What is Web 3.0?

Web 3.0 is a set of technology that makes it possible to build semantic and decentralized online services, which take advantage of the latest advances, such as the blockchain, to give us full control of content, as well as greater security and privacy.

The future of the Internet is decentralized and that is something that Web 3.0 has begun to make a reality. Web 3.0 settles its foundations on the tecnología blockchain and P2P networks, which promises us a completely different experience, but above all, 100% decentralized and secure.

The history of the evolution of the Web

The history of the Web began in 1989 with the development by Tim Berners-Lee, who is considered the father of the World Wide Web. This Web 1.0 (because it was its first development) was basically a static medium that made it possible to present information to the users who accessed the services of the Internet at that time. That is, you could only read information and there was no interactivity.

In fact, the tools to use this website at first were so limited that there were no images, no graphic interfaces, and much less audio or video.

So that you have a clearer idea of ​​what we are talking about, in the following image you can see the Academy website, displayed in what would be a Web 1.0 experience, spartan but illustrative of how it worked.

Web 1.0 began to improve with the improvement of the technologies used in web browsers such as ViolaWWW, Mosaic, Netscape and Internet Explorer. Each of these browsers added new enhancements that made Web 1.0 much more colorful, and even interactive, although these enhancements were often incompatible with each other.

The arrival of Web 2.0

In 1999, just 10 years after its birth, the Web began to evolve to its next level, Web 2.0. The advent of technologies such as JavaScript (dating from 1995), PHP (1995) and Java (1996) allowed the Web to go from merely static dynamics to one that would initiate some interaction with the user, allowing not only to read information, but also to write it. directly on the Web and leave your own mark.

At this stage, services appeared that today are part of our daily lives such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress or Blogger, the first platform for blogs that was later bought by Google.

With Web 2.0, in addition to allowing read-write information, it also made a huge leap in interactivity and multimedia content. Services such as audio and video streaming would take an exponential leap at this stage (the birth of Internet radio and YouTube, to give examples).

Finally Web 3.0

Now we are in the construction of Web 3.0, a new evolution of the Web that allows us to read-write-appropriate what we write in Web services, which in turn evolve from a centralized system to a completely decentralized one.

Web 3.0 is the union of technologies such as the Semantic Web, Artificial Intelligence, the introduction of 3D technology, virtual reality, as well as blockchain, networks and P2P services.

How does Web 3.0 work?

The basis of the operation of Web 3.0 is in decentralization and that is where blockchain technology makes its appearance. The blockchain's ability to serve as a decentralized database allows Web applications to interact with users. In this way, users can carry out operations that would be recorded in the blockchain in such a way that at all times we would have the following:

1. A history of every user action.
2. A pseudo-identity linked to the user.
3. The ability to securely acquire, transmit, create, and modify anything within the application through the use of cryptography.

Thus, with each operation in a Web 3.0 application, you actually we would be making a transaction that is recorded in the blockchain.

To allow integration between the world of the Web and the blockchain, it was necessary to create a bridge that would unite both worlds. This bridge uses, on the one hand, well-known Web technologies such as JavaScript to design interfaces and logic so that users can interact with the application from their browser or smartphone. On the other hand, from the chain of blocks, there are smart contracts capable of creating and managing all the logic of the blockchain.

In any case, smart contracts are often used for automate the execution of an agreement so that all participants can be immediately sure of the result, without the involvement of any intermediary or loss of time. Smart contract applications include everything from games to logistics tools to DeFi dApps.

Advantages and disadvantages of Web 3.0

Advantages

However, Web 3.0 has great advantages if we compare it with its previous iterations, among which the following stand out:

• The ability to offer services at all times. By having a logic divided into both Web servers and blockchain nodes, these services usually have a higher level of availability than other similar ones. In fact, the services in the chain of blocks are usually active at all times, without interruptions.
• Greater security and strength against denial of service attacks (DDoS) and hacks.
• Provide a high level of privacy, since it is not necessary to provide a real-world identity to deploy or interact with a dApp.
• Offer a high level of resistance to censorship.
• Complete data integrity, as the data stored on the blockchain is immutable.
• Trustless computing/verifiable behavior. This happens thanks to the fact that smart contracts can be freely analyzed. The same usually happens with the software of the nodes and applications DApps.

Disadvantages

Of course, not all are advantages in Web 3.0 and among the disadvantages are:

• They have low scalability. This is because blockchains lack, for now, the ability to handle large volumes. Of course, this is changing with much faster blockchain development and much more powerful consensus protocols.
• Interacting with Web 3.0 applications may require additional steps, software, and education. This can be an obstacle to mass adoption.
• It can be excessively expensive to interact with blockchain applications due to the need to pay fees to perform operations on those blockchains.
• The development and maintenance of dApps is becoming increasingly difficult and complex. For example, modifying a smart contract to solve a security problem is a task that can take a long time. This is because once written, this smart contract cannot be directly modified. Instead, another one must be created and reassign all services from the old smart contract to the new one.

Also, there are still some security related issues. But even in this case, one thing is very clear: Web 3.0 is underway. In fact, many of these problems are currently solvable, so in the not too distant future we will be able to use dApps much more easily and with greater security than we have now.