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The Impact of Web3 Digital Products on the Internet Today
While web3 trends are definitely on the rise today, that doesn’t necessarily mean many people have the best idea of which web3 examples of innovation and forward thinking are going to take hold in this exciting new online space.
In fact, misunderstandings about web3 companies and what web3 digital products will be able to do remain a challenge for even seasoned technological thinkers in today’s market. This is understandable to a degree – breakthrough new technologies classically inspire as much caution as they do excitement, after all.
Nonetheless, as a proactive innovator in web3 apps – through the creation of our Urulabs rewards and incentives solution – we remain a trusted port of call for web3 companies looking to make their mark in this space.
Unsure where to begin? Look no further. In this article, we’ll explore the potential not only of web3 companies overall, but also share web3 examples that prove demonstrable value and proof of concept. Expect inspiration aplenty!
How Do Web3 Apps Afect The Internet Today?
For around a decade or so, we have cultivated and arranged our entire online lives in what’s known as Web 2.0, where informal content creators have as much sway, if not more, than traditional publishing houses and organizations.
Web 2.0 rose from the ashes of the burst of the dotcom bubble, and in a similar way to the web3 examples of today, not everyone knew what to do with Web 2.0 when it was coming only that it was indeed coming and that they needed to prepare their offerings accordingly.
With web3 trends, a more educated forward strategy is made possible – not only because web3 apps often build on the principles of convenience, customization and sharing that have defined the Web 2.0 era, but also because shortcomings within the Web 2.0 framework are now so well documented that solving them is among one of the best web3 examples of innovation around.
However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. To understand the digital products that will shape web3 apps and the next frontier of the internet, we need to dig a little deeper.
The Decentralization Debate of Web3 Apps
You may have heard of web3 apps also being referred to as dApps or decentralized applications. While they benefit from the same functionality of the internet as we know and enjoy today, web3 apps that employ decentralization also experience a growing range of advantages.
You might have heard of the concept of decentralization as primarily stemming from conversations surrounding cryptocurrencies and non-fungible token (NFT) digital assets. While these uses of decentralization have dominated technological conversations in the last few years, in truth, web3 trends are utilizing it to do more than simply mint new tokens on a blockchain.
Indeed, a big focus for web3 apps is privacy and the return of internet control to individuals and smaller groups. This contrasts with the makeup of the World Wide Web today, which is actually largely controlled by immense corporations.
The issue with that is not only the privacy concerns raised by the likes of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Indeed, it involves the weaknesses inherent in the current structure of the internet overall.
For example, when major providers fall, enormous swathes of the internet simply vanish from mainstream access, which is incredibly concerning. To circumvent this, web3 companies often turn to decentralization, where points of failure are so spread out and disparate that the system simply cannot be knocked out or meddled with.
More crucially, and often a cornerstone of web3 companies’ marketing, the ability for a decentralized database structure to better provide privacy is being welcomed by a growing number of demographics.
People are tired of being tracked, having advertisements forced into their leisure time, and feeling as though their lives are simply farms from which giant corporations are farming untold matrices of personal and professional data. Web3 apps emphasizing privacy often use a similar decentralized model as a blockchain cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, where there is plenty of privacy but just enough traceability to prevent crime.
The Role of AI in Web3 Apps
The focus on web3 apps and web3 companies is usually honed on discussions of blockchain technologies and decentralization, yet truthfully, this is only one aspect of the web3 examples of innovation and forward-thinking taking place.
Another cornerstone of this movement being developed by many web3 companies is the broader role of machine learning and artificial intelligence in web3 apps and web3 digital products.
Even today, many of us are inclined to believe that machine learning and artificial intelligence are far-off concepts — the hallmarks of top global universities, the secretive halls of Google and Amazon, or under top secret research by world governments.
Yet in fact, web3 companies prove that these capabilities are already exist and actively collaborate to improve our lives all the time.
This is more than simply asking your smart speaker for the weather or recommending a product purchase, which is itself encoded into a more Web 2.0 environment. Web3 apps using machine learning and artificial intelligence are instead more interested in their applications for medicine and predictive analytics to safeguard lives, as well as far-reaching global issues like modeling the evolution of climate change.
Many web3 companies are developing APIs and similar interactive digital products that are able to interact seamlessly when integrating with one another. The benefit of this is that you can make use of artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities when you create your own web3 apps and digital products without having to generate, train, cultivate, and fine-tune any artificial intelligences of your own design.
There is incredible excitement surrounding this more plug–and–play approach to AI and ML as it relates to web3 examples of innovation. Not only will it prove more useful and seamless to end users, but it also simplifies the development landscape to such an extent that those organizations migrating from Web 2.0 strategies of production to a more frontier-like web3 landscape will have a far easier time getting up to speed.
