Ask HN: Is Web 3.0 just crypto or something more?

[vkkhare]

Whenever I search and learn for web 3.0 people limit it to blockchain based solutions and apps. However, the core ethos of web 3.0 is about decentralisation, shouldn't it also encompensate technologies like edge computing which are decentralising ownership of compute and data back to devices.

[codingdave]

It is nothing but a marketing term at this point. Various groups are trying to claim it and normalize their own meaning, but there is little consensus whether it even has a shared meaning.

[kyruzic]

Its a marketing term in the same way web 2 is.

That doesn't mean it isn't something new and useful though, just like web 2 was.

[hatchnyc]

Most revolutionary/generational tech has started with an implementation or at least a proof of concept of something new and novel that subsequently drove interest in how it worked. Like Google Maps use of AJAX for infinite scrolling or Napster and peer to peer networks, or even Bitcoin and blockchain. I’m not aware of any such example for Web3.

[vkkhare]

I believe edge computing is one of the game changing technologies for the decade. I am not sure if it can fall under the purview of Web 3 or not. For example one of the library I implemented was along training ML models on user devices instead of the cloud maintaining privacy and personalization.

https://github.com/NimbleEdge/RecoEdge

[basch]

Decentralized identity. Having an on chain address, and its holdings as your username + public assets. It's past proof of concept. It has not propagated to become commonly accepted yet.

[kyruzic]

The uniswap router.

[vkkhare]

Web 2 as a term itself was coined much later when people needed to distinguish web 3 from status quo

[togaen]

Wrong. The term “Web 2.0” was coined back in 1999.

[grepfru_it]

Web 3.0 was used by Tim Lee back in 2006 [0]. I believe the semantic web (Web 3.0) was coined back in '99

0 - https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/technology/23iht-web.html

[lowkey]

For users

Web1: read only

Web2: read-write

Web3: read-write-own

[giantrobot]

> Web3: read-write-own

Web3: read slowly - write slowly - vague claims of "ownership" limited to particular blockchains each with no authority over anything off-chain.

But hey, smart contracts allow a long chain of intermediaries to bleed a percentage off all transactions.

[tim333]

How do I own? I mean I realise I can buy NFTs which I guess are "web3" but then I can buy a bunch of stuff on the normal web including stock in facebook etc.

[capnorange]

buying a stock on web2 vs web3 gives interesting properties because of ownership.

for ex: take an instant USD loan on your stock, since you are the owner only your authority(signature) is needed. In web2 world you go through middlemen.

[kyruzic]

Your stock is not hosted on the web.

[okasaki]

This is a nonsense meme. I used web message boards like ezboard in 1996.

[vkkhare]

I do care if that data gets leaked or if that data is used by third party companies for things I have bought and I do not want them to know. Why should a bank do my credit scoring based on my what am watching on Amazon or what books am I reading

[ryan93]

people enjoy reading and writing more than they care about owning their data. I don’t care if my Amazon purchase history is on Amazon servers or mine.

[vkkhare]

This is a very cool description! Hits to the point

[timeon]

Web1 was not read only. If we do not consider things Geocities - phpBBs and others were before web2.

[manojlds]

Most definitely not. Web 2 has been in use as a term for a long while before crypto came knocking.

[diego]

As I understand it, the gist of web3 is to do away with the need for having centralized organizations who control a particular resource. For example domain names, identities, speech. In the beginning, the web was supposed to be an egalitarian and democratic space. Of course corporations and governments seized as much control as they could. Today we have companies that dictate arbitrary rules. For example, there is nothing you can do to grow your Twitter account. If Youtube decides they don't like you anymore, your audience is gone. Your domain name is not really yours, etc.

Supposedly web 3.0 would fix this problem by making sure decision power is decentralized. Will it deliver? I personally doubt it, because it's easy to create an anonymous oligarchy under an apparent layer of decentralization. Still, I'm sure some applications will succeed.

[Strom]

I think there are two fundamental issues that need some addressing:

1) Either the decentralized software system can't easily be updated without true consensus - which will make it slow and cumbersome (like bitcoin) or there will be a central authority that can just change the rules at any point - which will make it centralized (like Ethereum Classic vs Ethereum fork). Every web 3.0 related tech that I've peeked at looks to be like the latter - it claims to be decentralized, but is actually controlled by some central authority that is authoring the whole thing.

