Deep Dive | From the Origins of the Internet to Decentralized Web 3.0
TechFlow Selected TechFlow Selected
Deep Dive | From the Origins of the Internet to Decentralized Web 3.0
The definitions of Web 1, 2, and 3 are not strict; for one person, a rigid definition of the Web might simply be an arbitrary boundary intrusion between two stages of another.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insights
Author: Mickey Maler
Translation: 0xzshanzha
Web 1.0 is a conventional concept upon which our current Web 2.0 stands. The world is currently transitioning from Web2 to Web3, giving rise to many questions about what Web3 will look like.
Although this article does not delve deeply into the origins of the web and its first evolutionary stage, it outlines the foundations upon which Web2 was built and the upcoming basis for Web3—the future of freedom and the semantic web. The semantic web, sometimes also referred to as Web 3.0, is an extension of the World Wide Web through standards developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), aiming to make internet data machine-readable.
Note that the terms "Web 3.0" and "Web3" are used interchangeably throughout this article.
Preface
The internet we use today is largely based on Web 2.0—so what exactly is Web 2.0?
For many people, Web 2.0 mainly means social media platforms such as Facebook—but this isn't quite accurate. Indeed, social media forms a major part of Web2's evolution, and Facebook is undoubtedly one of the most significant contributors of this era. Facebook created Messenger and provided the first globally adopted web platform that allowed additional applications to be added to the web, opening up numerous possibilities for others. These innovations dynamically transformed the web environment. However, Facebook is not entirely representative of Web2. Instead, Facebook and other media organizations were among the first to capitalize on the foundational technologies of Web2, as their emergence established the internet as a multi-layered platform architecture capable of supporting application development. They were pioneers of Web2, but Web2 itself is not defined by them—just as Edison’s light bulb was an innovation in electricity, but electricity itself is not Edison’s light bulb.
The concept of Web 3.0 begins where Web2 stagnates. Its primary goal is to improve upon Web2's shortcomings—particularly in the areas of data protection and privacy—by leveraging blockchain and zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technologies. Web3 is not synonymous with the Ethereum network or websites built on a specific blockchain, nor is it equivalent to a MetaMask extension in your browser—even though these tools can serve as gateways to Web3. Web3 has the potential to enhance your web experience infinitely through creativity. But regardless of how Web3 evolves, we must never forget the most crucial aspect of this emerging era: the sovereignty over your privacy and free will.
Before the Web 1.0 Era
The internet began developing with the World Wide Web (WWW). The term “internet” encapsulates the method of managing communication between computers using physical wiring and network protocols. Conceived in the 1960s and 1970s as an academic and military project, the internet began serving commercial purposes in the 1990s.
Throughout this article, you'll frequently encounter the word "web," derived from the metaphor of an interconnected (spider's) web, reflecting how the internet is used to display interlinked web pages and applications within web browsers.
Web 1.0—The Generation of Static, Read-Only Pages (Approximately 1989–2005)
Websites built during the Web1 era appear very simple by today’s standards. They typically consisted of text and low-resolution images due to slow internet connection speeds at the time. Web1 sites were usually static, read-only websites—meaning content had to be published online by website administrators, and users could only passively consume information displayed on screen. There was little content users could interact with; common features standard today—such as liking posts, uploading data, or leaving comments—were relatively rare back then.
