Advocates for Web3 are hailed Web3 as the next step for the Internet, a more secure version than Web2 and which would allow users to move away from centralized control. Web3 is still being developed and defined, but it is clear that, at its core, it will deliver a more decentralized version of the Internet. Advocates for Web3 envision a democratic, decentralized version of the Internet using blockchain technology.
Proponents of Web3 envision the next version of the Internet the Internet as a platform in which control and decisions are placed in the hands of users rather than giant corporations. This is the promise of Web3, a decentralized internet built on top of the permissionless, open blockchain network. The Web3 Foundation believes in an Internet in which users own their data, rather than corporations; in which global digital transactions are secured; in which the exchange of information and value on the Internet is decentralized.
Web3 is seen as a more democratic way to operate an Internet, where all users have a say, and corporate entities are not the ones who dictate how information is shared and used. Advocates refer to Web3 as the decentralized version of the Internet: a version in which there is no dominance of a few power players like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. Fans of Web3 technology claim that it would bring about a new, decentralized phase of the Internet, one run by regular people and communities rather than by global entities like Facebook and Google.
Advocates argue Web3 will bring about new economies, new classes of products, and new services on the Internet; that it will bring democracy back to the Internet; and that it will define the next era of the Internet. Advocates for Web 3.0 argue that it can re-energize democratic values both on an Internet-wide level and on the social-wide one. The Web 3.0 iteration of the Internet is said to be more structurally democratic and liberal than previous versions.
Web 3.0 will mark a shift away from the mega-platforms and centralized corporations that dominate the ecosystem now, and, advocates claim, will correct what is broken about todays internet, while also reverseing the erosion of democracy. Crypto-evangelists promise this new internet would be more democratic and less controlled by corporations, with unprecedented opportunities for each user to earn a living online and own their own virtual goods. Web3 provides decentralized protocols and technology stacks which can be used to create your own piece of the metaverse, as well as the new communities and economies that will enable it.
Web3 is actually kind of the alternative vision for the Internet, where the services we use are not hosted by one company of service providers, but are instead kind of pure algorithmic things that are hosted, to a certain extent, by everyone. While Web3 might very well accomplish the three goals its proponents are proposing--enabling data ownership for users, making the Internet safer, and shifting power into the hands of specific users--those features do not necessarily make Web3 a more democratic version of the Internet.
