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Web 3.0 (AKA #web3) is a phrase used to pitch visionary sequels to the popularity of "Web 2.0" to advocate for particular plumbing solutions looking for problems, starting with the "Semantic Web" in the late 2000s, decentralization in the 2010s, and now mostly blockchains & cryptocurrencies; the IndieWeb instead focuses directly on user-centric goals, with technologies only as a means.
Web 3.0 as Semantic Web
The first occurrences of "Web 3.0", occurred during the rise of "Web 2.0" in the mid-2000s, as early as May of 2006, e.g NYT: A 'more revolutionary' Web
Just when the ideas behind "Web 2.0" are starting to enter into the mainstream, the mass of brains behind the World Wide Web is introducing pieces of what may end up being called Web 3.0.
"… asking what Web 3.0 is," Berners-Lee said. "… maybe when you've got an overlay of scalable vector graphics […] on Web 2.0 and access to a semantic Web integrated across a huge space of data …"
Later in 2007 it was documented as equivalent to "Semantic Web" on various roadmaps, graphs, and articles e.g.:
"Web 3.0, in my opinion is best defined as the third-decade of the Web (2010 - 2020), during which time several key technologies will become widely used. Chief among them will be RDF and the technologies of the emerging Semantic Web"
The rise of Web 2.0 was largely driven by three core layers of innovation: mobile, social and cloud.
Web 3.0 as Artificial Intelligence
Web 3.0 as A.I. has two variants:
Web 3.0 as ML AI
A.I. meaning Machine Learning (ML): the buzzword hype of Machine Learning in the mid to late 2010s made it sound attractive to lump it into Web 3.0 definitions:
Web 3.0 is built largely on three new layers of technological innovation: edge computing, decentralised data networks and artificial intelligence
…
Artificial intelligence & Machine learning algorithms have become powerful enough to create useful, indeed sometimes life-saving, predictions and actions.
Emphasis added.
Web 3.0 as Symbolic AI
A.I. meaning machine "understanding" of conceptually representative symbols and their semantics, and thus an evolution of the "Web 3.0 as Semantic Web" definition, but perhaps with a broader phrase, or a phrase with broader appeal than Semantic Web.
Artificial Intelligence: Web 3.0’s semantic web will be enabled by advanced artificial intelligence (AI) software capable of decrypting natural language and understanding user intention.
"Web 3.0, or as might be termed the "post-Snowden" web, is a reimagination of the sorts of things that we already use the Web for, but with a fundamentally different model for the interactions between parties. Information that we assume to be public, we publish. Information that we assume to be agreed, we place on a consensus-ledger. Information that we assume to be private, we keep secret and never reveal. Communication always takes place over encrypted channels and only with pseudonymous identities as endpoints; never with anything traceable (such as IP addresses). In short, we engineer the system to mathematically enforce our prior assumptions, since no government or organisation can reasonably be trusted."
"Web 3.0 enables a future where distributed users and machines are able to interact with data, value and other counterparties via a substrate of peer-to-peer networks without the need for third parties."