Key Features of Web1.0
1) Content served directly from server file systems
2) Files existed solely in the form of "a web form and a document"
3) A read-only web with limited user interaction, requiring no login or registration
4) Static pages connected across the internet via clickable hyperlinks
5) Server-side page construction using the Common Gateway Interface (CGI)
6) Frames and tables used to position and align elements on pages
7) Keyword-based search functionality
8) Lack of standardized web protocols
9) First appearances of Flash and Java
10) Limited banner advertising
Web 2.0—The Rise of Dynamic Websites (Approximately 2002–Present)
Web2 enhanced Web1 capabilities through asynchronous patterns, allowing users to query the web and servers in synchronized requests—thus receiving responses with varying latency without freezing or delaying communication.—JulioMoros (Sovryn)
All pages we interact with today are products of Web 2.0. Let’s examine how Web2 differs from Web1:
1) Information flows both ways: while web pages still deliver information as in 1.0, they now also collect information from us; enhanced functionality and improved visual design are possible thanks to higher data throughput capacity
2) In terms of available content volume, the web surpasses all other media combined
3) Web pages can link programmatically, forming rich, dynamic applications usable across multiple devices—not just hyperlinked static pages
4) Information discovery via keyword search and content categorization, further facilitated by user-generated "tags" (short, one- or two-word descriptors)
5) Use of aggregation technologies (e.g., RSS feeds) to notify users of content changes
6) Utilizing user data (e.g., location) to customize web content accordingly
7) Web services that use user data to deliver personalized content or services based on needs and preferences
8) Tracking of user behavior online
9) Free-form classification of information, enabling users to retrieve and organize data freely
10) Bidirectional flow of information between site owners and users through online comments
11) Development of APIs allowing self-service access, such as software applications
12) More interactive advertisements
Since 2002, Web2 has gradually risen, with one of its key features—MSN Messenger, launched in 1999—gaining popularity around 2003. People born in the 70s and 80s often used it! Shortly after, in 2004, Facebook emerged and reshaped our perception of social media.
While Web 1.0 was primarily text and small images, the 2.0 version includes large videos and any other data sharable and distributable via high throughput. Web 2.0 is both a platform for building innovative technologies and, from a web development perspective, a space where users are treated as flowing objects. Applications like online banking, e-commerce, Uber, Airbnb, etc., connect to Web2 and build specific services atop it.
The main leap from Web1.0 to Web2.0 lies in using websites for communication and response—initially in the form of users leaving comments at the end of articles. This innovation first allowed readers to contribute their own content to the pages they were reading. It also marked the first step toward user-to-user interaction. The second step enabled users to create profiles and upload their data onto the network. Finally, users gained the ability to create groups, engage with others’ content, and assume critical roles such as administrators or moderators.
This dynamic, interactive nature of Web2 is commonly described as the read-write web.
The Web2.0 phase also ushered in an information boom, as you can now search and find answers to questions from various sources. Although social media is often cited as defining Web 2.0, it is merely one component. A recent trend driven by Facebook treats Web 2.0 as a platform supporting other applications. This is achieved by opening APIs and allowing users to add apps to their accounts while sharing some information (e.g., interactions with their social dynamics).
Thus, Web 2.0 became the age of blogs, forums, wikis, and social media, evidenced by WordPress, Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more.
However, perhaps most importantly, Web2 also revolutionized the web browser’s “question-and-answer” interaction model, now offering suggestions for potential expenditures, such as restaurant tips or shopping advice. Additionally, pervasive targeted advertising is heavily influenced by your online activities. For example, if you click “like” on a thread discussing a particular video game, you can expect similar or related content to appear in your social feed.
You may have already noticed that the ads, products, and recommendations shown to you differ from those shown to your friends. This is because the web collects information about your online activities—such as your spending habits—and uses it to tailor content on the web to match your preferences. While early versions of Web2 allowed you to purchase specific goods without individually targeting your interests, in recent years, your specific behaviors have become prime targets for data collectors.
In short, unless you invest significant effort into online privacy measures, you are inevitably under surveillance by the web.
It is precisely this need for privacy, coupled with the simultaneous desire to freely use various internet functionalities (expressing oneself in any form, using internet services, gaming, or simply consuming data), that constitutes the key challenge Web3 must address. Fans of blockchain technology might already understand this, but others may not yet see the opportunities offered by this technology. Before entering the final chapter of this article, we should familiarize ourselves with the underlying technologies and site characteristics of Web2.
