Building Web 3.0 - What is this Whole Decentralized Web Thing About?

The Gate-keeping Days of the Internet are Waning

If you’re beginning to explore the world of cryptocurrencies and the decentralized web, welcome. We're breaking down a few key differences between a corporate controlled web and the emerging peer-to-peer web and how a few determined degenerates are building the future, or Web 3.0.

Hosting a website on Web 2.0 is traditionally done by using "servers", which are specialized computers residing in the "cloud". Web hosting servers require a series of specialized skills to run. And while there are some great services or "platforms" out there designed to make navigating the building task easier with servers, it's become apparent that having large corporations controlling the flow of information has several major flaws that we must overcome.

If you have a "gmail" account, "Facebook or Instagram profile" then you're familiar with building Web 2.0 using Google or Facebook. These companies have been providing "free" web server tools to the masses to create websites or webpages on their platforms in exchange for owning all of your content and tracking your online activities.

Moving out of the Corporate Controlled Web

Moving into Web 3.0 into the decentralized web requires having the tools to host your own website. But is this possible? Yes, and hosting a website can be done from a laptop, tablet or mobile device, and it doesn't matter which device you choose. All it takes is using the Chromium browser on your device, which is an open source web browser.

But wait, doesn't Google own the Chromium browser? No. Google, has built a large web platform, which includes some proprietary tools, on the open source code of the Chromium browser. It makes these tools available for "free" in exchange for your permission to track and monetize off of every move you make while you're online.

A good Chromium browser available now to build with is "Beaker". Beaker can host websites. And you can use all the familiar and existing tools out there to build your website on Beaker.

Why Decentralized is Important

Basically the "decentralized Web" or "dweb" is about having a digital life that's not entirely controlled by a corporation. The decentralizers building Web 3.0 are aware of the corporate controlled web pitfalls and choosing to live independently. There is no censorship, cancel culture or verification walls on the decentralized web because large corporations like Facebook and Google don't control everything in the Web 3.0 space.

Web 3.0 Bringing New Connectivity

Being a Web 3.0 developer is naturally somewhat of an activist vibe. Building requires some different skills and tools but the websites and content one can build are free from censorship, and solely owned by you. The tools used are ones we are all familiar with and built right into the Web 3.0 browser.

Benefits of Self-Hosted Internet

To share your website or content, you create a "Hyperdrive" and a "share link" which you can provide to others to access your information. Running your own website off of a Hyperdrive allows you to build your own platform and gives you access to peer-to-peer networking capabilities.

Peer-to-peer or "P2P" means there aren't intermediaries running the network, controlling the information you see, censoring or manipulating or monetizing off of your content. Only people you share links to your content with will have access to your information. The choice to publish or keep private any information remains in your control.

The Benefits of using P2P

A key benefit of P2P is how simple it makes hosting content. Basically any device can be used to host a P2P website at any time. That's pretty rad!

A key benefit not available in Web 2.0 and accessible with P2P is, it enables private sharing. When you create a Hyperdrive and share the link, only people with the link can view the site you create. So if you're working on things that you'd rather not share with the cloud — like your business' IP or a group of the family's photo albums — then P2P will be a welcome choice.

P2P also allows "co-hosting" capabilities. As you access content, you contribute to the content of a hyperdrive staying up and available online by storing the data locally. This conserves energy by contributing bandwidth to other users only as needed.

Sources: Beaker, Github, Twitter.

Written by Mary Ellen Schrock for Floh Creative.

Floh Creative partners with brands and businesses building in the Web 3.0 space and offers consulting and experience in P2P strategies, content building, NFTs and marketing and community management.

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