Last year, to celebrate the launch of this website I wrote a manifesto covering my thoughts on web development, the state of the internet, browser wars and ever-changings aspect of the web. You can read that here: We Are Not at A Crossroads.
In that article I briefly covered how I disagreed with the then recent Crypto/AI/NFT/Metaverse designation of Web 3.0. I could have elaborated on it further but to not go off-topic I chose not to.
The original purpose of the concept WebX.0 was to split the world wide web into different eras based on the state of web development, content creation and websites as a whole. According to this mantra we are still in Web2.0. Tim-Berners Lee, one of the supporters of this concept has stated that Web3.0 has not arrived yet (unless you're a crypto supporter).
Web3 / Web3.0 is also a piggyback term coined in 2014 by Gavin Woods (Polkadot / Ethereum founder) to describe blockchain infecting everything and changing the very way the web's ecosystem works. The concept has never been endorsed by supporters of Web2.0 but has still become synonymous with it. According to this concept Web1.0 lasted from 1989 to 2004, with 2.0 starting in 2004 and continuing to this day.
I recommend just reading the Wikiversity page on Web2.0 for more specifics and I'll link an article on Web3.
Having communicated with some people regarding the concept I found that I originally mis-interpreted the way the numbers were listed. 1.0 and 2.0 were not separate eras of the web, they were different versions, one being an upgrade from the other. The numbers are treated as software versioning, wherein the first version built off the previous.
I was under the impression that the numbers denoted timeframes. So for example. 1.0 would have a set of standards, programs and frameworks used exclusively (or peaked in popularity) during that era.
Under the official guideline, Usenet would be part of 1.0 and 2.0 would still be compatible with it. And it is. Usenet is still around and is still used to this day. Under my impression Usenet would've been confined to the specific era it peaked in or largely consider its 'golden era'. Usenet is still around, albeit nowhere near as popular as it was in the 80s/90s.
Regardless, I still don't agree with the software designation. The web is not a solitary piece of software, it does not get upgrades and is better compared to a community, ever-changing and moving onto new and different things.
I disagree that we are currently in Web3.0 or 2.0 and instead argue that we are in the 5th era of the internet. Let me define here what Web1.0 to 5.0 consisted off.
Web1.0 - The was the world wide web in its infancy. ARPANET was built and the first echoes of the internet started to happen. Researchers built what J. C. R. Licklider envisioned, Unix was born, PDP computers were commonly used, and the first computer games were made on PLATO. Time-sharing was a concept established here too.
The average consumer knew nothing about these developments. You would've only heard of these things if you were a member of the US government or researcher at one of the various universities that put together this stuff. This era lasted from 1969 with the birth of ARPANET to 1980 when Usenet was born. Usenet greatly increased the amount of people using this system.
Web2.0 - What we call the web had been established, universities were at the forefront of this technology, video games as a whole were starting to pop off and the first consumer-grade computers were made. The ZX Spectrum, Amiga and Commodore became household devices. The concept of computers and internetworks began to permeate into public consciousness as well. This era we begin to see Usenet evolve and take hold. BBS, mailing lists for various topics, very simple personal pages and even basic multiplayer connectivity with GameLine and the PlayCable. Your connection to the Internet was done through Dial-Up.
It was still very limited who could use computers, but the number had increased significantly since Web1.0. This era lasted from 1980 to 1993. In 1993, an event known in infamy as the 'Eternal September' occurred. With more users accessing Usenet communities were challenged and the long-established rules were ignored by the mass of new and uninformed users.
We aren't even in the 2000s yet and we're already in 3.0. So much evolution happened between the birth of ARPANET and Eternal September that to list them all as one era (stretching into the 2000s) is preposterous.
Web3.0 - Web3.0 is the era I grew up in. With more people on the internet it began to get more consumer focused.
We saw the birth of flash, basic HTML/CSS, people making websites, the birth of social media, widespread consumer computing, 3DFX GPUs and GeoCities was a thing. Additionally, phpBB message boards were commonly used, the first public trackers like Limewire and Microsoft got hit with an antitrust lawsuit. Y2K happened. The Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina became events that affected people around the globe with videos of them shared around the world.
The cut-off point for this era was 3 things that happened in 2008. GeoCities came to a close, the 2008 global economic crisis occurred, and Google started the Chromium project.
These three events though not world-changing, changed the very way we interacted with the internet. The end of GeoCities was symbolic in that it saw less people making personal sites and people starting to congregate exclusively on social media platforms. This set up the ongoing consolidation of the Internet. And Chromium would go onto dominate the browser market and end the Browser Wars.
Web4.0 - With GeoCities gone and social media really popping off (Myspace was getting 200k sign-ups daily at this time) the web began to change massively. HTML5 was established. People started to use their OS less, doing everything in the browser. Webapps were made, archiving with just wget became impossible. Dynamic websites became the norm. JavaScript took over everything. Most browser engines vanished leaving Chromium and Firefox. We started to see the first streaming sites. Companies and governments started using social media and malware became more sophisticated but not as widespread. Mobile computing also exploded here with Android and iOS taking over from the Palm/J2ME/BREW-era of cellphones.