Some of the Most Important Website Features in Web2 Include:
1) Users as first-class entities within the system, featuring prominent profile pages including attributes such as age, gender, location, endorsements, or reviews from other users
2) Ability to establish connections between users through links to “friends,” membership in various “groups,” and subscriptions to “updates” or RSS feeds from other users
3) Capability to publish content in multiple formats: photos, videos, blogs, comments, rating others’ content, tagging content (for self or others), controlling privacy settings, and empowering users to create their own web content
4) Other more technical features include public APIs allowing third-party enhancements and “mashups,” embedding diverse rich content types (e.g., Flash videos), and communicating with other users via internal email or IM systems
5) Cross-device communication
Key Underlying Technologies That Enabled Web 2.0
1) Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, and is one of the key visible building blocks among popular Web 2.0 technologies. Definition of asynchronous: “Asynchronous communication is any type of communication where one party provides information, followed by a time delay before the recipient receives it and responds.”
a. Ajax is a combination of several technologies integrating web page presentation, interactive data exchange between client and server, client-side scripting, and asynchronous updates of server responses. The Ajax intermediary resides on the client side, sending requests to the server and asynchronously updating the page. A key component of Ajax based on open standards is the XMLHttpRequest (XHR) API, which scripting languages use to exchange data between the client and web server. Many popular dynamic web applications, such as maps, utilize XHR.
b. The primary purpose of Ajax is to enable scripts to act as HTTP (or HTTPS) clients, sending/receiving data from web servers using various common HTTP methods (currently supporting GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE, and OPTIONS). Thus, Ajax enables dynamic layout and reformatting of web pages, reducing required reloads by sending only partial requests and interacting with servers on demand. Responses from the server are processed asynchronously by the browser.
2) Flash (created by Macromedia, now owned by Adobe): Flash objects can provide similar functionality; once downloaded, they can communicate asynchronously with servers. For instance, YouTube videos can begin playing before the entire movie is received. Users download a compact flash object that downloads a small prefix of the video and starts playback while asynchronously fetching the remainder. Currently, Flash is mainly used to render rich embedded objects such as videos, audio, and games.
a. There was a time when Flash led technologically. However, over time, more and more websites and mobile apps have stopped using Flash. Better alternatives for creating films, audio, and other interactive media include jQuery or HTML5.
b. Flash was deprecated in 2017 and completely discontinued in 2020.
Recap Before the Final Section
So far, we’ve described a web that purely serves users from centralized servers. The simple, static Web1 evolved into an enhanced, dynamic, faster Web2 with extensive social functions.
These servers have centralized owners and, in most cases, a single point-of-failure database that can be seized, stolen, abused, or shut down by governments. This implies two things:
Content taken down can be used against users, since social media sites hold copies of your personal data
Centralized services can be shut down at any time, meaning tech giants can ban users with or without justification
In certain countries, Facebook, Google, YouTube, and many other Web2 platforms are fully restricted.
In some regions, people are denied access to the internet altogether.
To conclude this section with a touch of irony, we must mention the final issue making this space even more frustrating: due to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), every website throws countless cookie notices, exacerbating the problem.
So now, is there a way out?
Yes!
Servers must partially transition to public blockchains—public blockchains that harness the power of zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) to make the network unstoppable.
Blockchain adoption is not just a 2022 buzzword—it represents the true direction of current development.
El Salvador became the first country to accept Bitcoin as legal tender, and Texas is moving to legalize Bitcoin taxation.
This is already happening; don’t miss this event.
Why might this happen? Please continue reading the final section of this piece.
A message to all libertarians, tech-savvy individuals, cypherpunks, and freedom fighters: “Stay Sovryn.”
Web 3.0 Concept – A Personalized Web Designed for Data Consumption While Protecting Privacy
The third stage of web development should enhance everything we know about Web2. This version will invite us into virtual reality worlds, allowing us to comfortably attend museums, concerts, or exotic destinations from home. In a world where we can apply personalized settings and preferences to shape our reality, we can push our creativity beyond current limitations. However, currently, the privacy and security aspects of Web3 are even more critical.
