What is Web 3.0 and Why Do We Need It? (Podcast Transcript)

What is Web 3.0 and why should you care? 🤨 Amy Tom talks to Jaro Šatkevic, Head of Product at Mysterium Network, about the evolution of the web and Web 3.0. Following the 30-year anniversary of the first webpage, Amy and Jaro discuss permissionless networks, decentralization, and more. 👊🏻

In this episode of The Hacker Noon Podcast:

• Hey, remember that time when we transitioned from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0? ⏭ (02:00)
• What the heck is Web 3.0 and what does it really mean? 🤨 Jaro explains that the current Internet lacks freedom, privacy, and is controlled by corporations (03:28)
• What role does decentralization play into Web 3.0? Jaro says it will mean that you don't need to sign contracts" ✍🏻 (07:00)
• How can we ensure the web remains open and trustless? Behind the scenes, it's a lot of engineering, sophisticated systems, and encryption (08:20)
• Can Web 3.0 be regulated? Jaro doesn't think it's possible 😱 (11:35)
• How can we trust Web 3.0? Jaro explains the DNS, HTTPS, and web encryption that exists in Web 2.0 today and how that might evolve in Web 3.0 (16:21)
• What is delaying Web 3.0 and why can't we have it today? Jaro essentially says Rome wasn't built overnight 🤷‍♂️ (20:12)
• What's the deal with AI and Web 3.0? Jaro says it's not REALLY related (27:35)
• What are the components of Web 3.0? What the difference between the Semantic web and the decentralized web? 🕸 (31:10)

Follow Jaro Šatkevic & Mysterium Network:

• You can follow Jaro on Twitter @chompomonim
• You learn more about Mysterium Network at mysterium.network

Podcast Transcript (Machine Generated, Please Excuse The Errors)

Amy: [00:00:00] So we're doing a very timely episode this week because yes, two days ago at the time of the recording, which would be. Last week when this gets aired, Tim Berners Lee has celebrated an anniversary. And that was, of course, if the 30th anniversary of him releasing the first web page on the internet.

So we are celebrating a very big milestone of the internet. And what better way to celebrate that than to talk about web 3.0 and the way that we have. Evaluated and evolved from the original web. So to do this discussion with me, of course today, I would like to welcome yarrow, who is the head of product of Mysterium network.

How are you doing today? Jaro 

Jaro: [00:00:51] Thank you. I am very happy to join this conversation.  isn't it exciting? 30 years of the web. It's unbelievable. For many people it's twice as much of their life and actually actively using those new services, yeah.  yeah, we just, so this is going to be a small plug for the hacker noon Instagram account, but we lot, a few days ago, put out a, this on this today on what do we call it?

Amy: [00:01:25] Okay. Today in internet history. So we run this series on our Instagram accounts of the milestones of the internet and what happened in internet history. So one of the pieces that I saw on our Instagram a few days ago was that piece from Tim Berners-Lee of the anniversary of the internet. So I would love to go through with you some of the ways that we've evolved from web 1.0, to start. Can you explain what web 3.0 is to begin with and why does it matter? It's very hard to explain because usually, you know what something is after it's already happened. And we are now in transition between web 2.0 to web 3.0. Actually, I remember when we had transitioned from 1.0 to 2.0 in five, six, seven this transition, wasn't sure that it's took maybe 10 years.

Jaro: [00:02:20] And like that time, the work transitioning from readable internet into writeable internet. So if you look back and. To those days, like early 2000 people that are just reading on the internet, it was like newspaper. You could create their own website, but commenting was super advanced feature that days.

And then people started to talk that, Oh, internet is changing. And even, I remember 10 years ago people started to talk also what will be web 3.0. And they had similar concept to what we have now, which I will go forward. But that time they said maybe that's an readable writeable and executable internet, but actually they're already live in executable internet, which means that most of applications we are using are already in your browser.

Like I like, if you go look into the past, most of the software you install was installed in your computer and this day is you're just opening your browser. So treater is application. Travelog is application. Like all the things are in internet, but it's still not there with frequent zero. And then people started to think maybe web 3.0 is a machine friendly internet.

So intro internet when websites and all the services are exposing some interfaces with metadata, which would be easy, consumable for robots. And this idea kind of 10 years ago was like, if you will be browsing, like searching for Weprin 4.0, you will find two, two branches of it. One will be about this machine friendly and internet with metadata, the old one and another will be blockchain and all of the cryptocurrency related projects.