2) Governments aren't going to stop enforcing laws just because the activity moves onto a blockchain. Governments will most likely be slow to react, sure - but ultimately all these decentralized encrypted bits flow through a cable that the government can just cut. Wireless signals aren't an answer either, because the signal can be located and the antenna owner introduced to a wrench. A lot of web 3.0 promises that I've seen seem to either implicitly or even explicitly promise freedom from government policy, which I think is naive at best.

[capiki]

I think 1) will probably never get "solved," but that's ok. I don't think the vision of DAOs replacing traditional companies will ever materialize, for example. It's just too inefficient.

What I see blockchains enabling (to what degree, tbd) is ownership of digital assets without a central party. Take concert tickets, for example. Imagine a world where transaction fees are nominal and blockchains are scalable. An artist/venue can mint tickets and have people buy them directly from them, no TicketMaster with 20% "convenience" fees needed. Now, of course, there will exist a product (probably a winner takes-all, as usual), that will serve as the UI to mint the tickets. But a significant value add of such products, the validation of tickets via the authority of their name, will be replaced by the blockchain. I don't know exactly what that'll look like, but I don't think that's insignificant.

[jt2190]

> Every web 3.0 related tech… claims to be decentralized, but is actually controlled by some central authority that is authoring the whole thing.

Can you elaborate a bit? Are you saying that ultimately things start looking like competing groups or that they start looking like a single group?

[brightstep]

Things look like competing groups, just as they do now with corporate control over web 2 infrastructure

[armchairhacker]

This used to be my understanding.

But decentralization isn't anything new: decentralized peer-to-peer networks have existed for a long time (Napster, BitTorrent, Tor). Calling decentralized technologies "web3" implies that they are new, not just revived.

Also, you don't have to go fully decentralized to avoid the extreme moderation of YouTube, Twitter, etc. Plenty of centralized forums exist which allow controversial or even full alt-right content, and generally the "centralized" internet of Cloudflare and registrars/ISPs won't take you down unless you're especially toxic or illegal. This could change in the future, so decentralized solutions are very important, but usually only as a sort of backup.

The web will definitely evolve until it deserves a new denotation "Web 3" distinct from "Web 2". But I don't think it will be the web3 everyone is talking about now, I think it will be something else.

[vkkhare]

Exactly if that is the case, it should also include technologies where data ownership lies with the users. After all data itself is a huge resource. One of the biggest reasons corporates could monopolise the platform because as users we only had our own data but no access to others data.

Maybe a consent mechanism to use other's data in privacy safe manner, where anyone can build their analytics models and people can choose which one to follow or choose. Seems like a interesting proposition.

[giantrobot]

> Maybe a consent mechanism to use other's data in privacy safe manner, where anyone can build their analytics models and people can choose which one to follow or choose. Seems like a interesting proposition.

But cryptobros are all about secondary markets. So as soon as you give permission to your data to an entity they'll copy it off-chain (you can't stop them if they can read it) and bundle it up for resale.

All this does it flip the problem. Instead of a singular entity that "owns" the data, everyone owns it. So instead of having no privacy from the singular entity with a wide reach you've got no privacy from anyone.

[vkkhare]

That's why not giving them ability to copy data, allow them to use that data only on your device and send aggregated information back. So they cannot copy the data

[timeon]

So they are going to run code at your home instead of using data directly. Maybe I'm missing something but this sounds bit naive to me. Most of those crypto solutions sounds just like detour with similar result in the end.

Like you can have decentralized web now, you can host your video on your server. Maybe even p2p. Just the reach would be probably minimal. And you can have your own bitcoin wallet. I was downloading chain to my wallet ten years ago and it was slow. Most people will chose some centralized service even for crypto.

[vkkhare]

I was thinking along ML. How analytics and ML happens on user data which is stored on data silos. For example, twitter has data about all our posts and interactions and uses that data to build recommendation models which it monetizes as to who comes on top.

In decentralized world, everyone can build their models, host them and train them on user data. But since, I wouldn't want my data to be used for any other purpose, I don't want them to make a copy of that data. So they send their models (after taking my consent) to my device, train it locally and send the aggregated model back.

[giantrobot]

You're just describing signing tokens which has been around for decades with smart cards. There's no need for a blockchain to be involved in that process. It just makes it slower, expensive, and public.