This era is really recent, and I determine it ended in 2020.
Web5.0 - 2020 saw the COVID-19 pandemic take over the world. While causing widespread issues all over the place, it also forced the largest Work-From-Home experiment the world had ever seen. Tech companies started hiring like crazy, snapping up all sorts of talent (which at the time of writing are now reversing).
I would like to include the rise of IoT, but it doesn't cleanly fit into the timeline.
Another thing I started to see happen was a bigger push for Crypto. Now there have been bull runs and crypto events prior to 2020 but none like this. Dogecoin became relevant for a bit, the public started to really hear about crypto. My local news station started reporting on Bitcoin prices and news alongside stocks. And for a few months everyone was talking about crypto. Then it went silent and NFTs started popping off. Then it died and people hyped the metaverse. Then AI talk started. Since 2020 it's been like every X month or year we get some thing that all these 'crypto bros' hype up and claim it'll change everything. Nothing fundamentally changes and they move on. I predict the next 'hype' thing will be ActivityPub and the Fediverse, but I digress. (I mean come on, ActivityPub has decentralization, censorship-resistant, can share all types of media across, not easily controllable, shit, it's everything blockchain supporters wanted minus some integrity).
This 'cycle' is a standard of Web5.0.
Additionally Web5.0 has seen rapid development of AI/LLMs, the dead internet theory reaching public consciousness, the slow rise of the Fediverse and the slow decay of mainstream social media. Reels, Shorts, TikTok, etc, even more mobile computing and vertical videos becoming a standard happened here. People using ChatGPT and TikTok for topic searching has become normalized too.
I could also add that advertising became way more aggressive and outright malicious in cases but that kind of started in 4.0 really.
Another big change is that everything is transitioning from one-time purchase to As-A-Service and there are massive consolidations of sites with websites buying others, slowing morphing into one huge conglomerate.
That is the era we find ourselves in. The fifth era. Web3 as the crypto supports claim isn't coming. We are already in the crypto/NFT/AI-era.
And there has been so much development since 2004 you cannot possibly claim we are in the same era. Too much has changed. This isn't the internet I grew up with.
Web6.0 - This is the future and I already covered this in the manifest with lots of doomsday proselytizing. I'll write a follow-up article eventually breaking down the 3 major scenarios that could potentially cause a collapse of the Internet as know it but that's another story.
This is the way I see it with some important subjects of the era.
Web1.0 = ARPANET, Unix, PDP Computers, Time-Sharing
Web2.0 = BBS, Usenet, Mailing Lists, Dial-Up, XBAND
Web3.0 = Flash, Myspace, HTML/CSS, phpBB, LAN-Parties
Web4.0 = Webapps, JavaScript, HTML5, Dynamic Sites, Chromium
Web5.0 = AI, Crypto/NFTs, Fediverse, Platform Decay, XaaS
In terms of eras.
Web1.0 = 1969 - 1980 - Birth of ARPANET to birth of Usenet.
Web2.0 = 1980 - 1993 - Birth of Usenet to the Eternal September.
Web3.0 = 1993 - 2008 - Eternal September to birth of Chromium, end of GeoCities and the 2008 economic crash.
Web4.0 = 2008 - 2020 - Chromium, GeoCities and the 2008 economic crash to the COVID-19 pandemic and big tech hires.
Web5.0 = 2020 - present - The COVID-19 pandemic to where we find ourselves now.
Because most people didn't really have computing in Web1.0 I suppose you could combine 1.0 and 2.0 and then move everything up a notch. For completion’s sake I'll keep 'em separate.
Here is how Web1.0 to 3.0 is commonly defined.
Web1.0 = 1989 to 2004. - Anything prior is ignored.
Web2.0 = 2004 to present. - Covering literally everything.
Web3.0 = 2014 to present. - Covering just crypto. (not officially recognized by 1.0/2.0 supporters)
I originally wrote this to combat the crypto idea of Web3 though as I wrote it, the polemic turned into my arguing against all of it.
Mine and the original 1.0/2.0 systems can sort of co-exist with mine treating the web as more historical, but I still don't like that original concept.
Their model also fails to incorporate the dead internet theory and the effect LLMs will have on artistry and the way people consume content (though there's no way they could have predicted it).
So much changed happened in the eras they defined I find it idiotic to not split them up further. It's like combining video game generations into Atari to the PlayStation 1 then PlayStation 1 to the PlayStation 5, pretending that all the changes from PSX to PS4 were minimal.
Anyways, this is how I believe the internet should be defined. We aren't in Web2.0 and we certainly aren't in the crypto utopia promised in Web3.0. We are in the fifth era.
We are in Web5.0.
