This matters, because while Web 2.0 failed at preventing centralization, we need to explore how and why these failures occurred. Without a proper retrospective analysis of what Web 2.0 was trying to do and why it failed, we risk repeating these failure modes with web3.

This is, admittedly, a very powerful idea. The challenges of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 around ownership, censorship, and digital rights are highly nontrivial ones. For web3 enthusiasts, these issues are existential threats to the web, threats that web3 will eradicate simply by eliminating the question. There can be no debate on the power or... See more

This approach was not without its challenges, of course. Decentralized networks create a discovery problem, where you can’t find information if you don’t know where to look. The maturation process of Web 1.0 involved the development of tools and practices for information discovery: search engines, knowledge repositories, purpose-built forums, and... See more

While the blockchain offers promise in addressing some of the challenges present in Web 2.0, the blockchain alone does not comprise the entirety of the web3 experience. In fact, the complexity of working on the blockchain means that the barrier for entering this space is somewhat higher, and as a result there are few companies building the required... See more

Social networking depends on content development. Web 2.0 sought to address the biggest challenge that plagued Web 1.0: content creation is difficult. Coding is really only fun for coders; for everyone else it is a huge and expensive pain in the ass. Web 1.0 was about finding content; Web 2.0 was about generating content. Web 1.0 waited for the... See more

The early days of the World Wide Web, which now bears the retronym Web 1.0, gave us a promise of a decentralized and democratized way of sharing information. Web 1.0 was truly revolutionary; it stood in stark contrast to any other information sharing mechanism in all of human history. The idea was simple: people who held information could make that... See more

The problem is that by telling a lie about the intentions of Web 2.0 and promoting the myth of decentralization, web3 advocates are attempting a razzle-dazzle maneuver to distract from these very important matters. By making web2—even going so far as to renaming it—about centralization and web3 about decentralization, web3 advocates claim it is... See more

But what web3 gets wrong is that Web 2.0 was about centralization. This is not the case. A brief glance at the edit history of the Wikipedia page for Web 2.0 shows that Web 2.0 was itself all about decentralization.

This interpretation stands in contrast to the claims that web3 advocates make. They claim that web2 is a centralized mess dominated by technology megacorporations and web3 is now about content ownership. In order to achieve these goals, they must create an entirely new operating model for the web, one built on the blockchain. Blockchain is in... See more