Making Sense of Web 3

The internet is changing again. Over the last decade internet-based services have trended towards centralization. Today, a handful of companies control the platforms we use to search for information, store our personal data, manage our online identities, and communicate publicly and privately. At the same time, a group of seemingly unrelated technologies are being developed on the fringes of the tech industry, ranging from encrypted messaging to digital money. Within that loose community, “web 3” has become a catchall term for a vision of a new, better internet. An internet where payments and money are natively digital, where “decentralized” applications compete with centralized ones, and where users have more control over their identity and data. ...

June 6, 2018 · 16 min · 3219 words · Josh Stark