"Web 3.0’s semantic web will be enabled by advanced artificial intelligence (AI) software capable of decrypting natural language and understanding user intention"
"Sign of our times: web3 used to be used to describe a decentralized, semantic web, where power was retaken by the final user: power on privacy, power on ownership Now it is a flag put on top of ponzi pyramids whose main observable effect are to ruin people, taldnrs and our planet" @fanf42 September 30, 2021
"When most people think of decentralizing the Internet, what they really want is to kill Facebook. Honestly, that’s a future I can get behind. #web3 is just the #indieweb." @stephenjbell
"I totally agree with this... I haven't done my post on this yet... but I plan to. (disclaimer: I am a citizen of the IndieWeb, also called Web 3.)" @Cambridgeport90
"Web 3.0 belongs to the community of the #Indieweb, not to the blockchain addicts who think that their way is the highway. If anybody wants to kill me for saying that, go right ahead, I’ll just rise, along with my fellows, once more. LOL" @Cambridgeport90
“Despite what web3 claims, it’s possible to “own” your content without a proof of it on the blockchain (see: IndieWeb). It’s also possible to create things just for the sake of putting them out into the world.” Max Böck
"Yup, this about sums it up. A lot of centralization (re: tech billionaires) exists because "it's easier, and people want it." That doesn't mean that it's necessary or desirable. However, in its current instantiation, most of decentralization a la "web3" is just grift & greed." @blaine September 27, 2021
"The term web2 wasn't coined by charlatans cooking up planet-destroying algorithms while pushing crypto pyramid schemes and selling worthless signed pointers to things. Web3 proponents are ridiculed because there is plenty of reason to do so, not because people have changed." @mortenmertner September 30, 2021
"imo, treat web3, metaverse, blockchain, etc as radioactive. don't validate this crap. they're trying to get rich, not solve real problems
just makes me sad that there's so little interest in a real decentralized web, because (by design) corps couldn't profit off of it" @eevee November 14, 2021
"their rugged individualism just makes them unable to see any of our current problems as systemic, and so their solution is to just recreate basically the same structures with different people in charge" @roysmeding November 14, 2021
"My thought on the web3 discussion: there is absolutely something interesting with a lot of positive potential there, but if you buy into a bunch of Techno Utopian ideology that blinds you to the fact that power dynamics exist everywhere, you’re simply repeating past mistakes." @buzz September 27, 2021
"Discord's Nitro feedback forum has been absolutely FLOODED with people saying they're cancelling their subscription due to the CEO pointing out NFT integration is coming, and honestly, you love to see it" @HEYimHeroic November 10, 2021
"There are three non-fraud foundational problems with "web3":
1. No way to reference anything in the real world (oracle problem) 2. Immutable code makes any smart contract its own bug bounty. 3. Everything breaks (more) unless expensive distributed systems are run in perpetuity." @Pinboard October 12, 2021
Not actually decentralization
2021-10-19 Against Web3 and Faux-Decentralization / Despite the hype, Web3 offers fake decentralization and builds upon technology you could build without cryptocurrency.
… the reality is, there are considerable challenges with blockchains — especially when it comes to developing applications on top of them. The architecture is too complex, there are glaring technical limitations (as pointed out by Dabit), platforms like Ethereum are slow and expensive (not to mention the environmental impacts), and there’s no evidence yet that mainstream users even want blockchain applications.
"they are obsessed with running everything, literally everything, on blockchains, and i do not know why. i don't want the entire web to be inefficiently bittorrented around all the time. that sounds like a very silly idea?" @eevee November 14, 2021
"Dear world: It is perfectly possible to imagine a radically-decentralized Web and simultaneously disbelieve that basing it on blockchain is necessary or even desirable.
But de facto, the term “Web3” now means “buy my cryptocurrency” and is thus polluted, probably beyond repair." @timbray December 3, 2021
"it is completely wild to me how many people on here are making 100% confident statements about what is made possible by web3, a thing that does not seem to actually exist
and right at the same time as facebook releases an AMV about "the metaverse" and pretends it's a product" @eevee November 14, 2021
Violates one web for all
Web3 or any versioning of the web violates the goal and vision of one web for all, as embraced by W3C.
As of at least 2025-07-28, the developer.tbd.website domain does not work. The main page at https://tbd.website/ (archived) indicates it has been wound down and open sourced:
"We have transitioned a number of primitives and tools to the open source community, as we believe developers will want to continue to build on this work for years to come."
2022-06-10 announcement:
"this will likely be our most important contribution to the internet. proud of the team. #web5
Since Jack's tweet, the #web5 hashtag on Twitter has become overrun with humor, sarcasm, support, snakeoil etc.
2022-06-10
"If Web3 wasn't confusing enough already, Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and Block, just launched 'Web5' with his company, TBD, and all the acronyms and jargon is giving me a nosebleed."
"it isn’t Web3 unless it comes from the aria live region of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript—otherwise it’s just sparkling blockchain" @eleven_ty September 27, 2021
"I think my favorite thing about web3 tooling is how "what is one useful thing you can do with it today?" is treated as a gotcha question, beneath contempt, even though for binary search, asymmetric cryptography, Bloom filters or any other technology it was dirt simple to answer" @Pinboard November 24, 2021
Web3 is going just great … ...and is definitely not an enormous grift that's pouring lighter fluid on our already-smoldering planet.
