“Web 2.0” vs. “Web3”

In 2006, Paul Graham wrote a great post wherein he concluded that Web 2.0 was a credible term because it meant “using the web the way it's meant to be used.” I think this is a good lens to interpret the term Web3, and why it is still a useful term, in-spite of its baggage and any associated misdirection.  

Web3 is a set of expectations, about what the internet can and should be: native money, assets, ownable identity and media, transparency, automation, control, privacy, new institutions and more meritocratic and equitable outcomes.

Web 2.0 was not a revolution against what came before, but an expansion of it —  a realization of new markets and networks, enabled by using the technology the way it wanted to be used. In time, that is what Web3 will come to be known as too.

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