Web 3 Primer

3 min readDec 14, 2021

Web3, NFTs, Daos, Defi, Metaverse, etc are currently trending, but few people know what they mean. I will try to explain each of them in this article.

What is Web 3

Web3 is a user-owned internet. Cryptocurrencies & NFTs are digital assets that enable Web3 to be user-owned. Smart contracts are Web3 software applications that are user-owned. Blockchain is the tech that enables crypto, NFTs & smart contracts.

web2: Net Promoter Score

web3: Net Community Score

With Web3, end-consumers take back the ownership of their own data. Instead of forgoing their data and their privacy to the big tech companies, they’re able to control their own data — living in a cryptographic, decentralized mesh of computers that combine to become a distributed data center rivaling GCP and AWS.

NFTs cryptographically prove that you, and you alone, are the owner of your digital items. And no one else can take them away from you.

The Metaverse is a virtual extension of our current existence.

What are Daos

Like how DeFi is programmable money and how NFTs are programmable media, DAOs are programmable organizations of people.

DAOs allow holders to simultaneously be an investor, operator, and user of the protocol.

Going deep into the rabbit hole called web3 (read more here)

Web1 (1980s — early 2000’s) The first phase of the Internet, Web1, was mainly about providing the everyday consumer with online content and information.

As consumers could only read information or content online, and not yet interact with it, Web1 was incredibly static.
When you think about Web1, think Internet Explorer, Yahoo, or Netscape. While web1 was read-only, the companies we associate with web1 were built on open protocols (meaning pretty much any person or organization could build on the internet and know they were subject to the same rules as the next person or organization).

Web2 is the version of the internet most of us know and use today. Where Web1 was static and “read-only,” Web2 was “read-write,” and interactive. Under Web2, the internet became more usable: web2 was dynamic and users could consume, interact with, and create content on the internet themselves.

Along the way, the internet became largely dominated by four behemoths today we know as Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google. Web2 also saw an explosion in the use of smartphones, and most of internet use was through mobile apps and hardware built by these companies. While this meant more people could participate in the internet, it also meant the internet was becoming increasingly controlled by the leading digital platforms.
Why is this a problem? In the centralized internet we know today, Apple can take a 30% cut on all paid-app downloads and in-app purchases, Twitter and Facebook can de-platform the POTUS, and the everyday consumer has less privacy, security, and control over their online information than ever before.

Web3, the future internet we’re moving towards, is a decentralized internet. Under Web3, the internet is shared online and governed by the collective “we,” rather than owned by centralized entities.The Web3 world is one that has open-source protocols at its foundation. additional features and Web3 is about rearchitecting internet services and products so that they benefit people rather than entities.

Web1: Read

Web2: Read-Write

Web3: Read-Write-Own