By Bharat Vivek
Nowadays technologies are an integral part of our lives, the advent of new cutting-edge technologies has direct impact on us, be it the businesses or our journey as a user, everything evolves with the technical upgradation. One of the significant technologies which are deeply entrenched in every aspect of human life and brought technical disruption with their evolution is the Web.
Tim Berners-Lee invented the web 1.0 which was a static or read only version where users can only consume content. The further development resulted in web 2.0, where the users were introduced to an interactive web version which works around the theme “Create & Read”. With it, users can consume as well as create the content but the ownership remains with the platforms essentially the tech giants. The centralized concept of web 2.0 gave rise to the privacy concerns as companies started utilizing consumers’ data by tracking their online activities and generating revenue by showing them targeting advertisements, for example, 82% of Alphabet’s revenue in the year 2021 i.e $210 billion came from advertising across various platforms like YouTube, Google search, Maps, YouTube etc. In a nutshell we can say that in the web 2.0 iteration, corporate interests dominated consumer protection and big corporations benefit more than the user community as a whole.
Issues like continued data breach, increased centralization & mass surveillance, created the demand for Web 3.0 iteration. Web 3.0 is powered by blockchain, artificial intelligence, Metaverse (A/R and V/R), IOT and machine learning technologies and it aims for greater transparency & accountability by utilizing the power of decentralized protocols. In essence Web 3.0 is all about building a decentralized infrastructure to benefit the community and protect individual property & privacy. It aims to restore the power back into the hands of the community.
Web 3.0 as a business model
Along with the evolution of the web, businesses need to pace up with the technological advancements and emerging demands of the space. Web 3.0 has the power to disrupt the traditional businesses by empowering them with decentralization, greater transparency & accountability. The special features of Web 3.0 such as integration of artificial intelligence, semantic web, ubiquity, DLT, smart contracts and 3-D graphics will certainly level up the business models & strategies.
Below are some significant changes we might observe in the business models of existing businesses:
The concept of decentralization will end the monopoly of corporations over revenue generation. The business model will operate on revenue sharing across the chain of value generation. For eg. Helium is a web 3.0 based wireless network provider. Unlike the centralized model of ISP(Internet service provider), in Helium anyone can contribute the extra bandwidth of their wifi and in return get rewarded with the HNT (Helium’s token). HNT can be easily traded as a digital asset on exchanges like Coinbase, Binance etc. Thus revenue generated will be shared across the value chain.
- No centralized authority for marketplaces:
In Web 2.0 there are marketplaces like different e-commerce websites or exchanges which earn commissions to facilitate the trade between buyers and sellers. In the Web 3.0 iteration, there is absolutely no need for a third party to facilitate the trade as users can easily trade peer to peer.
For example, IDEX, it is an Ethereum based decentralized exchange which works on Web 3.0. Another example is Arcade city viz. a peer to peer rideshare & delivery network based on Web 3.0
- Permissionless exchange of data and value:
With Web 3.0 users will be having the complete control of their personalized data unlike earlier. They can easily own and monetize their content and personalized data stored during their internet sessions and the value generated from the content will go back to the content creators instead of the multi-trillion social media giants.
- Improved customer relationship:
Web 3.0 will enhance the trust factor and improve the customer experience overall. With decentralized ledger every transaction will be recorded on the blockchain and will be visible to all the parties. The blockchain is immutable thus all the information stored on it will be authentic. This will contribute to greater transparency and build the trust & long lasting relationship with customers.
- Improved value chains :
Value chains across industries will significantly improve with the application of Web 3.0, as tracking and monitoring of ownership and value creation will be quick & easy with the transparency of the blockchain. Consumers and businesses can easily track the chain, identify the issues/opportunities and improve the services by using the information under a decentralized model.
Web 3.0 is the future of the internet & a bold community movement which aims at enhancing user experience & putting more power in the hands of users. It has the power to revamp the entire user experience of our regular lives. Once the world will be powered by Web 3.0, especially Metaverse, it will change the way we shop, trade, finance or interact across our social circles. The era of Web 3.0 will give a boost to the community-based business models as well as trigger the exponential growth of its use cases such as ICOs, NFTs, dApps, DAOs etc.
Though the future of Web 3.0 seems promising, the road ahead looks interesting as it unfolds. Based on the industry estimates, It might take upto a decade to become mainstream however some industries e.g. payments, entertainment, retail will see faster uptick . Industry experts & investors are bullish for Web 3.0, whereas renowned successful entrepreneurs viz. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and Jack Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter, disapprove of the idea of Web 3.0. Recently Jack Dorsey has revealed his plan to launch Web 5.0 powered by blockchain with the aim to protect the users data. Now the further development & the adoption rate will unveil the future of Web iterations, whether we live in a world powered by Web 3.0 or we will witness another dimension with innovation of Web 5.0.
The author is co-founder and COO, Kassio
