The Battle for Internet Power: How Web3.0 Will Break Platform Monopolies

The internet seems to connect the entire world, yet it is tightly controlled by a few tech giants. From search to social media, from payments to content distribution, every click reinforces the control of large platforms over our data. Web3.0 is attempting to rewrite these rules—not to overthrow the internet, but to return it to its original vision: open, fair, and secure.

This is not a utopian fantasy. To understand why Web3.0 is important, we need to first look at the trajectory of the internet’s development to date.

Evolution of the Internet: From Open Era to Platform Oligarchy

In the early days of computer networks, a handful of protocols quietly changed the world—TCP, IP, SMTP, and HTTP. These protocols emerged in the 1970s and 80s, embodying an open and inclusive spirit. They are truly open standards; anyone anywhere in the world can build systems based on these protocols equally, without permission.

The underlying logic behind this design is simple: no one can unilaterally control the internet. Because the core protocols are open source, support is bottom-up, and neutrality is maintained. This era is known as Web1.0.

This openness led to a golden age of innovation. Entrepreneurs and investors believed the rules of the game were neutral and fair. But a critical problem arose: open source is hard to monetize.

So, a group of clever entrepreneurs made a smart decision—to build proprietary, closed-source protocols on top of these open protocols. They supplemented the missing pieces of Web1.0: data storage, computing infrastructure, and user experience. These became Web2.0 protocols.

The results were astonishing. A few companies grew into some of the most valuable enterprises in human history, and billions of people used these great new technologies almost for free. It was indeed a miracle.

But it came at a high cost.

The Trap of Web2.0: Data Monopolies and Platform Risks

Today, almost everything we do online—searching, socializing, shopping, sharing—relies on opaque services developed by these tech giants. As a result, these companies hold enormous power:

Control over users: They decide what you see, what you can do, what you can earn. Platforms can change rules at any time, without warning or negotiation, acting almost entirely on their own terms—often stripping third-party developers or content creators of all rights in an instant.

Data monopoly: Every piece of information you generate, every interaction, every location record is held by the platform. This leads to a series of issues:

• Leakage risk: Corporate data centers become targets for hackers. Many companies store sensitive data in plaintext, which, if stolen, becomes fully public.
• Loss risk: Operational failures, hacking, or company shutdowns can lead to permanent data loss.
• Tampering risk: Platforms have supreme control over their databases and can theoretically modify any record or delete unfavorable evidence.
• Censorship and commercial sale: Censorship mechanisms are highly controversial, and your data is also packaged and sold as commercial products.
• Data silos: Data cannot be shared across competing companies, leading to fragmentation across the industry.

Imagine Google has already become the gatekeeper of the internet. Is it even conceivable for a similar giant to emerge on such a platform? Almost impossible. Google would not allow anyone to establish a gatekeeper position on top of it.

Web2.0 is a dead end. We no longer need a better “Don’t be evil”—we need to design systems where “Evil can’t be.”

Breakthrough in Cryptography: How Bitcoin Reshapes Trust Mechanisms

So how can this be achieved? Bitcoin provides inspiration.

Bitcoin’s innovation lies in using cryptographic infrastructure (digital signatures), open protocols from Web1.0 (TCP, UDP), and a very clever incentive structure to build a collectively owned, neutral distributed ledger.

The key innovation of this database is: Its security is entirely built from the bottom up by participants, not guaranteed by any central authority. Anyone, anywhere, can participate without permission. Control over the database is inherently distributed—no gatekeepers.

But this introduces a challenge: many participants are dishonest. If possible, they will try to cheat.

Bitcoin’s genius is in its incentive structure. Instead of placing the sole database in a “trusted” data center (potentially controlled by companies like Google), it makes every participant in the network hold a copy.

To ensure all copies stay consistent (preventing forgery of transactions), each participant (called miners) monitors the network. They use computational power to vote on the validity of transactions. The more computational power they contribute, the greater their voting power and the larger their rewards.

The reward is newly mined bitcoins. Thus, Bitcoin does two things simultaneously: it is a currency, and it is a source of funding that drives its own security. This is known as proof of work (PoW).

The internal logic is elegant: you must contribute security to this database to earn rewards. As a result, an automatic system of checks and balances forms—participants, even if distrustful of each other, trust the collectively protected distributed ledger.

Bitcoin proves that a reliable, permissionless distributed system can operate stably and durably in the real world. This gives us enormous inspiration: along this path, a new internet becomes possible.

The Diverse Vision of Web3.0: From Academic Theory to Practical Exploration

Understanding of Web3.0 is also evolving. Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the internet, once believed Web3.0 should be the “Semantic Web”—enabling machines to understand HTML content and achieve smarter automation. But in recent years, he has shifted direction, initiating the “Internet Charter” movement, calling for users to control their data generated online.

He personally launched the Solid project, centered on a personal data storage system called Solid POD. All data you generate online—contacts, photos, comments—are stored in your own Solid POD. You can choose to store it on your home computer or with a Solid POD provider (even Berners-Lee’s own Inrupt). The key point: All data is under your control, and you can freely add, delete, or grant read/write permissions to applications.

Meanwhile, Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum, proposed another revolutionary vision for Web3.0 in 2014. He believed Web3.0 should be: A broad movement and set of protocols initiated to make the internet more decentralized, verifiable, and secure.

His project Polkadot is defined as a “platform of platforms” (layer 0), aiming to create a multi-chain ecosystem with shared security guarantees for various Web3.0 applications. The goal is to foster an application network without borders, gradually replacing the existing Web2.0 internet.

The directions of these two masters differ, but their goals are aligned: to give users control over their data and identities again.

Core Features of Web3.0: An Open, Secure, and Self-Consistent New Network

Based on these explorations, the characteristics of Web3.0 are gradually becoming clear:

Technical aspects:

• Open: Core protocols must be open source, like Web1.0
• Secure: Must employ cryptographic techniques to ensure security without relying on any central authority
• Decentralized: Open protocols inevitably lead to distributed architectures with no single control point
• Native tokens: Due to decentralization, tokens are needed to automatically settle interests among participants

For service providers:

• Platform code is open, allowing anyone to review
• Not owned by a single enterprise but governed by the community
• Profits are distributed to value creators according to rules, not secretly flowing to major shareholders
• Can accommodate mature Web2.0 business models (ads, memberships, gaming) while fostering new commercial forms
• The exit of individual nodes does not shut down the entire platform

For users:

• User experience similar or identical to Web2.0
• Ownership of their content, with rewards based on contribution
• Clear boundaries and uses of privacy data, with decision-making power
• Confidence in storing private data (thanks to open source code and cryptography)
• Cross-platform asset ownership (guaranteed by cryptography, not a single institution), enabling free transfer

The Practical Significance and Future Direction of Web3.0

Web3.0 is not a simple upgrade of Web2.0, nor a direct successor; it is more like a hybrid of Web1.0’s open spirit and cryptographic technology. Its core mission is to solve the monopoly of platform interests—allowing participants to earn rewards based on their value contribution, not platform discretion.

This involves profit distribution, which is closely related to organizational forms. This is where blockchain and smart contracts come into play.

Not all fields will be replaced by Web3.0, but in areas with strong network effects—such as social media, UGC content platforms (blogs, Q&A, creative platforms), and original content distribution (music, art, books)—breakthroughs are likely.

Web3.0 is not a castle in the air. It aims to address deep issues in human social development: how to establish new incentive mechanisms and trust models on the basis of openness, fairness, and security. This is the core challenge of the next era of the internet.