All terms
The idea of an internet where users own their accounts, data and assets.
Web1 was read only, a collection of pages you visited. Web2 was read and write, but the writing happened inside platforms that owned the account, the audience and the data. Web3 proposes read, write and own: your identity and your assets live on a blockchain you control rather than in a company database.
In practice the label covers a wide range of things, some of which genuinely deliver on that and some of which are ordinary apps with a token attached. The useful test is simple: if the company disappeared tomorrow, would you still have your account and your assets?
Your Twitter followers belong to Twitter. Your ENS name and the wallet holding it belong to you, and no company can take either.
That Web3 is a finished thing you can point at. It is an argument about ownership that is partly built and mostly not, and a large amount of what carries the label runs on the same centralized infrastructure as everything else. Judge products, not the label.
Common questions
Is Web3 actually different from the web we have?
Is Web3 just a marketing term?
Where to go next
More web3 terms
Want this explained out loud?
Some of these land faster in conversation than in writing. Sessions are one to one and you can ask anything, including the things that feel too obvious to ask.