The early internet in the 1980s through the early 2000s, Web 1.0, was decentralized. It was built on top of a series of open protocols that anyone could build directly on top of, like HTTP for websites, SMTP for email, SMS for messaging, IRC for chat, and FTP for file transfer. The benefit was that these protocols were generally agreed upon and not subject to change; I could build a website on HTTP and if people had my website address, they could go directly to my site, not intermediated by anyone else. (View Highlight)
Stateless. Web 1.0 protocols were stateless, meaning that they didn’t capture state, or user data. “Capturing user data” has negative connotations today, but stateless protocols meant that website owners didn’t even know whether I’d visited a site before, and couldn’t tailor experiences accordingly.
Too Technical. You needed to be technical to build a presence on Web 1.0, which meant that regular people were left out.
Missing Protocols. Web 1.0 didn’t have standard protocols for many of the things that power the internet today: payments, search, apps, social media, commerce, credit, and more.
Protocols Didn’t Make Money! Imagine developing HTTP, seeing trillions of dollars worth of value being built on top of it, and not being able to participate in the upside aside from some speaking fees, consulting gigs, and book sales. Oof. (View Highlight)
Note: Web 1.0 drawbacks
Web 2.0 (mid-2000s to present) emerged as entrepreneurs recognized the holes in Web 1.0 and built products to fill them in, and capture the value in the process. These companies didn’t just capture state, they aggregated it, building up huge troves of valuable user data. They made it so that anyone could participate and build a presence — think about how easy it is to set up a Facebook page versus coding a website. They wrapped existing protocols in frictionless user interfaces and created de facto products where no protocols existed. (View Highlight)
In the beginning, centralized platforms do anything they can to attract users, developers, and businesses in order to build up multi-sided network effects.
Once they’ve built those network effects, though, and they know that users, developers, and businesses are locked in, they switch from “attract” to “extract.” The easiest way to grow revenue is to start charging businesses and developers to reach customers, and to serve customers ads or products based on the data they’ve accumulated. (View Highlight)
Note: Where is CW on the Attract <—> Extract spectrum?
At the heart of Web3 is the idea of consensus protocols and standards with money baked in. (View Highlight)