That realization, to be honest, I think that's the same thing. Because what we were lacking 10 years ago on internet, it was possibility to have money. And if you will look on internet today, it's totally occupied by big corporations. Just do you remember Zynga company? Not for the company, which was building games on Facebook and Facebook actually destroyed.

That was billions worth of company. And Facebook destroyed the business model because Facebook decided that their platform will work differently or they don't want it. Apple did many times, like now in the Europe, European parliament, we have a kind of deal between Apple. And Spotify say that Apple is trying to use their unfair advantage to destroy Spotify because Apple news music is provided promoted to all the Apple devices.

So big corporations have. Like they already proven many times like Amazon is kicking some services from their servers in two or three days. Notice just because of various reasons, there might be good or bad reasons, but they have this power. So internet is controlled by corporations and people in cryptocurrency believers in this blockchain movement, things that's not correct way.

Because in the same way, we don't want to governments control money because that's a dangerous, we want to also freedom in terms of how we consume applications like privacy, how many problems with Facebook privacy we had. So all those problems are today because somebody is controlling all the data you're using and people who are fighting for changing internet, usually they say that should be internet, which is privacy oriented, which provides a platforms which are already that centralized.

Or we call it permissionless. You don't need Facebook permission to run. Something. Yeah, you don't need a Google permission. Amazon's permission. You just jumped like on internet, in good old internet. You don't need permission to run your website, you just running it. And it's going back to those days when it's more controllable by people, but it's also should be friendly for robots.

The same way. And when you got cryptocurrency, it means that robot could go to buy something on internet by using internet money, establish new service pay for service providers that are mainly that centralized, like file storage alternatives, everything is becoming that centralized. And it means that you don't need to sign contracts.

You don't need to have any legal entity, so machines will be able to do something in the future internet. So are you saying that web 3.0 is synonymous with permissionless networks and decentralization? It's yes. It's all of that. It's a privacy oriented, not controlled by corporations accessible without any.

Agreements and that paid by cryptocurrency for getting those services. Okay. So here's the difficult part. how far, I would say some people also asks when yeah. And I would like. I think this one is already here, but for very small group of people, let's call them freaks of that centralization in privacy.

It's like Bitcoin in 2010 or 11, some people are already used it, but it was super small group of people. So how

Amy: [00:08:25] how can we ensure that the web remains open and trustless? There are many different ways. I can, for example, share what we do at Mysterium. But I could also name some other projects who are working towards that. So first of all, we try to ensure that services, for example, in our case, Mysterium is decentralized VPN network.

Jaro: [00:08:48] And usually the big companies are owning exit notes, so they could see all the user's browsing history. And they could also sell that history in our approach, what we decided that anyone they are home or they could establish like server on data center, but it's owned by individuals. They could spin up this service and then they could allow other people to start using it.

And then there, there is a question always home for free. Usually if it's a free, it will not work. You need the monetization model. And actually thanks to cryptocurrencies, we have a possibility to monetize it in a permissionless way. So in our case, we have a payment system, which is like peer to peer payments.

When somebody who has VPN application on their mobile phone is just starting to use the service and paying for each minute. Of service and when it stopped using it stopped bank and somebody who's running the service software is just getting those payments and is happy while he's getting payments.

There are projects who are doing the same for example, file storage here. Just imagine like Dropbox, you have Dropbox, so Dropbox on your files, but there is a project called file coin, for example. So when people are running. A lot of big D hard drives on usually on that at centers, but it's still owned by them.

So there is no single entity who is controlling all the data and the data is like maybe copied 20 times. And it's encrypted when we're talking about web 3.0 all the time, talking about encryption security. I something, sometimes I am joking. just imagine the playground of children. If you're building this playground in your backyard, it could be an elect shaky or something because you see that it's only your child's are using this playground and you can control it, but just imagine public place playground.

Some drunk people are going to destroy it just, yeah. So it'd have to be from Iraq, very solid and the same via a permissionless internet, because we don't know who will use it. We need kind of thing all the time of worst case. So when you asking how it's a lot of engineering, a lot of encryption, a lot of sophisticated systems.

And very solidly build it because engineers understand that anyone could do anything bad with it. That's why it's slow. Yeah. So how can we regulate web 3.0 then I don't think it's possible. Yeah, it's the same question as how you will regulate Bitcoin. Regulators will try from different angles, but it's very hard.

