What is Web3? - one answer.

I've seen multiple definitions of Web3, most recent and frustrating was from this[1] article that loosely defines it as "Web3 is at best highly aspirational and at worst a flat-out scam"

I'm from a very technical background and Web 2.0 was all the rage as i was graduating, so now that web3 has arrived, for me it least, it has a very obvious definition that I've not yet seen mentioned.

web2.0 was all about interaction, where the original internet's killer feature was 'hyperlinking' (static pages of texts that you could link together at style (poorly), web 2.0's killer feature was interacting, CGI 'common gateway interface' allowed applications to mutate the static pages and add bits that customises the content to the user, and things like hotmail were born. web 2.0 birthed the 'deep web', data that is behind login screens or stored in databases until you provide the right search query.

and then along came Metamask... (disclaimer, not a historian, but this was definitely my first bump into Web3), which lets websites reach into your financial accounts. Now please do not be alarmed at this defintition, it is not all accounts and not without your permission, but it is essentially what it is doing, and it brings with it loads of benefits.

Definitons (in bold) follows:

essentially web3 is about bringing you the ability to manipulate your financial accounts via untrusted websites. again, please do not be alarmed at this definition, they are 'untrusted' in the way that banking institutions need all sorts of oversight and licenses in order to store or send or lend or borrow the value you store with them, but web3 lets any old website that you give your personal approval too do the same! [2]

web3 is about allowing the management of value over the internet, via websites designed to let you "login" with your wallet instead of your username and password. bitcoin wasn't really part of web3 until programmable money allowed wrapped bitcoin, we've had decades of being able to login with cryptographic secrets instead of username and password, but it just wasn't used very much, but Ethereum has brought us programmable money, so now we log into websites with our wallets and run applications written by those websites to manipulate the value in our wallets.

end definitions.

so thats it really, to me, web3 is that infrastructure, and for anyone to call that a scam could just as well same that plumbing is a scam, cause one set of plumbing in one particular building didn't work correctly. plumbing isn't a scam but plumbers could be scamming their customers.

web 2.0 was scary, interactive websites could and can and do, do all sorts of damage, why do you think you need a 'password' but also a 'security phrase' and a 'pin' and a 2fa device, web 2.0 brought so much opportunities for scammers, why did we ever let it get off the ground at all!!?? i'm outraged! /s

web3 is just as scary, but we'll use these new scary tools for the betterment of everyone, even while inevitably someone is gonna try use them for their own enrichment no matter the cost to others.

tl;dr; web ('v1') was information linked together, web2.0 was responsive and 'deep', web3 pulls in value and programmable money.

[1] - found this article on /r/buttcoin, "How a Wikipedia editor became one of the loudest Web3 skeptics"

[2] - this small point is actually cryptocurrency's super duper awesome superpower. banks cant let UNKNOWN individuals open accounts, and MOST of the planet is unable to produce the documentation that the regulations imposed on banks require, so those individuals remain unbanked or underbanked.