There are a few fundamental differences between web2 and web3, but decentralization is at its core.
Web3 enhances the internet as we know it today with a few other added characteristics. web3 is:
- Verifiable
- Trustless
- Self-governing
- Permissionless
- Distributed and robust
- Stateful
- Native built-in payments
In web3, developers don't usually build and deploy applications that run on a single server or that store their data in a single database (usually hosted on and managed by a single cloud provider).
Instead, web3 applications either run on blockchains, decentralized networks of many peer to peer nodes (servers), or a combination of the two that forms a cryptoeconomic protocol. These apps are often referred to as dapps (decentralized apps), and you will see that term used often in the web3 space.
To achieve a stable and secure decentralized network, network participants (developers) are incentivized and compete to provide the highest quality services to anyone using the service.
When you hear about web3, you'll notice that cryptocurrency is often part of the conversation. This is because cryptocurrency plays a big role in many of these protocols. It provides a financial incentive (tokens) for anyone who wants to participate in creating, governing, contributing to, or improving one of the projects themselves.
These protocols may often offer a variety of different services like compute, storage, bandwidth, identity, hosting, and other web services commonly provided by cloud providers in the past.
People can make a living by participating in the protocol in various ways, in both technical and non-technical levels.
Consumers of the service usually pay to use the protocol, similarly to how they would pay a cloud provider like AWS today. Except in web3, the money goes directly to the network participants.
In this, like in many forms of decentralization, you'll see that unnecessary and often inefficient intermediaries are cut out.
Many web infrastructure protocols like Filecoin, Livepeer, Arweave, and The Graph (which is what I work with at Edge & Node) have issued utility tokens that govern how the protocol functions. These tokens also reward participants at many levels of the network. Even native blockchain protocols like Ethereum operate in this manner.
New to Web3 , do check out to learn new concepts of blockchain at
