Let's step in the time machine for a moment and go through the history of the web. And I, being older than the Internet, can happily step you through.
Web1 - Static websites, news sites, email. Everybody paid per minute for access to the web. Sign on, find what you need, sign off so you don't get charged extra.
Web1.5 - This is when the potential of the web started to take shape. We added in chat rooms, instant messaging, and forums. Geocities let us even publish our own (limited) webpages! And now, unlimited internet access! Suddenly, the world got a little bit smaller, as we started to communicate across the globe.
Web2 - Behold, broadband and social media! YouTube, Myspace, and eventually Facebook and Twitter! Blogs also started to rapidly grow, and the redistribution of content creation from commercial publishers to users started to take shape. But unfortunately, commercial publishers looked to continue controlling the narrative, continue controlling the audience, continue controlling the message. Everything is still centrally managed and owned by a select few companies, and social media "networks" aren't actually networks at all, but distribution hubs. One-way live streams of audio and video start to take off, because we actually have the internet connection speeds to support this type of content.
Web2.5 - Gnutella, Limewire, and other filesharing networks enter the stage, and early peer-to-peer distributed computing is born.
Web3 - Distributed finance, distributed content, distributed knowledge. Through blockchain, crypto, and NFTs, "digital ownership" can be established for assets, and distributed finance can allow for digital currency transactions without the need for a bank or the Federal reserve. For content creation, anyone can create content and share with others, and even have multi-party livestream audio and video sessions. No longer are we locked into getting our news and information from publishers, but instead shared directly person-to-person. But this person-to-person sharing is still limited to rely on distribution hubs such as social media networks, and even when using a network such as Mastodon (which could arguably be considered Web3.5), users still rely on a centralized hub to connect. Love him or hate him, the effects of this concept of direct person-to-person information sharing are now showing through Tucker Carlson's announcement of his own show on Twitter, and the massive reach this announcement has achieved. Carlson is now, on his own, likely going to get just as many if not more viewers on his own personal show than he did through Fox News. What we're now seeing is a shift from "trusted sources" such as news outlets to "trusted voices" such as the personalities we once saw on those news outlets. Those trusted voices will become the face of those organizations, and the reason people trust those sources - not because of the company name and the people behind it, but because of the people in front of it! This shift is why I've started focusing more on my own personal brand in the cybersecurity community, in addition to helping grow the brand of the fantastic company I'm working for. Only by moving in front of the brand instead of hiding behind it, can I be considered a "trusted voice" and help that company brand grow.
While distributed finance without a central bank sounds great in theory, it's still difficult to implement. Many would argue that cryptocurrency's potential downfall is the now heavy reliance on crypto exchanges which are now going bankrupt, and in the process resulting in significant reductions in the value of crypto currencies.
Some of you might be too young to remember the dot com bubble burst. There was a lot of speculation, a lot of investing in companies which never should have been invested in, but all a company had to do to get investors was talk about how they were going to revolutionize their industry through the internet. The result of course was extreme overvalue of the companies, and when these companies failed to live up to their promises, the investors lost significant amounts of money.
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| Bitcoin 5 Year Value - Source: Google |
Crypto currency is now facing the aftermath of a similar bubble. The collapse of crypto exchanges is very similar to the dot com bubble burst, in that the exchanges were causing crypto to become extremely overvalued. Unfortunately, with some exchanges still in operation, it's quite possible that this burst hasn't quite finished yet, but only time will tell. Personally, I prefer to invest in much more tangible assets I can directly influence the value of, such as real estate, than investments I have little to no control over. I currently have a wonderful property in Florida that is sitting in an upcoming neighborhood and will absolutely skyrocket in value once I build a house on it. The key here is that I can directly influence the value of the property by improving the property. With crypto currency, or even the stock market for that matter, I am but a bystander at a horse race, hoping that my bet will win. That's not investing in my opinion, that's just gambling. In fact, often I would be better off taking that money to the horse track, because at least at a horse track I know what my odds are of winning, and how much I'll make if I do win.
