Web3 Needs Careful Implementation To Avoid the Mistakes of Web2

The tech industry is one of the fastest-moving and competitive spaces in the world. Not only are users extremely demanding but investors are also looking for those companies that stand out. If a tech company or startup keeps its head down for too long, it will become obsolete.

This “adapt or die” trend in the tech industry pushes companies to constantly evolve their products to serve the current needs. Take cryptocurrency and blockchain as an example -  organizations ranging from IBM to Walmart are now using it in one way or another. A technology that years ago was seen as too risky is now being explored by companies of all shapes and sizes.

A race to be up to date with trends is always evolving and now, it has reached a new stage -  Web3 and the Metaverse. This latest trend is all centered on providing users and customers with a different experience. Not only do these concepts offer more freedom but also allow increased control over personal information, making them quite revolutionary.

The Future Of Human Interaction

Although Web3 and the Metaverse are not the same, they have one particular aspect in common - they represent the future of Blockchain and technology in many ways. As such, no matter how tired we grow of hearing about them, they are here to change our way of life.

To understand the true relevance of these technologies, you first need to understand what they are. Let us start with the Metaverse, which represents the marriage between the digital and the real to create complex ecosystems online.

Spending time online in a virtual world is not really something we have not seen before. For example, there are many video games like Fortnite or WoW where you create a character and enter that virtual world while communicating with others. As we are able to notice, this concept isn’t completely new, it is just the natural evolution from virtual worlds focused on gaming to a more comprehensive experience.

A Few Questions Remain

People are afraid of the Metaverse because they believe that their lives will be determined by it. For them, work, meeting friends, and other activities that take place in the real world will now take place in virtual reality, and that scares them. But one thing is certain - the Metaverse will not necessarily replace real-life activities - it will supplement them.

When we think about how to access the Metaverse, we always picture VR glasses. Well, this is actually a way to do it and perform entertaining tasks like attending concerts and other events you wouldn’t be able to attend in person.

Platforms like Animal Concerts that stream concerts in the Metaverse; Decentraland, a virtual world reminiscent of titles like Second Life; and Minecraft, one of the most popular sandbox games, are all providing a space for the hosting of events with different focuses.

While ethics will always remain a consideration along with areas such as mental health and age restrictions, the benefits offered by Web3 and the Metaverse outweigh the potential pitfalls. The biggest worry is ensuring that these advances remain decentralized as there are already many actors ready to capitalize. It’s critical that the providers of these services operate on decentralized networks without access to sensitive user information. This has to be built into the technical architecture, not merely in a mission statement or marketing campaign.

All The Majors Are Interested

Companies like Nike, Adidas, and Mcdonald's are now offering their products in select locations in the Metaverse, changing the shopping experience. With brands now looking to offer a digital version of their stores, it is not surprising there are now malls in the Metaverse that seeks to bring many digital stores together under one shopping experience.

As the Metaverse seeks to emulate real life in the digital world as far as possible, the complexity of the infrastructure that supports it is huge. After all, if you were to have to change platforms to move from one store or location to another, this would be highly disruptive. Not only this... but what would happen if a section of the Metaverse is down due to a server’s failure?

This is where Web3 comes in.

Web3 Disruptors To Replace Monopolies

Web 3 is basically a new form of the Internet that runs on the blockchain and is therefore fully decentralized. This technology would mean that users can access the internet for themselves, without relying on big names like AWS, Google, Apple, or Meta -  they can enter on their own terms.

This industry disruption is already happening. Ankr is a decentralized internet provider that could potentially take on heavyweights such as AWS. It offers cross-chain solutions for developers and liquid staking for DeFi enthusiasts, with one click-node deployment and access to blockchain-specific protocols.

Currently, they are offering developers a subscription package of just $700 for unlimited blockchain requests across 11 chains - this is far cheaper than any other provider by a wide margin. Ankr is moving to a DAO-based governance system which means that users get to vote on what happens within the ecosystem. They are non-custodial and do not hold private keys.

Breaking Down Web3 vs Web2

To put it even more simply, Web3 is built on decentralized servers with no single point of failure. Web2 was made up of commercialized platforms with centralized server systems that held all the power. If you did something “wrong” your account was deleted or suspended.

With Web3, there is no “account” and no user identifier. Information is neutrally held on a blockchain and only you have access via your private keys. Providers like Ankr confer access to the blockchain through protocols without holding any real power over your Web3 activity.

Web3 is still difficult for people to access which is where these providers come in to bridge the gap. This difficulty has resulted in projects like Ankr, Ocean Protocol, and Polkadot working on making it easier to create Web3 applications and infrastructure, each in its own way.

While Ankr is focused on offering a distributed computing platform offering a decentralized version of cloud computing services such as AWS or MS Azure, Ocean Protocol is focused on the data economy. Different providers are breaking up disparate areas of Web2 and redistributing them for fairer usage.

Where New Tech Combines

The last important subject to review is the relationship between Web3 and the Metaverse. These technologies are supportive of each other. It would be somewhat utopic to have a Metaverse where everything is decentralized and no institutions have control of the assets there.

However, companies like Meta are there to set clear rules and control the Metaverse. This includes storing private data and using it for unknown purposes. Therefore, it is important that there are many Metaverses where everything is open source and assets can be sent between them without absurd permissions or intermediaries.

At the moment, the most famous decentralized Metaverses are projects like Decentraland and The Sandbox, which can make great use of Web3 by developing a whole new unregulated economy where users are in full control of their finances. These two names have become popular even among people not familiar with cryptocurrency and blockchain, which is a great win for everyone.

The fight for the soul of the Metaverse and Web3 is raging. Unfortunately, no one can tell what the Metaverse and Web3 will be like. Will the ideals of decentralization, freedom, and privacy prevail? Or will Web3 and the Metaverse be the new tools of untrusty corporations?

We’ll have to wait and see.