If you want some personal data to show up somewhere be it a name or avatar it has to leave your device. At that point someone can and will copy that data. If there's value with associating that data with your activity someone will do it.

[stathibus]

The only people talking seriously about web 3.0 are selling a crypto product, therefore it is a crypto product marketing term.

[nonbirithm]

My view is that if Web 2.0 was relatively uncontroversial but from it arose adtech, dark patterns and the burning need for uBlock Origin, then with Web 3.0 being tied to what it is at this stage, the future is bleak.

[vkkhare]

That's what I am worried about, from its description the intent looks good but being aligned to only one industry or vertical defeats the purpose of ubiquity. People wouldn't trust it if they all just see is a volatile currency

[ayushb26]

As suggested, the core ethos of web 3.0 is truly decentralisation.

Decentralisation of internet was there since the very start of the World Wide Web.

The first internet during era of ARPANET was decentralised and it evolved into giant monolithic cloud to to appease the economies of scale.

In recent times, we have seen a lot of limitations and vulnerabilities of our dependence on the cloud counting from data breaches, hacks to outages. But since Cloud has become a single point of failure.

There are tens of billions of devices on earth having capabilities far exceeding the Great Cloud, yet they are completely wasted because we insist on using the data-centers to do everything.

It is high time that we realize the ceiling and limitations of the Great Cloud and move towards a decentralized cloud where the devices in our hands are the powerhouses.

[cblconfederate]

So why isn't it called web1 or web0? I do think dApps are closer to Email, a web0 protocol (and the only truly decentralized user-facing protocol left)

[ayushb26]

web1 or web0 etc are just terminologies we use, wouldn't it be about how it is designed and operates.

A very interesting blog on the same: https://stratechery.com/2021/internet-3-0-and-the-beginning-...

[smt88]

Decentralization without blockchain has existed and worked for decades.

[hackernudes]

Can you name one example of decentralized software?

[Shish2k]

Email, blogs, forums. Pretty much the whole internet in the 90’s. But then centralisation turned out to be more profitable, so they could hire UX designers and attract all the users...

[alphabettsy]

BitTorrent and all the p2p stuff most 2000s kids grew up with.

[johnisgood]

RetroShare is pretty cool. Initial release was in 2006.

> Retroshare is a free and open-source peer-to-peer communication and file sharing app based on a friend-to-friend network built on GNU Privacy Guard. Optionally, peers may communicate certificates and IP addresses to and from their friends.

> RetroShare is a decentralized, private, secure, cross-platform, communication toolkit. RetroShare provides file sharing, chat, messages, forums, channels and more.

[kens]

Usenet, started in 1980.

[paulryanrogers]

IRC or BitTorrent?

[publiush]

Web 3.0 utilizes crypto in order to build something more than just the cryptocurrencies built in the past. A blockchain is useful in a decentralized system where a shared ledger is required. There are several different types of projects that are branding themselves Web3 -- and I think they are all correct; Web3 is a totally new web built by the people and controlled by the people.

> encompensate technologies like edge computing which are decentralising ownership of compute and data back to devices.

I've been working on just that [1], and I think many other projects are as well. If you stop focusing on the 'value' of 'coins' in the market and, instead, narrow in on the merits of the underlying technology, I think you'll quickly find that all the building blocks are there to get to this decentralized ownership model we are all seeking so eagerly.

[1] https://github.com/publiusfederalist/federalist

[giantrobot]

The decentralized nature is immaterial if actual useful data/computations can't be performed by the network.

Ethereum's chain is about a terabyte and the total compute power is less than a single raspberry pi. So you can't store a meaningful amount of data on it without insane fees nor can you do much in the way of processing. This means anything interesting exists off-chain.

If interesting things exist off-chain...there's not much utility in having a blockchain at all. It's just a slow expensive ledger with no off-chain authority. Even if a transaction points to some content addressing P2P resource (IPFS etc), that content only exists while someone is hosting it from some machine(s) somewhere. When it stops being pinned (or conceptual equivalent) the record on the blockchain is worthless.

[publiush]

If it stops being seeded, then the content is worthless.

[giantrobot]

Seeding focuses on recent or popular content with a particular preference for popular recent content. Seeding is a LRU model so does not reliably serve long tail content. The age or popularity of content is not necessarily a measure of its value.