Because web 3.0 is run in any country in the world. In mysterion. For example, we have exit no dramas in 54 countries. How you can find one legislation when the same rules would apply. Like you can try to stop it in one country maybe, but it still will be working somewhere. So his web 3.0 is the answer to our privacy concerns then?

Amy: [00:12:19] Or does this just add additional security risks? Privacy is very hard topic to talk about. Yeah, I would say that vet free point or should be even more, not about privacy, but about control. Because privacy could be also insured by cryptography on centralized services. They just never do that properly usually, like telegram, for example, trying to do privacy for you by using cryptography.

Jaro: [00:12:52] And it's still centralized service run by telegram company in web 3.0. Encryption is by default. So privacy is by default. There, it doesn't work without privacy, but it's also giving you this permissionless access. That this data, this information, this service is owned by you. So there is no corporation which could go and decide to kick you out of the business to say you that, Hey, now your social network is illegal in our country.

So in for example, people had in Spain, they wanted to have referendum to which government didn't liked. And the government just stopped website, which is promoting this referendum. But people started to use a web 3.0, technology called IPFS. And they started to show the website via IPFS and government had note, note, no possibility to stop it.

Amy: [00:13:52] What is that? The IPFS. Yeah, it's full name is Intel interplanetary file system, or that's a project which Allows you to to spread your data over internet and sharing the data is not changed. So just imagine you have your document. Yeah. PDF file. That there is a think, okay.

Jaro: [00:14:16] Maybe some people who are listening don't know, but there is a crypto graphical primitive called hashing algorithm, which can ensure like you're getting very short. Signature which ensures that this document is not changed. So it could be like one terabyte size of document, and you're getting very small file.

And you always can recheck that this document after this hashing algorithm works, will always return the signature. So in IPFS, they decided that all the internet addresses. Are not actual like domain name or something, because you can go to the same domain name to two times a day and you will get different information, which is not very good from privacy concern from security.

So what they did that. If you go to some address you 100% sure that it was not changed. And and this. And then you can spread this information all around the internet. It could be around on your computer, online computer, on a data center in Amazon. And then somebody from Lithuania let's say will be reading it from my computer because it's just closer to him because he's living in the same country.

As somebody in us will be reading the same file, but from your computer, and it's really hard to kill it. Because without so with where's the web 3.0 no. And that kind of model where, like things are not tampered with or whatever you want to call it. You, people still need to be able to find this information, so there still has to be some kind of like search engine, some kind of algorithm, which has to be governed by Made by people and governed by a body. So how can web 3.0 exists with that in mind? to find information do you know what is Dennis domain name system? It's a registry when all of the websites are registered like facebook.com, twitter.com, my name and.org, whatever.

And so there is a big registry, spread it over the internet. And in that centralized internet, we also have couple of projects of such registries. So you could have also your domain names and those domain names could be changing could point to some, this files or whatever you want. And it's and then you can create the same search engines as Google or anything else.

They will be just indexing the information. But the one important thing with ensuring that the file you're actually looking at is the same as you want it to look at. So that's. With the web 2.0, the files that I'm looking at now have been altered by people, 10 years ago. That would be big problem actually, because do you know that sometimes you've right.

HTTP and sometimes HTTPS. Yeah. So this is about secure. Yeah. And encrypted. So definitely This encryption is already in not 3.0 internet, but it's not a must. Technology is just addition to it. I remember when I was in a university years and I was at the meaning the network of Of my house.

So I was able to read emails of girls who were living upside upstairs, just because all the information went through the same router, same computer to the public internet. And it was not encrypted. Yeah. And, what I could do, I could actually send them different information. So they would open like yahoo.com and doing that yahoo.com as a main banner could be whatever I wanted and because I controlled why they will get.

And there was no crypto graphical insurance of that. So technically in some countries, if you will try to open some websites, you will see different information. Than in all the rest world, happily these days, we are using this HTTPS secure internet. So this encryption is already all almost everywhere.

And encryption is very important. Part of security in web three point. Now just this encryption is as a default. You're not able to work without it. It just doesn't exist without it. So is it a common problem then for. It did not have the S in what, 2.0. And then we're used use websites, which don't have as just the general rule, never use websites and anything which don't have access.

