Tim Berners-Lee, the British computer scientist who invented the World Wide Web in 1989, has declared that he does not see blockchain as a viable solution to build the next generation of the internet, and that the crypto visionaries’ plan for the future should be ignored.
However, Web3, a hypothetical future version of the internet that is more decentralized than the internet, should be ignored, and it is critical to clarify the meaning of words in order to discuss the impact of new technologies, according to Tim Berners-Lee.
Berners-Lee is also unconvinced that blockchain, the distributed ledger technology that underpins cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, will be the solution.
“It’s a real shame in fact that the actual Web3 name was taken by Ethereum folks for the stuff that they’re doing with blockchain. In fact, Web3 is not the web at all.”
He also announced Solid, his own Web decentralization project that aims to radically change the way Web applications function today, guided by a principle of “privacy by design” and placing data ownership in the hands of users rather than in centralized big-tech data centers.
Solid uses a global “single sign-on” feature that allows anyone to log in from anywhere, as well as login IDs that allow users to share their data with others to implement a kind of decentralization network that goes beyond current models such as BitTorrent. In addition, a “common universal API” will allow apps to pull data from any source across the entire Solid platform.
Berners-Lee believes that people often confuse Web3 with “Web 3.0,” his own proposal to reshape the internet. Inrupt, his new startup, aims to give users control over their data, including the way it is accessed and stored.
The sources for this piece include an article in TechSpot.
