What do I think Web3 is? Let me tell you!

When it comes to web3, many people think it is a scam and a way to cheat people. This is because most articles introducing web3 are inseparable from concepts such as NFT, digital currency, blockchain, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the metaverse. They are mysterious and out of touch with our lives, and do not solve our pain points. In general, the articles also teach us how to speculate on coins and how to buy and sell NFTs at the end, which is a complete way to cheat people, so most people think that web3 is just a scam.

To be honest, I think a lot of things are just hype and I don’t believe them.

A picture sold for millions of dollars? A virtual coin is sold to me for money? Metaverse? Maybe I have to wait until my son grows up to play with it?

As for what web3 is, each article may introduce it differently, and it seems that people have not yet reached a consensus on what web3 is. But for ordinary people, we only care about whether web3 can solve my pain points and bring me value.

In this article, I will introduce the web3 form that I recognize in plain language, which greatly solves our pain points. I would like to call it the future!

This article will not involve any concepts related to leeks coins (I don’t understand them either), so please feel free to read it.

The web2 cage (current pain point)

Usually, web1 refers to the portal era, where content is created by major portals and ordinary users are just browsers. Data is produced by portals, and the revenue belongs to them, so the value flows in the right direction. In summary: platforms create, platforms own, platforms control, and platforms benefit.

What people usually call web2 is our current form of Internet: user-created, platform-owned, platform-controlled, and platform-distributed.

Here are some typical examples:

• We created short videos on Douyin, Douyin owns our videos, controls video distribution, and the indirect revenue also belongs to the Douyin platform.
• The social relationships, chat records, Moments data, etc. that we maintain on WeChat also belong to the WeChat platform, and the indirect income generated belongs to WeChat .
• When we purchase goods on WeChat Taobao, the massive amount of purchase records belongs to Taobao, which indirectly generates revenue by analyzing the purchase records .
• ......

There are many problems with web2:

• The ownership and income rights are unreasonable: they do not conform to the market rule of "whoever creates, whoever owns, whoever benefits". For example, I have published dozens of articles on Zhihu, WeChat official accounts and other channels, but I have not received any income.
• Platform monopoly and control of users: Hundreds of millions of users create a huge amount of content, which is provided to the platform for free, giving rise to many super giants. In turn, the giants begin to control users, such as:

Major content platforms use algorithms to control the content recommended to users .

The Baidu search homepage is full of paid ads .

The platform is fragmented, WeChat blocks Alipay, Taobao, and Douyin sharing, Taobao does not support WeChat payment , etc.

E-commerce platforms take advantage of old customers .

The content posted in Moments is blocked and only visible to yourself .

• Data is fragmented and cannot be migrated: Even if we are fed up with the control of major platforms, we have no way to change it. Our data belongs to the platform and cannot be migrated. In addition, under the current model, it is difficult to create a white lotus platform.

Every time I write an article, I need to publish it once on WeChat, Nuggets, Zhihu, Github , etc. Everyone's comments, likes, and attention to the article are separate and belong to each platform, not to my article .

I can’t stand WeChat’s monopoly, but I also have no way to migrate my WeChat friends, chat records, Moments and other content I created to other platforms .

I can't transfer my Zhihu fans, articles, comments, and followers to Nuggets .

The music I purchased on QQ Music cannot be played on NetEase Cloud Music Player .

• Privacy issues: Our social relationships, chat records, shopping records, search records and other data are all controlled by major platforms, and they can use our private data at will .
• Data credibility: The data provided by the platform is not credible, for example:

The number of views on my articles may be fake .

The purchase quantities of goods may be false .

Recommended popular videos may not actually be popular .

• Data security: Our data is centrally stored by the platform. If the platform goes down, our data will be lost .

Personally, I have reached the point where I can no longer tolerate many points in web2. If web3 can solve these problems, then I will be a fan of web3.

Freedom and development

Based on the market economy, the purpose of web3 must be user-created, user-owned, user-controlled, and protocol-distributed.

In web3, all user data belongs to the user, and the user can authorize other platforms to access certain types of their data. Imagine this scenario:

• I manage social relationships, chat records, real-time chat messages, etc. personally. If WeChat doesn’t do a good job, I will fire it and stop authorizing it. I authorize this information to another chat tool that provides a really good experience.
• The music I purchased is managed by me personally. QQ Music made me unhappy, so I fired it and authorized my music to another music software.
• I personally manage the articles I write, as well as the comments, collections, and attention data of the articles. I will authorize whichever platform provides the best experience.

In summary, if any software makes me unhappy, I will seamlessly switch to another software and let the software vendors fight for their own interests.

I feel happy just thinking about being able to fire WeChat employees at will. This was not possible before, but web3 does bring this opportunity. I think the implementation idea of ​​web3 should be as follows:

• The user's data is stored somewhere, and the user has full control over the data. No one can access or modify the data without authorization.
• The software needs to be authorized by the user before it can access user-specific data.

For the technical solution of data storage, we require that the trust problem can be solved. That is, users fully trust the data storage party, and no one can access or modify the data without the user's authorization. Centralized data storage certainly cannot meet the requirements. From the current perspective, "blockchain" decentralized technology is very suitable to serve as a trusted data storage solution here. This is why web3 is always tied to blockchain. In fact, if there are other technologies that can solve the trust problem, it is OK.

For software providers, the future may be even lighter. For example, many software may not need a database, and the data is completely brought by the user. All the software needs to do is help users manage data, such as playing music, managing articles, chatting, etc. Software providers must attract users with high-quality experience, which is a happy thought.

Summarize

Where there is oppression, there is revolution. Web3 allows us to fully control our own data and use better software. Users will vote with their feet, so why can't it succeed? So I am still determined to go in the direction of web3. Although this road is really difficult and requires countless people to explore, the future of the Internet must belong to web3!