Amy: [00:19:25] So I think this question goes back to the when, but what is delaying web 3.0 from being today's reality? Like why can it be right now? Web 2.0 also didn't happen over one day. Some people told that, like the first, the big applications of web 2.0, it was Wikipedia. It was Amazon because on Amazon, you are able to write a review of over the book you just bought on Wikipedia.

Jaro: [00:19:59] You were able to edit the content, but all the rest internet wasn't 2.0 yet. And it was evolving. So actually it will not happen that today they are in 2.0 tomorrow. We are infrequent zero. As you see this encryption is becoming like common thing, like telegram, like many other apps are promoting and corruption and that's internalization becoming a thing, many services starting to use in cryptocurrencies for payments.

So this transition will be like going step by step slowly. So it will not happen. Like day and night, it will be long process. And one day we will understand that, Oh, we are in different reality. Do you think that there will be a catalyst that will expedite the process of migration?

Amy: [00:20:55] Or do you think that the process will be long and slow and drawn out? I'm fine with both of them. Maybe there will be some killer application, which will just show that frequent zero is better, but most probably catalyst will be big government. VGP cams tracing. If you ask, become socialist country, that will be good kind of catalyst for where people are now.

Jaro: [00:21:22] But. I would rather want it would go slowly. Yeah. But, so I don't remember the transition between one and two. I think I was too young, like the internet as 2.0 is how I always remembered it. I think so. Can you like, was there no catalyst there then? I assume because I would say that there were catalyst it's or Amazon those shoe, but I mean like a specific event that made people be like, Oh, we need a more connected web.

It was just, like more efficient when you started to have writeable internet, like Amazon bookshop, that time just bookshop. It was just selling better because of those reviews. People are going to read their reviews and buying books. So just the business model work better. So I think that another catalyst for web 3.0 will be when we will find proper business models.

For 3.3 0.0 applications. So all of this revolution, which is happening around cryptocurrencies, like defy protocols, all that things are experimentation for web 3.0, because look what happened, why 2.0 became so big because cool. And how corporations started to control everything. In the beginning, that was internet and there was no money there, there was then a lot of money came in and we had.com bubble.

You had 98, 2010 and after.com Babo and most of solutions died, but some had a lot of money to develop Google, born there and Amazon born then. And those. Showed that they are actually better solutions and they got a lot of investment. And you just need time and money to evolve all those technologies. And after that, this is founded.

Oh, that's works. So like in 2008 NASDAQ index, wasn't going down as the whole other crisis companies. Like all the companies feel crisis, but not a technology companies. As dark was going up and up for last 20 years, most probably. And and then it's really hard to have that centralized system comparing, competing to centralized because centralized system found founded business model, subscription model, for example, that's the something, help them to become rich and control everything.

And now what we are doing, you are trying to find a business model for decentralized applications. So people would not like for like Mysterium is also competitor for tour in one way. And Torah is a privacy network, which is don't have incentivization. So they don't have, they're not paying money for their exit nodes.

So actually at Mysterium, what we added incentivization. So exit node runners are getting money for their risks, for their services, for using internet. And we see that we are able to get like orders of magnitude, more exit notes than Tor. Like we have already comparable number and to view 10 years younger project than tar and people are willing to run services when they are getting paid.

So I do believe that when we will find the proper business models, For those who are running services for very frequent zero for decentralized applications, it will just make them working more and more because that will be competing to Amazon competing to Google. Yeah. That makes sense. And then this is going to encompass to like things beyond Amazon and Google, like AR VR and like more advanced networking and geolocation and IOT and blockchain and things like that.

It's hard for me to talk about AR VR, because you're talking about the revolution of AR VR for last 10, maybe 15 years. I remember Google glass project. I remember many different there, there was social network which was shoot kill Facebook and nothing happened, like Arcola was bought by Facebook like 10 years ago.

So it's very hard to say, will we go to that or not? Maybe bigger catalyst for AR VR would be if COVID would stay with us for next five years, because we have to live remotely through our yeah. There are Oculus systems actually I've been on the crypt magical cruise friends conference, which was AR conference.

when you're trying to be in the room and you can look to the left and see another avatar standing here and you can poke him or do something like it was super primitive. Yes. But, if you're not able to gather together, you need to find out the different ways. So maybe if COVID will stay with us for the next five years, you'll see more and more like that.

