What is Web3 and how does it differ to Web2?
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I’m a software engineer who has built a few applications with blockchain technologies; nothing here is that easily digestible, and impostor syndrome is firing off everywhere so I’ll take a stab lol.
For a 5 year old:
Think of how things currently work as going to a classmate’s birthday party as a kid; this is web2.0.
You get dropped off at the house and the parents or “hosts” of the party let you in. You look around and see a bunch of other kids eating snacks and doing a bunch of activities. Maybe you want to grab a snack, or start working on a craft, maybe talk to some other kids. No matter what you want to do at that party the hosts will try to provide you with everything you need. Your classmates parents are paying for everything, they planned all the activities and make sure everything goes smoothly. Even though the hosts are handling everything, you can still go to the washroom, or eat without their help; and at the end of the day you are more or less choosing what you want to do with what’s there, but you can leave whenever you want (your mom will pick you up).
Web3 is more like inviting your friend over after school. You have your own stuff now, your own room, games and activities. More importantly you dont have to go through your parents for every little thing. You can get food or drinks yourself (you might have to pay for pizza if you want that though). You can choose what you want to show, or do with your friend. The only thing your parents provided is the house, which kinda makes them the host, but they don’t have to handle everything.
So is one better than the other?
Not necessarily; sure you’ll have more freedom with web3, but you’re just a kid so things can get out of hand really fast. Maybe you and your friend get into an argument over what you’re doing, or maybe you bought too much pizza. The one thing for sure is that you’re probably not cleaning up after yourselves and the house is total mess.
Tldr: Web2 is more controlled but clean and fairly consistent; you have more freedom with web3 but it’s kinda a mess.
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To bring it down a level of abstraction:
Web2 is a focus on connecting peers together through a third party
Web3 is a focus on peers connecting directly
Btw web2 and web3 are just big umbrella buzz words for current and future web technologies.
Will web3 ever become the standard? Probably not.
95% likely it will just be web2 with some bonuses like webRTC and decentralized databases.
Thanks for coming to my tedtalk.
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