[derbOac]

Not to suggest blockchains don't have a role in a decentralized internet, but on the other hand aren't there a lot of decentralized resources, made or to be made, that don't require crypto or blockchain at all?

I think this is where some of the confusion and skepticism comes from. Often in W3 discussions there seems to be a push to find a way to use crypto rather than an explanation of a resource, period. If a decentralized product includes blockchain or crypto, I'm immediately skeptical and expect a good explanation for why the product can't exist without it. Usually it seems like the product doesn't need it or could be built on some other option.

I'm all for decentralized and federated solutions, but they do tend to be slower and more resource-intensive. Blockchain most of all.

[publiush]

> but on the other hand aren't there a lot of decentralized resources, made or to be made, that don't require crypto or blockchain at all?

Absolutely. In the project I linked to, I'm using DHT and torrent protocols to deliver decentralization.

That said, we run into an issue in a decentralized system called Zooko's trilemma [1] when it comes to naming. Names need to be human readable, secure and decentralized. Using public keys, this isn't made possible.

> Often in W3 discussions there seems to be a push to find a way to use crypto rather than an explanation of a resource, period. If a decentralized product includes blockchain or crypto, I'm immediately skeptical and expect a good explanation for why the product can't exist without it. Usually it seems like the product doesn't need it or could be built on some other option.

In the case here, I opted to use the handshake naming protocol. Handshake's use case makes sense as decentralized networks are subject to sybil attack [1], so a free for all naming system doesn't make sense. Handshake is one of the blockchain projects I admire specifically because the blockchain project solves a problem that has limited the success of decentralized systems until now, and the purpose of the coin is to limit the ability for an attacker to take over all the names.

> I'm all for decentralized and federated solutions, but they do tend to be slower and more resource-intensive. Blockchain most of all.

I think this depends on the functionality. In the case of the handshake blockchain, lookups are faster since data is local. On the other hand, you're absolutely right as DHT is very laggy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko%27s_triangle

[2] "A Sybil attack is defined as a small number of entities counterfeiting multiple peer identities so as to compromise a disproportionate share of the system."

[tetrisgm]

I'm the founder of DNS.xyz, we're a fairly well-known identity platform built on web3. I've been working on IPFS apps since 2016, and talked about web3 at IPFS Camp and DWeb Camp.

It's pretty important to understand that the concept of web3 has been used by people who want to be in the cool trend of the day. As a result, it's definition has become really loose.

To me, and arguably to the people who have been working on web3 all these years, web3 is the application of decentralized technology to the web. It uses concepts such as federated platforms, blockchain, content addressing, to make the web less reliant on the major web players.

It's a mix of technologies, and an ideology that seeks to change the shape of the architecture of web apps.

In that sense, crypto is not part of web3. It is similar in terms of technology and ideals, but crypto isn't specifically a web technology.

[vkkhare]

I would love to talk more about it and understand your take. Is there a way I can reach out to you? I have been reading the content in web 3 and form my own opinion on the merits/demerits.

[tetrisgm]

Sure, join our Discord at https://discord.gg/dnsxyz or ping me on Twitter (@DNS)

[togaen]

“Web 3” is just a giant VC-funded pyramid scheme.

[vkkhare]

Marc is reading this ;p

[cfcosta]

Not an expert in any way, but what I've seen it described more than once is: web3 is the normal web with added payments/finances and decentralized identity, normally via metamask. It theoretically doesn't need blockchain, but I think the term itself is more commonly associated with it though.

You can still just do something that you authenticate using metamask or some other form of DID without using blockchain for anything else and still call your application web3, and I think this is a good distinction to make. Metamask is really good as an identity provider that is always online and doesn't require a centralized party, you can still get value from it without touching the finance part at all.

[errantmind]

As a category, most of Web 3.0 is dominated by decentralized finance, which is why it is so closely associated with cryptocurrency and other blockchain products.

[TylerJewell]

Here are my notes as I attempt to wonder about whether there are investment opportunities for an infrastructure investor.

What is a dApp? https://twitter.com/TylerJewell/status/1474468145704280064?s...

What are the investment opptys for an infra investor? https://twitter.com/TylerJewell/status/1474468607295832069?s...

What are various people saying about Web3? https://twitter.com/TylerJewell/status/1474468866101157889?s...