Full disclosure, I sold all my crypto currencies several years ago when I started to see indicators that the market was in a bubble and about to burst. I'm glad I did, because those investments would today be worth a fraction of what I sold them for. I didn't make much from this, as I only had about a hundred dollars invested anyway. But getting a hundred dollars back is much better than getting only twenty-five. With that said, I believe that crypto currencies are not the future of the web, but blockchain is in fact an important building block for the future of the web, and the true currency of tomorrow - information.
So what's next? What comes after distributed finance, crypto currency and Web3?
Web3.5 - Artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT will help further pave the road for Web4. Much like the traditional OSI computing "layer" model, information will develop its own layers which ChatGPT will help revolutionize. I'll write further on this in a future blog, but think of information as "raw data" with an accompanying "presentation layer", i.e. formatting, or even illustrations. DALL-E and ChatGPT have the ability to take raw data or concepts and turn them into presentable information, ready for consumption by others. This helps further break down barriers for users by helping build useful content with less time and fewer resources. By the way, the illustration at the beginning of this article was AI generated, though I opted not to have AI write the article. After all, I still take much enjoyment in writing, and I won't let a computer deny me that.
Web4 - The Web4 revolution will remove the content distribution hubs for information. Content will be shared directly with users peer-to-peer. Not only does this create a failsafe redundancy in case a social media outlet goes down, but it also creates the opportunity to operate without censorship. And no, sorry Mark Zuckerberg, but virtual reality "Metaverse" will not be part of the Web4 revolution. The Web4 revolution will focus more on the digitally connected world which is constantly mobile, and until we get better augmented reality glasses to connect to our mobile phones, our digital conversations will remain in the two dimensional world. Don't get me wrong, virtual reality will absolutely play an important part in our lives in the future, but won't be the "virtual Facebook" experience that Zuckerberg is hoping for - because at that point, most content distribution will be peer-to-peer instead of centrally managed. This is also going to shift branding away from corporate branding as trusted sources and more towards personal branding and trusted voices. By building to make yourself a trusted voice now through your own personal branding, you'll be much better positioned to be viewed as an expert in your field with the Web4 transition.
Think of the Web4 content sharing concept like a relay network of walkie-talkies. You broadcast your message on a frequency that others are tuned into, and the recipients of your message then pass on that message to others within their listening area. Eventually your message makes it across the entire network. We could then enhance this communication to include unique signatures through blockchain, ensuring that you were indeed who you say you are, and that your message wasn't tampered with.
The beautiful part of this approach is that it becomes self regulating, and users share their content with other users who want to see that content. If a user doesn't like the content you're distributing, they simply need to block your posts, and in the process block the re-distribution of your content through their network node. Like users will find like users, and corporate censorship will be a thing of the past. Now I know that this causes concerns for illegal content, but I'm quite confident that through the non-repudiation part of the blockchain, law enforcement would be able to successfully find the originator of such content and prosecute accordingly. After all, they were able to shut down Silk Road.
Web3 has absolutely laid the foundation for the distributed communication and information sharing of tomorrow. I find myself more and more interested in ongoing conversations on Discord and Twitter Spaces, and it's fantastic some of the information you can learn just by listening, and the relationships you can build by participating. There are already some applications out there under development for Web4 distributed communication and social network sharing. I've tried them, I love the concept. They're young, they're buggy, they're absolutely not ready for prime time. But I think with a lot of nurturing, and support from the community for such projects, these Web4 applications will begin to shine, and give the power back to the people for sharing information, with Web3.5 helping people build that content for Web4.
In the meantime, start working on that personal branding and becoming a "trusted voice" - you're going to need it sooner than you think.
Ken is a cybersecurity professional with over 15 years experience. All opinions are his own, and do not reflect those of his employer or clients. I am not a financial advisor, don't use this for investing advice.
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