated by most of these web services with lots of controls and powers on user-generated data on their collaborative platforms, and the structure of the internet became centralized which generated revenue from the selling of user data and personalize advert based on data collected without your permission. Sometimes, don’t you wonder how you just make a post about something and the next ads you see on these platforms will be about what you mentioned or posted? all of this brought the problem of privacy, security, and censorship.

What is web 3.0

web 3.0 is the evolution of the web and the internet experience into a read-write-own internet which is built on a technology called blockchain — a medium for the internet to operate with decentralization. Blockchain is characterized by lots of features and use cases which will be discussed as you read further. And all of those characteristics are elements that make up the web 3.0 networks which operate through decentralize protocols and cryptocurrency technology.

Characteristics of web 3.0

• Artificial intelligence(AI) and machine learning
• Decentralization
• Semantic web
• Connectivity or ubiquity
• 3d graphics (metaverse)

Why web 3.0 matters

So why should you really care about web 3.0 and all that it offers?

Over the years with the growth of the internet from web 1.0 to web 2.0 a lot of applications have been built on the characteristics of these eras which have loopholes or limitations for its users such as listed below:

• Ownership
• Security
• Data privacy
• Centralization

Web 3.0 offers fixes for all those problems.

Web3.0 use-case

Web3.0 has become a great part of internet usage and still growing rapidly to bring innovative solutions to lots of problems in different sectors let’s look at some of the niches in which these solutions are built on:

• Metaverse and metaspace
• NFT
• Next-gen Dapps
• Decentralized finance (Defi)
• Privacy and data management
• Decentralized autonomous organization (DAO)
• Blockchain games

What is blockchain

Blockchain is a very essential innovation behind web3 that powers most of the operations in web3 like dealing with smart contracts and cryptocurrency wallets.

A blockchain is a distributed digital ledger that stores data of any kind.

A blockchain can record information about cryptocurrency transactions, NFT ownership, or Defi smart contracts.

While any conventional database can store this sort of information, blockchain is unique in that it’s totally decentralized. Rather than being maintained in one location, by a centralized administrator — think of an Excel spreadsheet or a bank database — many identical copies of a blockchain database are held on multiple computers spread out across a network. These individual computers are referred to as nodes.

Web3 Wallet

So you have gotten the basics of what web3 is all about and its practical uses and you might be wondering how to participate in the usage of web3 applications(Dapps) and be part of the new internet users, one of the major ways in interacting with or getting access to web3 applications is through digital wallet, yes you heard that right digital wallet built on blockchain help you get connected to the operations of the web3 applications you trying to use through identification, storing assets, performing transactions and some other special niche usage.

What is web3 wallet

Web3 wallets are special applications or hardware devices that are installed or set up to manage all of your digital assets while simultaneously providing access to the decentralized ecosystem of dApps. A web3 wallet comes with its unique private keys or seed phrase that is used to access the wallet, and the responsibility of securing the wallet lies with the owner of the wallet.

Types of web3 wallet

There are two major types of web3 wallets and they are:

Hot wallets:

These are software applications that are installed or set up and they are connected to the internet which means the private and public keys are stored online, they can be mobile apps, web apps, or web browser extensions. some popular examples of hot wallets are

• Metamask: This is one of the most popular and widely used web3 wallets, it’s a browser extension available for all browsers and very easy to set up and use.
• Trust wallet: This is a mobile app-based web3 wallet that supports assets from various chains in the blockchain network.
• Argent: This is also a mobile app-based web3 wallet that supports mostly Ethereum tokens, it has a very user-friendly app.
• Coinbase wallet: Coinbase as one the largest cryptocurrency platform in the world offers a web3 wallet, Coinbase wallet is a non-custodial wallet that is separate from its centralized platform which means it’s decentralized and the users have full control of its wallet.
• Rainbow: This is a mobile app-based web3 non-custodial wallet that supports the Ethereum network and also supports NFT.

Web3 applications

• Brave browser: It is a new browser that aims to offer ad-blocking and other privacy-enhancing features on mobile devices. As a matter of fact, Brave has become one of the most preferred alternatives to other popular browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.
• Gitcoin: It is a community of builders, creators, and protocols to collaborating for social good.

Conclusion

Web3 is slowly affecting every part of how we use the internet in the near future I believe it will evolve to become the normal way of accessing the internet. I employ you to learn more about web3 and become part of its early adopters because it brings a lot of opportunities and ways to improve our personal life with digital tools. Thank you for reading this far.