Web 3 — An internet for everything: empowering individuals and businesses to take control
The dominance of BigTech / Platform businesses
Despite the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2000, the past two decades have seen technology radically transform our societies and lives. The biggest changes have been the rise of platform business models / BigTech. More than 50% of the world’s largest companies are platform businesses. And in Europe, 50% of all businesses rely significantly on services provided by a platform. This affects both businesses and individuals. Due to the rise of these BigTech companies, wealth and power have fallen into the hands of the few (Big Tech).
The 180 Protocol Ecosystem
At 180 Protocol, leading business-focused technology is deployed. This to provide security, privacy, and control for businesses that want a share in digital value currently being exploited by (Big Tech). 180 Protocol not only removes barriers but increases rewards for business as well. By merging private business technology with public blockchain, 180 Protocol allows any organization to digitize their assets.
Impact on businesses
Web 2.0 has proven that businesses that have been properly embracing new technologies will win. Deploying new technologies can be very hard / cost a lot of resources. It raises the entry barriers for newcomers into the tech space reducing innovation and leaving fewer and fewer options for consumers. Digitization is largely driven by data. Many barriers remain to the free movement and utilization of data. These barriers include:
1. High implementation costs (to replace legacy systems)
2. Business model inelasticity
3. Complex (often siloed) stakeholder incentives and structures
4. Privacy concerns and distrust
5. Regulation
Some of the big tech’s products have assisted in the mobilization of data and thus slowly but surely started leveling out the playing field. Even though this leveling should be applauded and appreciated, the reliance on BigTech to provide infrastructure presents its risks over the long term. Despite these new technologies, enterprises who may want to act, often find they cannot because of the risks to monetization are simply too high compared to the potential rewards. The best way to enable such monetization is to remove barriers while increasing the rewards that such enterprises receive.
What is Web 3.0
Web 3.0 also known as the Semantic Web is an extension of the worldwide web. The goal of the Semantic Web is to make Internet data machine-readable.
To be effective, the Internet of things favors large corporations. Because of the scale of large companies they have more data at hand = better intelligence = better outcome. To unlock greater value beyond the corporate boundaries, data-sharing needs to be broadly enabled to ensure representative democratization of data.
Blockchain and Web 3.0
When blockchain is introduced into the equation it enables data to be shared through networks instead of losing control of your data and then being obliged to trust data provided by Big Tech companies. Blockchain enables data to be provided and trusted by introducing digital trust via security — transparency — immutability. Issues of scalability are slowly but surely being solved. Combined with blockchain technologies web 3.0 represents a very big restructuring of the internet — redefining data security, contractual agreements, value exchanges, and much more.
Web 2.0
From the experience of Web 2.0, we know network effects are necessary and important to generate value for businesses. For these reasons 180protocol believes a persuasive and powerful depiction of Web 3.0 is that it democratizes wealth.
Benefits & Opportunities
180 protocol sees clear use cases as being those that leverage network effects. Obvious examples include Business to Business and knowledge-sharing marketplaces. Further, by enabling traditional industries to engage with Web 3.0, the network effects created will help them keep themselves away from the threat of Big Tech by taking away the reliance of these dominant platform players businesses prevent the following:
1. Excessive fees like intermediary services (such as those levied in the restaurant sector for delivery services), referrals (such as flight booking), payment, or advertisements.
2. Commercial exploitation (e.g. reducing technology services in case of non-compliance)
3. Monopoly pricing and bargaining power.