[numtel]

For me, the essential point of web 3.0 apps isn't the use of blockchain as datastore but user-generated keypairs for authentication instead of a `users` table in a database: no more "sign up" buttons, just connect.

This enables composition between services more freely than oauth.

[feeela]

To me the crypto technologies are only one possible application on the Web 3.0.

There are voices, that Web 3.0 is the same as the DWeb - the distributed web. Like IPFS, which might be indeed a solution against DDOS attacks and censoring. [1]

On the other hand, there are people who think that "The promise of a decentralized and trustless future is forever just that: a promise, and in the future." [2]

1) https://decrypt.co/resources/how-to-use-ipfs-the-backbone-of...

2) https://networked.substack.com/p/web3-i-have-my-daots

[pfraze]

This is a pretty good post about the question: https://jaygraber.medium.com/web3-is-self-certifying-9dad77f...

[jrexilius]

My personal running definition is something like: "The Web3 vision is that by leveraging publicly distributed, trustless cryptography, a contract and payment system can be tightly coupled to services, thus enabling truly decentralized coordination, execution, and delivery."... it's pretty dry. I have been writing as an exercise to force my analysis and understanding of this topic as of late. Here is my longwinded version:

https://www.jasonrexilius.com/articles/understanding-web3.ht...

[blhack]

Web3 replaces storing things on webservices which are run by companies like Facebook or Twitter with storing things on blockchains.

So yes, it is a crypto thing in the sense that it uses blockchain technology as the storage medium (sortof). You still need somewhere to store the data, but you can put pointers to those storage locations on chain.

Web2: Twitter knows the URL to your avatar and decided what it is (usually they listen to you).

Web3: The blockchain knows the URL to your avatar. You decide what it is and nobody can (practically) stop you.

[giantrobot]

> Web3: The blockchain knows the URL to your avatar. You decide what it is and nobody can (practically) stop you.

A blockchain knows some URL recorded in the transaction. You have to hope whatever service you want to use cares about that blockchain and the URL actually points to a usable and accessible resource. You can't store the avatar itself without it being stupid expensive so all you've got space for is a URL.

The same exact thing could be done with a regular URL. You point $random_service to your avatar URL or even a vCard and it can access your data. No rainforests need to be burnt down or polar bears need to be drowned.

[blhack]

If the service hosting my avatar decides to stop hosting my avatar, I can then change the url to something else because I actually own the pointer.

[alphabettsy]

If you own the domain and self-host you can do this already.

[blhack]

Obviously the FBI can seize your domain, which has happened plenty of times.

But also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17083333

You don’t own a domain, you rent it.

[giantrobot]

You only "own" something on a blockchain so long as someone cares about that blockchain. Your keys can also be stolen or lost so your "ownership" is as tenuous as the security of your keys.

Blockchain content isn't much more permanent than content hosted on a traditional server.

[alphabettsy]

Is this a common problem that Web3 solves?

I understand it makes it more difficult, but they could seize your keys or your person and force you to turn over your keys.

Either way that seems like a legal issue, not a technology issue.

[m3kw9]

Web 3 was invented to pump coins mostly. Crypto coin holders: crypto is evolving the web to the next stage. People buy into the message, they can cash out at a higher price point

[vernon99]

Here’s a good explanation from somebody on Twitter that I mostly share.

“Web3: “user-generated authority, enabled by self-certifying web protocols.” A superset of technologies that include blockchains, but are not limited to them.

Or we can just use “Self-Certifying Web Protocols” (SCWP).”

https://twitter.com/arcalinea/status/1474124531895713792?s=2...

[nathanaldensr]

In a time when technological progress has peaked, the only "innovation" money can target is marketing innovation. Thus, a preponderance of confidence scams.

[shoulderfake]

This is the absolute worst place to ask that question

[bmeski]

Where would be better? A forum of non tech focused business people simply throwing around terms?

[ranuzz]

It is the new phase of the internet so it might mean different things to different people. To me it's the rise of decentralized and distributed applications on the internet consuming and producing machine readable or semantic data that can be communicated across platforms.

[wodenokoto]

Someone mentioned on HN that web3 is so 2018 because it’s basically just a new word for “on the blockchain”.

[cblconfederate]

I understand how ethereum and dApps work etc. Can someone provide a list of some 'web3' companies?

[new_realist]

Web 3.0 is a stock pump.