2021-12-17 The Third Web: “There are parts of your digital life that currently you can’t really sell, but that’s what they want to change. Everything needs to be bought and sold, everything is just a vehicle for more speculation.”
"(This text is very long. Maybe too long. You can find a PDF and an EPUB of it below. The current version of this text will always live at https://web3.tante.cc)
"Web3 is the latest scheme to distract people in the crypto ponzi sphere from the fact that the previous 27 attempts to "change the world" through "blockchain" failed miserably.
Web 2.0 has been picked up as a term by the entrepreneurial community and its corollaries in venture capital, the press, analysts, large media and Internet companies, and Wall Street to describe a theoretical new category of startup companies.
"No, because I worked in this field and it's nothing but smoke and mirrors. The longer I looked at it, the less anything made sense: there is no technical improvement, it's a solution in search of a problem. Permissioned (private) chains might make sense, but these aren't web3." @KardOnIce December 30, 2021
"Because the web3 proponents keep saying that we "need" their scamtech to decentralise the web, while that is patently untrue.
We had a decentralised web, and the only reason we don't has nothing to do with the technology in use, and everything to do with socioeconomic reasons." @ainmosni January 4, 2022
Web3 is going just great ... and is definitely not an enormous grift that's pouring lighter fluid on our already-smoldering planet.
I’d rather have a tiger come to tea / Than hear more crap about web 3. / I’d rather have a walrus jizz in the butter / than listen to another crypto nutter. / I'd rather have Ann Widdicombe haunt my dreams / Than read more about batshit blockchain Ponzi schemes." @brucel January 4, 2022
The term "web3" is a transparent attempt to associate technologies diametrically opposed to the web with its success; an effort to launder the reputation of systems that have most effectively served as vehicles for money laundering, fraud, and the acceleration of ransomware…
2022-01-14 The Onion: The Onion’s Guide To Web3 / Web3 is being called the future of the internet. But what is Web3, exactly? The Onion explains.
"I'm getting sadder every time I see a friend add ".eth" to the end of their display name.
The current damage being done does not outweigh the potential gains, and feeding into that system just feels like a bigger and bigger grift on society." @theRSSfeeds January 15, 2022
I don’t think it’s on a trajectory to deliver us from centralized platforms, I don’t think it will fundamentally change our relationship to technology, and I think the privacy story is already below par for the internet (which is a pretty low bar!), but I also understand why nerds like me are excited to build for it. […] I’m hopeful that the creativity and exploration we’re seeing will have positive outcomes, but I’m not sure if it’s enough to prevent all the same dynamics of the internet from unfolding again.
2022-01-09@dystopiabreaker (Twitter): On Web3 Infrastructure (archived) where a web3 platform has been used to reply (link to HTTP mirror), again agreeing with many of Moxie’s points but also pointing out what the crypto-web community is doing to fix it.
"The tech trend I have found most dispiriting over the last year is many people who I would consider thoughtful, intelligent, humans being taken in by the web3 grift so completely they pop up with their stupid avatars and Jehovas Witness-style in-your-face evangelism. So sad." @bazscott January 24, 2022
"Liked https://mxb.dev/blog/make-free-stuff/ (http://mxb.dev) Despite what web3 claims, it’s possible to “own” your content without a proof of it on the blockchain (see: IndieWeb). It’s also possible to create things just for the sake of putting them out into the world." @johnjohnston January 27, 2022
"Web3 should be decentralized and that's what I'm working on too. But decentralization does not need blockchains. To try to equate the two is a libertarian ploy. We can have decentralized private data ownership and break big tech's stranglehold on us without blockchains." @ttiurani November 26, 2021
"The reason blockchain web3 gets hype is because there is no getting rich with actual topological decentralization. You need one big ledger to be able to reap wealth from exponential growth.
In sum: when you see excitement, make sure it isn't actually thinly veiled greed." @ttiurani November 26, 2021
Most of the hype around crypto, NFTs, web3, and metaverse is being generated, after all, by already wealthy participants eager to bring fresh blood to the casino.
