Web3 has gained a lot of attention in the previous year but it is not a new concept. In 2006 it was introduced as the third generation of the World Wide Web. It is defined as The third generation of internet services for websites and applications that will focus on using a machine-based understanding of data to provide a data-driven and Semantic Web. The central vision of Web 3.0 is to create intelligent, connected, and open websites.

Even though the transition from web 1.0 to web 2.0 took more than a decade and the transition to web 3.0 will take even longer, it has still become a subject of debate and controversy.

Why such interest in Web3?

Web3 is the term coined by Gavin Wood, a co-creator of Ethereum, to the concept of a new type of internet service based on decentralized blockchains, the shared ledger systems used by cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. The word has been around for a long time, but it has only recently gained popularity. Those who support the Web3 idea argue that Web 2.0 is under the authority of giant companies, which are reliant on regulators and are not effective in maintaining public faith in the Internet or data security. Web3 proponents envisage an internet where we don't have to provide businesses like Facebook and Google with our personal information in order to access their services. All information would be recorded on the blockchain's public ledger, and the web would be driven by blockchain technology and artificial intelligence. Everything would have to be validated by the network before being approved, similar to how bitcoin works. People might conceivably trade information or payment without the need for an intermediary via online apps. A Web3 internet would also be permissionless, meaning that anybody may use it without needing to create credentials or obtain permission from a provider.

Is Web3 too good to be true?

If anything, what we've learned from web 2.0 is that no matter how amazing the technological advances or updates may seem. it comes with a lot of baggage and complications. Remember when we thought Kickstarter was a fantastic platform for startups to gain momentum? Then it became some sort of scamming landmine? That is exactly how Web 3.0 is looking from today's standpoint. Molly White is an individual who made an amazing website titled "Web3 is going great", in it, you can read all the failures of the supposed Web 3.0 on the website:

"One of the most distinguishing features of "web3" is the sheer level of hand waviness surrounding it. While you can find no end of press releases, Twitter crypto bros, and venture capitalists extolling the virtues of web3, you will have a much harder time finding any definition that's not so full of buzzwords that it becomes meaningless.

Generally speaking, web3 is an umbrella term to refer to the "future of the Internet", which believers say will be decentralized and based on the blockchain. Proponents tend to tout how data won't be controlled by "Big Tech", and how it will be uncensorable and egalitarian. There is, however, no shortage of examples in this timeline of how many "web3" projects are indeed centralized in similar ways to Big Tech, as well as instances where "uncensorable" or "unmodifiable" platforms have been removed or modified data.

Skeptics of web3 tend to point out that decentralization was a founding tenet of the Internet and is not something that is only (or best) achieved with the blockchain. They also tend to point out the enormous environmental impacts of blockchain technology (particularly proof-of-work blockchains, including Bitcoin and Ethereum). They also often mention that an awful lot of web3 projects sound quite a bit like Ponzi or pyramid schemes, and question the lack of regulation, oversight, and taxation that makes fraud, tax evasion, and other criminal behavior particularly rampant in the space. "

Conclusion

Web 3.0 seems more of a scam every day because most of the hype around the idea is purely hypothetical could be's and should be's, we have nothing solid or concrete enough to make a judgment otherwise. To quote Stephen Diehl: "Web3 is that technical manifestation of this empty grasping for a messianic solution that's going to solve all our problems. It's entirely rational to want to build a more decentralized technology stack and to aspire to a more egalitarian internet, a more equitable society, and a better world. However, web3 is not the golden path that leads us to that world, and it's the same old crypto BS just packaged up in a sugar pill to make it easier to digest."