https://faun.pub/web3-is-now-web4-is-the-future-c290997398ab
When the internet was just starting to enter the homes of millions, eventually billions, worldwide, there was little notion of it being a springboard for future iterations of “The Web.” To a degree, the internet as it existed in the mid-90’s was what some thought to be the fullest form that it would inhabit. It would either always be like that and continue as such or it would be a fad that dies out eventually. This, however, as we all know, proved to be incorrect. The internet not only didn’t die off as a supposed fad, but it went through multiple evolutions that has eventually given way to an emerging 3rd major paradigm shift since its foundations were first laid: Web3.
Web1: The initial, static version the web before interactivity. Involved hyperlinks and very few visuals
Web2: The interactive, social form of the web we experience today; unclear when exactly the transition from web1 to web2 happened since it was a gradual shift
Web3: A decentralized web that is run on immutable blockchain technology used for transacting and verifying identities of users without any middle entity. The transition from Web2 to Web3 is far from gradual and will actually be significantly revolutionary in its approach, yielding users to have the need or desire for far more knowledge of the inner operation of the web than they would in iterations 1 and 2 in order to effectively engage with the offerings of Web3.
Web4 is a hypothetical future iteration of the internet that has all the features of Web3 without any of the need for users to understand the inner operations of the web. It would be frictionless and users wouldn’t need to be aware of the technicalities of the blockchain(s) it is running on or what the gas limits on transactions would be.
Web4 would also be something that exists in a time period when the digital economy and digital assets are normalized. We’re not too far away from a future where understanding of digital scarcity and tokenomics are second nature to new users growing up with Web3 and the upcoming metaverse push. Web4 would come about at a time when there is less of a barrier between physical and digital boundaries, some even predict the possibility that Web4 would be a symbiotic web, a human-machine symbiotic relationship that uses direct brain-to-machine interfaces.
In order to create a frictionless Web4 experience where users have no requirement to understand the layers at work that are providing their service, a decentralized data log would need to be implemented on-chain to manage the pain points of the experience. The best way to manage this is through an emerging technology in data mining and computer systems event management that is known as Continuous Intelligence (CI). Continuous Intelligence software leverages multiple intersections of the Information Technology space to create real-time augmented analytics, event stream processing, and machine learning based solution management.
Web4 wouldn’t be possible without a decentralized CI implementation that can make a frictionless experience for end users. Real-time analytics and event management would make it such that users can continue doing what they want while the backend systems are logging and solving any issues they encounter in real-time using a machine learning model. One of the key examples for how the future of the internet is reliable on real-time data analysis and decentralization is from the 2021 Facebook Outage in which the Facebook, owner of WhatsApp and Instagram, experienced a global outage across all of its applications and any application that required a Facebook login. This occurred due to a configuration change in the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between the company’s data centers. If Facebook had a CI model in its network, they, or rather their machine learning model could have isolated the incident almost immediately. Further, if Facebook wasn’t a centralized entity that had ownership of so many subsidiaries, multiple applications would not have been impacted. If a similar outage were to happen in a Web4 model that is running CI through its network, we’d likely not experience a global outage due to decentralization, but further CI could isolate and repair the incident in a rapid response.
The question of when Web4 will happen is difficult to predict as there still needs to be mass adoption of Web3. What is clear as of now though is that the push from Web2 to Web3 is more challenging and turbulent than the push from Web3 to Web4 will be. Upon implementation of Web3, Web4 will happen almost seamlessly, out of demand and need for a more user-friendly experience. Currently the reason Web3 is not gaining mass adoption is for a multitude of reasons, chief among them are the barriers to entry. Knowledge of tokenomics, gas fees, and smart contracts is something that the everyday user has no interest nor necessity to learn just to produce and use applications.
Credit: Gartner
With only 16% of Americans having traded in, invested in, or even simply used cryptocurrency to transact, the possibility of mass adoption in the near-term is low, but as with all revolutionary technology be it the printing press, cars, or the internet; network effects can eventually yield mass adoption. Although we are currently in the Trough of Disillusionment phase of the Web3 hype cycle with the current Crypto Winter environment, we’ll see that as barriers to entry are further removed and user access is simplified, those in Web2 that are tempted by the offerings of Web3 will jump to adopt it. The big hurdle therein is the mass adoption of Web3. Once that occurs, possibly sooner than we think, the floodgates will officially be open for a Web4 future.