On creating within the semantic web… “In Web2, applications are designed to be interactive. But this interactivity cannot be further defined by users—beyond font choices, color themes, or language. By contrast, imagine your own preferences shaping your web experience. Compared to the read-only Web 1 applications, Web 2 enables us to enjoy immersive and interactive digital media. It brought us decades of engaging content, designed to offer users substantial freedom. Youku, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon—all these applications have enriched or reshaped our lives in ways most people couldn’t have imagined twenty years before the concept of the internet emerged. Now, over two decades after Web2 fully unfolded, we’re contemplating rebuilding the internet again. Web2 designs applications so developers can interact with users, constrained by their tools and internet boundaries. Now we can only imagine what would happen if Web 3 breaks through these imagined limits and offers a way to tailor the internet experience uniquely for each user.” —Unikum (Sovryn)
On sovereignty and freedom… Web technologies from blockchain provide strong, verifiable assurances to users regarding the information they receive, what data they surrender, why they pay, and what returns they get. The Web3 movement aims to create a decentralized network enabling all blockchains to communicate. It is a set of inclusive protocols providing building blocks for application developers. These building blocks offer a completely new way to create applications. Think of Web 3.0 as an executable Magna Carta—"the foundation of individual liberty against arbitrary authority of tyrants."
- Gavin Wood, 2018 (Ethereum, Polkadot, Kusama)
While Web2 is described as the read-write web, Web3 can be described as the read-write-trust web. Trust is established by building verifiability into the core layer. This is achieved by adding blockchain to Web2, bringing new possibilities just as Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies enhanced the financial world.
Another focus of development will be the use of proxies
Users' blockchain addresses (hexadecimal codes) act as unique aliases—you can track them, but you cannot immediately associate them with a specific person.
Web3 is a set of related technologies aiming to make the web and internet more decentralized, verifiable, and secure. It aims to give us the ability to freely interact and create on the internet, while protecting us in digital space via proxies or ZKPs when our privacy—or even life safety—is at risk.
Beyond ZKP’s ability to anonymize users, it holds an even stronger ace. It can process unlimited transactions with almost no delay and extremely low fees. While storing large amounts of data remains beyond current technological capabilities, ZK already allows anonymous transmission of large data blocks—leaving no trace anywhere.
This technology was first used alongside the Lightning Network—a decentralized network leveraging smart contract functionality on blockchains, capable of transmitting videos in a decentralized manner and accepting all possible payments. The Lightning Network primarily focuses on using payment channels to improve Bitcoin’s scalability and accelerate Bitcoin transactions (TX).
In the future, more and more decentralized applications will operate autonomously following Bitcoin’s footsteps, without needing a central party for maintenance. Maintenance and development will still be required, but this too can be handled by free, open-source communities rather than companies led by CEOs. This autonomy is a highly significant property absent in any prior technology, and Bitcoin possesses it due to its robust economic incentive mechanisms.
Goals of Web3 Include:
1) Building trustless infrastructure using smart contracts—you can do anything on the web without worrying about technical flaws or fraud working against you.
a. Voting in elections
b. Borrowing money from others or lending to them
c. Participating in NFT markets
d. Anonymous broadcasting
2) Enabling global, direct user interactions without intermediaries.
3) Empowering users with control and ownership over their data, identity, security, and transactions.
4) Granting censorship resistance—i.e., enabling users to publish any content, ensuring no authority can delete it (unless they ban the entire internet).
