What exactly is Web3? An in-depth interpretation by Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood

If you’re still unclear about what Web3 is, don’t feel embarrassed — you’re not alone. This concept has been a hot topic in venture capital, media, and corporate promotion for years, but for most people, it remains a mystery. In simple terms, Web3 is a decentralized internet ecosystem built on blockchain technology, representing the next stage of internet development, and potentially even changing the way human society is organized — of course, all of this depends on whether you believe it.

Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood first introduced this concept in 2014, and in a recent interview, he systematically elaborated on his vision of the Web3 ideal. As one of the pioneers of this movement, Gavin currently operates the Web3 Foundation and blockchain company Parity Technologies (developer of the Polkadot project), holding significant influence in the industry.

From Web 1.0 to Web 3.0: Three Evolutions of Internet Architecture

To understand what Web3 is, you first need to understand the development trajectory of the internet.

Web 1.0 era was a read-only network where users were mainly passive recipients of information. Most online activities revolved around static web pages. It was a relatively free but functionally limited internet era.

Web 2.0 is the era we are in now, a read-write network — users can browse information as well as create and share content. This sounds democratic, but in reality, our digital lives are highly concentrated on platforms of a few tech giants: Google handles our searches and information, Meta controls our social interactions, Amazon dominates our shopping. These companies control data, users, and algorithms, and once they change policies or are pressured by governments, we have no alternatives.

Web3 promises a trustless, read-write network — a truly decentralized internet. In this system, users are not owned by any platform but become co-owners of the services. By participating in the development and maintenance of the network, users gain real ownership.

Less Faith, More Reality: The Core Difference of Web3

Gavin Wood summarizes the essence of Web3 in one sentence: “Less trust, more truth.”

Here, “trust” has a special meaning — it’s essentially blind faith — believing something will happen without real evidence supporting why we should believe it. “Truth” refers to having sufficient reasons to believe that something will indeed happen.

Most importantly, trust itself is not a good thing. When you trust an institution or individual, you are essentially handing over power to them, and they can use that power arbitrarily. History repeatedly proves that this power can be abused. For example, WhatsApp claimed to provide end-to-end encryption, and even the company itself couldn’t decrypt user conversations. Sounds secure, right? But how do you know it’s true? You can’t see the code, the structure of the encryption keys, or the underlying operation logic of the service — you can only trust its promises.

Even more frightening, sometimes companies may want to tell the truth but lack the opportunity. When governments or intelligence agencies demand backdoor surveillance tools, companies are often forced to remain silent, as revealed by the “PRISM” scandal.

Against this backdrop, blockchain and Web3 offer a new path: openness and transparency. All code is open source, all transaction rules are verifiable, and anyone can check whether a platform is truly peer-to-peer or secretly relies on a data center. This is no longer faith — it’s a verifiable reality.

Breaking Tech Giants’ Monopoly: How Blockchain Achieves Transparency

One of Web3’s most important goals is to break the monopoly of platform giants like Google and Meta.

Gavin admits that this is difficult to achieve, and he’s not sure if it will succeed, but he believes it is a logical improvement — otherwise, it would mean “human society is heading toward decline.” His reasoning is that if we allow technological power to remain concentrated in the hands of a few, the freedoms we enjoy will continue to shrink.

The key to breaking monopolies is transparency and verifiability. Take WhatsApp as an example: under the Web 2.0 framework, you must trust the company’s promise of “no backdoors.” But in a Web3 architecture, all key management and message encryption processes can be publicly audited. If anyone tries to tamper with it, all network participants can see. This collective, verifiable oversight is more reliable than any single trust promise.

The Ideal and Reality of Decentralization: Who Provides the Services?

Decentralization is the core promise of Web3 and the spirit of the internet. But currently, this promise remains at the technical and protocol level; in practice, people’s online activities still rely on tech companies.

Gavin’s definition of decentralization is: “Everyone can easily become a provider or co-provider of a service, just like anyone else in the world.”

It sounds difficult to achieve, right? It’s hard to imagine ordinary users participating in the operation of internet services. But Gavin clarifies an important distinction: “Having the right and freedom to do something” and “being fundamentally unable to do it” are two different concepts.

In other words, Web3 does not require everyone to learn programming or become developers. The key is lowering participation barriers so capable individuals can provide services using free or low-cost resources. “I’m not trying to convince you that everyone in the world can do this,” Gavin says, “but the more people who can, and the lower the barriers, the more it aligns with the spirit of Web3.”

This ideal may not be fully realized in the short term, but it changes the game — from “only a few big tech companies can provide services” to “any capable person can try.”

The Future Landscape of Web3 Applications: From Economic Services to Social Movements

So what will Web3 look like in the end? Gavin believes that initial Web3 applications might just be small iterations of existing Web 2.0 apps — improved social media, improved email services. But the real breakthrough lies in applications with genuine economic attributes.

Current cryptocurrencies and transfer functions are just the tip of the iceberg. Web3 can support economic services with real scarcity, high costs, or technical difficulty — something Web 2.0 finds hard to do.

For example, imagine a dating app that sets a rule: you can only send one flower per day to your crush, regardless of how much you pay, and this rule cannot be broken. This flower thus has real scarcity.

If this app were operated by a Web 2.0 company, they would likely prioritize profit — as long as you pay, you can send as many flowers as you want. But on a blockchain, this rule is hardcoded into the code, and no one can bypass it, including the company itself.

It sounds restrictive, but it’s this restriction that guarantees fairness and immutability of the rules. In Web 2.0, technology makes people more powerful, enabling them to do more and earn more. But the role of blockchain is entirely different — it’s a social structure, a new set of rules that ensure no one has arbitrary power within the system.

As a user, especially if you can read code, you can verify this. As a participant in the network, you can also collectively uphold this promise — if the rules are broken, everyone will leave.

Web3 Is Not About “Destroying” Tech Giants, But a Larger Social Movement

Finally, it’s important to clarify a common misconception: Web3 is not about destroying existing tech giants but providing an alternative.

While current technology over-concentration threatens the services and expectations we have, Web3’s true goal is much broader. Gavin emphasizes: “Web3 is more like a social movement. It’s shifting from arbitrary power to a more rational model of freedom. This is the only way to protect freedom in the world — and the only way we can ensure the freedoms we’ve enjoyed over the past 70 years continue into the next 70.”

In other words, what is Web3? It’s not just a technology or a new internet architecture. It’s a fundamental reflection on how human society is organized and how to maintain freedom. In an era of increasing power centralization, it offers a technology-driven, verifiable, decentralized trust mechanism — allowing us to no longer blindly trust promises, but to verify reality through code and transparency.