Okay. Hopefully not, but if not AR VR for like advancements in tech in the next five years, I think definitely we're gonna bank on AI. M L like, Artificial intelligence, machine learning. And that's like the, one of the biggest parts of web 3.0, is it not like banking on our intelligence stream? Eh, it's not really related to web 3.0, all this ML and AI because I would say that the biggest users of all this machine learning technologies are actually corporations.

So the biggest application at the moment is actually social networks. Or ad advertising platforms who are trying to analyze your data to make picture of you two, to find your digital kind of signature and then give you the ads. Actually, I would say that web 3.0 makes their life harder. Yeah. I was going to say like, when you put it like that AI.

Seems like the antithesis of web three by now. it just seems like it doesn't match at all because it's almost like you're saying the opposite is true of what I was thinking. You could use it, you could use it in some ways, like to for better search for someone organizing data. AI has so many applications, I would say in robotics, in.

Manufacturer, there are so huge amount of applications. So it's separate technologies. One is more about internet, this 3.0 and decentralization, and that another is deeper than internet. It's going closer to us. It's all the smart devices and smart houses. And then actually web 3.0 becomes like a mad men, just, like Autobahn for them.

Because they then AIS are able to buy for you beer over the internet. And or another AI it's could be like data center, which is run by AI, which is gaining, getting paid and, see Justin. Additional like they are working together, but they could be separate. Yeah. But see, the thing I don't understand about web 3.0 is that I've never heard web 3.0 discussed without discussing artificial intelligence as well.

And in my mind, I just don't imagine how artificial intelligence is. Permissionless or is decentralized because it still requires the programming of a human being who is going down biases and whatnot. Actually, it would be very dangerous. To have that centralized I AI, because that's means that she could do whatever they wanted.

I think that's a highest level of AI. Let's hope it's not comes too soon and to rebuild the preparatory already. So then why do people talk about AI and web 3.0 in tandem? So often then sometimes I hear that in ICO projects or some projects for raising money. Why because it's just hot topics, and when you need to that's my personal opinion, maybe there is an angle which could be used.

But it's just, like you just named blockchain, AI, something else and you get money. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Because I, but that's why I was where I got confused. So what are the components really of. I have three points now because I've read if you go, if you Google this, they're going to, it's going to tell you like semantic web, social web, and 3d interactive enabled technologies.

So it's that forest that I mentioned here, that there are two different web three point zeros. So one of them is a semantic web. Another is decentralized. All four of them will be mentioned as web 3.0. Semantic web it's more something people talked about 10 years ago already. And this is a semantic web it's helps internet of things and troubles to to analyze data better.

But actually these days, the biggest move much bigger movement in web free is Blockchain cryptocurrency and decentralization movement. It's not always a cryptocurrency it's, but it's always decentralization in one or another way. So what's the potential of blockchain technology in web 3.0, it's one of the building blocks.

Yeah. I would say that in web three point, all one of the building blocks is cryptography and cryption. Because it's ensures privacy for you building block is blockchain because that's a monetization ability then yeah. You can actually monetize your services in one or another way. Also some people using blockchain to ensure governance.

Because you have decentralized platform and then you want to evolve it somehow. So you need governance layer if nobody controls it. So how it will learn either AI, but then it's a dangerous, because you don't control it either. It's a governance when people are voting for one or another direction.

Amy: [00:32:22] Okay. So what I think you already mentioned that you think web 3.0 is already here, but when do you think we will officially be able to say we are in web 3.05 to 10 years? Five to 10 years. Okay. That's pretty good. Not bad. All right. I can handle that. I will be patiently waiting then. Yarrow, thank you so much for joining the podcast.

I really appreciate your time. Thank you very much. I hope it was not too technical. Sometimes I'm using maybe to complicate it, but wow. I think we've got a tight nickel listener base, so I hope everybody likes this episode as well. I think I learned a lot about web 3.0, so I appreciate your time. Awesome.

So if we want to find you yarrow and Mysterium networks, where can we look online? So you could go to mysterium.network. So that's our website. When you can find us, or you can just Google me Yara  and you will find my Twitter and all the other profiles, it's a rather heart handle. So I all right. I will put it in the show notes for everybody.

Awesome. Thank you very much, yarrow. Thank you. Bye bye. If you liked this episode, don't forget to like share and subscribe to the hacker news channels. And of course, as always, you can find hacker noon on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. See you later on. Oh. And also this episode was produced by hacker noon, hosted by me, Amy, Tom, and edited by Damien.