The Web3 Movement Includes:
1) Blockchain and decentralized web (dWeb) projects and linked data initiatives
2) Technologies adding capabilities for securely linking data and programs, cryptographic verifiability, transaction processing, peer-to-peer (P2P) connectivity, and trustless interoperability
3) Decentralized computing and storage supporting fully autonomous applications (dApps)
Key Aspects of Web3:
1) Directly linking web pages and programs to each other while bypassing intermediary organizations, cutting out middlemen, and achieving publicly verifiable transparency
2) Transforming centralized applications into decentralized protocols that are more secure but harder to build
3) Improving existing structures and introducing new functionalities:
a. Better synchronization between mobile apps and the web
b. Content accessible across multiple applications, with every device connected to the network and services usable anywhere
4) Using the semantic web to advance web technology needs, creating, sharing, and connecting content through search and analysis based on understanding word meanings rather than keywords or numbers
5) Ability to use platforms that connect platforms—i.e., platforms that interact across platforms or share spaces across multiple platforms
6) Augmented reality and virtual reality
7) Digital 3D spaces specifically designed for extended use—museums, concerts, video games
8) Machine learning, automation, and artificial intelligence; computers can distinguish information like humans, delivering faster, more relevant results and becoming smarter to meet user demands
9) DeFi and peer-to-peer interactions
Web3 as Blockchain-Enhanced Web
Another way to understand Web3 is as an enhanced version of Web2 with additional blockchain capabilities—such as NFTs, DeFi, and the heavily hyped buzzword that has existed since the 1990s: the metaverse. In Web3, blockchain plugins like MetaMask will become standard tools, serving as portals into these domains. People will be able to:
1) Trade their items, whose ownership is tied to the NFT tokens they hold.
2) Adopt DeFi as an alternative to their banking system.
3) Applications such as decentralized finance (DeFi) will benefit in Web3 from increased liquidity and the ability to build service networks that interact across communities, expanding their user base and available resources.
4) Use blockchain bridges like WormHole (or other bridge platforms not hacked due to human error, such as RelayChain—note: the WormHole hack occurred mid-writing this sentence; part of the issue stemmed from Solana smart contract code) to transfer assets across blockchains.
5) As blockchain technology matures, some projects are addressing this by building “bridges” between networks. Transitioning toward a world of interconnected blockchains and interoperable systems will allow applications to build upon each other’s services and strengths. As this new, decentralized, and interoperable internet begins to take shape, it could significantly impact a wide range of services.
6) Participate in virtual reality worlds that integrate multiple games or even entire gaming platforms (like PlayStation and Xbox).
Games, platforms, graphical interfaces—when a technology inherently exists within Web3, these boundaries dissolve. You’ll be able to transfer your avatar from one game into another, spend currency earned in one game within another, and more.
Web3 and Personalized Preferences
From a searchability standpoint and from the user’s perspective on how search results are returned, Web3 doesn’t differ much from Web2.
In Web2, users search for answers and receive results that others searched for most. In the current iteration of Web 2, results are also filtered and ranked according to your personal preferences or adjusted based on information gathered from tracking your online status and behavioral patterns. You can use voice commands in your car to search the web for a nearby Japanese restaurant currently open, highly rated by users, and matching your previous search preferences. The web search will locate the nearest restaurant based on your smartphone’s location and order results based on information in your profile or your order history. Then, the web will ask if you’d like to preview the menu and read it aloud for you.
However, the main difference between this Web2 process and the one in Web3 lies in anonymity. This means, for example, that you will be able to perform searches without anyone knowing your identity, location, or any other information from your personal dataset.
Now, if Web3 were to compete with Google, although Google’s search capabilities exceed those of Web3 today, with Web3, users could search something on Google without Google or anyone else being able to determine the source of the search. Given Google’s history of censorship—hiding or altering the “true” rankings of webpages it deems objectionable, whether under pretexts of “misinformation” or “danger”—or simply because certain pages pose competition to Google or its partners—this capability is especially valuable today.
Therefore, as you can see, the challenge Web 3.0 should address is privacy on the internet.
Why Blockchain Transforms Today’s Data Monarchy into a Data Democracy
TLDR – Because it guarantees anonymity.
As previously mentioned, whenever we use web services, we lose control and ownership over our data. This happens because sending and receiving data creates local copies on both machines. This is not only a privacy concern. It’s also a major issue in the backend operations of e-commerce supply chains for goods and services, where document processing and data management are cumbersome, costly, and inefficient. When we send data over the internet, we cannot control what happens to it because we cannot see the data stored on other people’s servers.
Blockchain introduces a completely new way to store and process data, built upon the idea of peer-to-peer (P2P) technology that eliminates intermediaries. P2P technology is not new, but blockchain is elevating it to a new level. With blockchain, all computers in a node network possess the same level of information; all data is transparent to every computer in the network, while cryptography ensures privacy. In this way, users on the network benefit from data transparency while maintaining the privacy of all involved participants.