Edge Computing is the Lifeblood of Web3 Companies
If cloud computing was the breakthrough moment for Web 2.0 digital products, there can be no denying that edge computing is the technology beating at the heart of web3 apps of all kinds.
By using computing structures closer to the original source of where the data first emerged — leaning on the decentralization web3 examples we discussed earlier — edge computing is able to process data faster and more effectively than the centralized approach of cloud computing.
Less bandwidth and summoned processing power mean a far more cohesive and responsive user experience for web3 examples of edge computing in use.
Using edge computing, web3 companies can unshackle themselves from the expenses and vulnerabilities of data processing centers, which likewise frees up web3 apps from hacking and phishing risks.
As an increasing number of aspects of our lives are brought online and as web3 examples of compelling new digital products grow due to the demand for responsive bandwidth and data processing, edge computing is a viable and positive step forward. Research titan Gartner has predicted that three quarters of all enterprise created data will be processed using edge computing by 2025, web3 companies included.
How Permissionless Access is Changing How Web3 Apps Work
The need for trust and to remain secure has created a great deal of bureaucracy today, both online and in our offline personal lives. While we have more security to thank for these systems than we dare to imagine, there is no denying that they can be intrusive, sluggish and overbearing from time to time.
Web3 companies are often seeking ways in which to overcome these sticking points, while sustaining the same level of safety and security we enjoy in our online lives today.
Key web3 examples of that thinking in action, as far as digital products are concerned, are permissionless systems. This means that more personal freedom is given to end users, yet the level of security remains the same, or perhaps even enhanced, through the lack of potential for human error.
The financial world is one of the best web3 examples of this in action, thanks to smart contracts. In traditional banking, borrowing money is a complicated affair in which you essentially have to lay your personal and professional history bare in front of a financial institution and hope archaic things like credit scores and transaction histories don’t rub anyone the wrong way.
Conversely, decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platforms use web3 apps to provide smart contract financing arrangements. Anyone can privately borrow funds to finance life’s surprises, providing they can offer the necessary collateral to satisfy the system that risks are mitigated on both sides.
To call this a game changer is an understatement, and countless forthcoming web3 examples of permissionless personal autonomy are being created all the time.
With Web3 Apps, the Emphasis is on Ownership
The idea of true ownership of digital products has always been a nebulous one, and whether you are an advocate for or a cynic against NFTs, for example, they have undoubtedly opened the discourse surrounding what true ownership of a digital asset ought to mean in web3 apps and beyond.
Where once the idea of paying real fiat currency for a digital item was thought of as absurd, it’s now a mainstream part of our civilization. What web3 companies are pushing for in this modern climate is to bestow a truer sense of ownership on digital products than has been possible in the past.
Blockchain video games like Axie Infinity are a big push for this kind of philosophy, yet they are also not without their problems. The idea of web3 apps letting you truly be the owner of any items you create, earn, or even mint on their internal blockchains is a relatively new one, and the potential here is still being felt.
However, at the broader level, the idea of true ownership of digital goods is one of many web3 examples in which one’s personal power and control are wrested from the grasp of corporate giants and placed back into the hands of end users. As you can imagine, the excitement surrounding these ideas is incredibly high.
Web3 Companies Are Constantly Making New Digital Products
While many of the web3 examples of digital products accessible today focus on cryptocurrencies and blockchain assets, the truth is that this is only, if you pardon the pun, one side of the coin.
In fact, web3 apps are arriving all the time to take advantage of decentralized ecosystems, blockchain capabilities, and edge computing to create empowered user communities that thrive in permissionless web3 apps where giant companies don’t have a say.
Web3 trends being what they are, there are already replacements for Web 2.0 innovations being created all the time. For example, Arcane Maps is a web3 solution that offers navigation while proudly promising never to sell your data, and UHive is a social media platform and metaverse where users can earn and connect without any data harvesting.
The real excitement behind all of these web3 trends is not only that they are revolutionizing the internet as it is currently being used, but that they are also creating entirely new concepts and web3 apps touching on ideas nobody has ever explored in the digital space before.
Naturally, we find our own role in these developments incredibly inspiring and equally exciting. We are continuously working to promote web3 trends that empower positive change in how society engages with and ultimately reclaims ownership of digital products of all kinds, and we are working to map ways in which we can collaborate with the biggest thought leaders in this fast-moving field.
The real web3 examples of life–changing uses for the digital sphere, the metaverse, and the way in which we connect as a civilization are still being created. If you have projects in the works and need advice on how to make web3 trends work for your business model, we’d love for you to get in touch.