"No, because I worked in this field and it's nothing but smoke and mirrors. The longer I looked at it, the less anything made sense: there is no technical improvement, it's a solution in search of a problem. Permissioned (private) chains might make sense, but these aren't web3." @KardOnIce December 30, 2021
"The impression I get, speaking as a side observer of this all, is that "web3" tried its best to reinvent the wheel on every step. And it just becomes a horrifying clisterfuck of dozen tiny but"mandatory" things that bleed you with hundreds of fees for smallest things like 2+2" @SaphireLattice December 30, 2021
In this ramble video, I talk about the indie web - also known as the small web or old web - how it's better than web3, and why I think you should make a website.
"Not really. The whole point of #web3 as a term is to launder blockchain's tarnished reputation and turn it into something "inevitable". Like it's some kind of natural evolution of the web.
It's crypto people who lost out on the Amazon/Google bubble trying to make their billions." @_benui April 20, 2022
"web3 is a beautiful thing. instead of designing & engineering a product, you just make a landing page that takes people’s money and tweet about it.
literally eliminates 99% of the risk of starting up. you’re an idiot if you try to make money on the internet in any other way." @nikitabier May 7, 2022
Criticism: 2022-05-16 Web3 is just expensive P2P / Web3 claims to be the only way to save us from commercial entities defining what we can see and what not. Yet, it does exactly this: It results in commercialized entities defining what we can see and what not.
"Web3 so far feels like people who only know Web2 trying to build Web1 from scratch. I truly feel we'd benefit if more Web3 folks researched existing decentralized projects: IndieWeb, IndieAuth, RSS, ActivityPub, Federated web, etc. We should be using these existing tools imo." @person72443 May 30, 2022
"Start the journey here https://indieweb.org/principles. IndieWeb has been around for a long time but there isn’t enough awareness. Folks say web3 is about taking power back from tech but indieweb started that 10+ years ago heh" @GeoffreyHuntley June 7, 2022
"In order to keep a network that is 10 times larger profitable for its owners, customers would need to pay 10 times as much to use it. How likely do you think such a service is to succeed. Clearly, we have a problem."
Criticism: web3 advocates commonly misrepresent "Web 2.0" (revisionist history), and supposed goals are YAGNI blockchain as well: 2022-05-24 Don’t Lie To Me About Web 2.0
The rhetorical "web3" land-grab by various VCs, their shills, and folks genuinely confused about legal jurisdiction may appear to be a done deal.
VCs planted the flag with sufficient force and cash (of dubious origin) to cause even sceptical outlets to report on it as though "web3" is a real thing.
Which it is not — at least not in any useful sense
"If you come to me comparing the indie web to Web3, I'm blocking you on the spot. Fuck you, keep that crypto dogshit far away from us." @MineBoomGaming September 16, 2022
"Indie web is exactly what it sounds like. Personal websites, blogs, that kind of stuff. Basically the internet before sites like Facebook came and ruined everything.
Web3? It's NFT/crypto bullshit under a different name, that's all you need to know." @MineBoomGaming September 16, 2022
Indeed, vague terms like Web3 and the Metaverse seem designed to fool people, to convince them that companies using this marketing have come up with something new that hasn’t been tried before.
Web 3 really just feels like a bunch of extremely confused anarcho-capitalist libertarians stumbled across socialism and are now trying to re-draw it from memory. The technology faces all the same problems as Web2 did (plus many new ones), but is being sold to us as a complete and total solution to human nature.
web3 is less a technology project for decentralizing the internet, and more an economic project for a select few to profit from: those who acquire crypto-assets early…
"When it came time to reckon with social media’s failings, nobody ran to the “web3” platforms. Nobody asked “can I get paid per message”? Nobody asked about the blockchain. The community of people who’ve been quietly doing this work for years (decades!) ended up being the ones who welcomed everyone over, as always." @anildash November 7, 2022
"At this point I've literally heard every single argument for crypto, and I've not heard a single one that holds up to any scrutiny. There is a large wiki in which every thesis is deconstructed intellectually, but crypto is more about faith than reason.