Blockchain makes this possible through recent advancements in zero-knowledge (ZK) technology.
The acronym zk-SNARK stands for “zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive argument of knowledge,” referring to a proof structure that allows proving possession of certain information—such as a secret key—without revealing that information, and without any interaction between prover and verifier.
“Zero-knowledge proofs” (ZKPs) allow one party (the prover) to convince another party (the verifier) that a statement is true without revealing any information beyond the validity of the statement itself. For example, given the hash of a random number, the prover can convince the verifier that such a number indeed exists with that hash value—without revealing what the number is.
From https://z.cash/technology/zksnarks/
In practice, zero-knowledge proofs can also serve as safeguards for network democracy, since a key component of any democracy is the right to vote freely without fear of consequences. Being unable to hide one’s identity while fearing free speech is a hallmark of tyranny. A true democracy should:
1) Keep private voting decisions confidential
2) Verify that eligible voters cast ballots without accessing voter preferences
3) Ensure each vote carries equal value and weight compared to any other
In some countries, this is still impossible—but it could be changed through the anticipated implementation of Web3 with ZKPs.
These technologies implemented in Web3 will enable voting in an untraceable manner that respects people’s privacy and freedom.
Core Concepts of Data Democracy in Web3:
1) Uncensorable, anonymous, and peer-to-peer commerce
2) Uncensorable and anonymous social media
3) Governance systems: “Allowing all users to participate and allocate budgets of any project to whomever we choose.”
The last point is currently lacking in some Latin American and even European democracies.
Here Are Some Examples:
Example 1: Web3 and Governance Systems
The best example of Web3 applied to governance systems is the rise of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). Over the past seven years, DAOs have shown us that real power is exercised primarily through budget approval, secondarily through electing representatives. Previously, in a world lacking technology enabling ordinary citizens to directly approve or oppose proposals, electing representatives was necessary for scalability. Web3 changes this—ZK enables scaling this concept to mass adoption. **In a world ruled by corruption and debt creation, giving more power to those with more money is insane. Yet, in a world where we can enforce agreements more effectively through incentives rather than threats of force—in a world where proof and smart contracts generate money—more ethical and productive individuals will ultimately earn more money and more voting power.
A drawback of these technologies in governance systems is the risk of Sybil attacks. To learn more about this topic and understand how proof-of-work functions as a defense against Sybil attacks, please read our previous article.
Example 2: Budget Allocation
This resembles donating to a charity, but you have no guarantee the funds will be used as intended. Governance systems based on smart contracts can ensure funds are used only by winning parties and solely for fulfilling specific commitments/purposes.
This is precisely what smart contracts and governance systems aim to solve in the future.
Web3 is paving the way for the next evolutionary stage of the web—a stage where data monarchy transforms into data democracies, and most rights usurped by intermediaries and third parties return to ordinary people.
Only then can you exercise your sovereignty—free from exploitation, questioning, and surveillance.
Final Summary
Disclaimer: This is merely personal opinion, not financial advice, and I am not responsible for anything.
Definitions of Webs (1, 2, 3) are not strict; for one person, a rigid definition of the web might simply intrude upon the virtual boundary between two stages. Some won’t attempt to categorize the web by technological milestones but will instead simply distinguish new and upcoming content from outdated or standardized content.
Key Points to Remember:
Web1 – Users are consumers; content is created by professionals
Web2 – User-generated content, existing centralized web
Web3 – Still an evolving concept, but fundamentally, it’s about decentralized, distributed content and technology, impacting the web in the following ways:
1) Independent, no single point of failure
2) Sustainable despite various data loss scenarios
3) Censorship-resistant (this is the goal)
4) Enables encrypted payments and decentralized finance
5) Leverages the power of ZKPs and public blockchains
Join TechFlow official community to stay tuned
Telegram:https://t.me/TechFlowDaily
X (Twitter):https://x.com/TechFlowPost
X (Twitter) EN:https://x.com/BlockFlow_News
