Web2

Web2 is the read-write web that took over in the early 2000s: sites as platforms and users as publishers.

Unlike the static, read-only pages of Web1, Web2 is built around interactive, user-generated content, social networking, and cloud services. Websites became platforms where users create, share, and remix content in real time. The shift from read-only to read-write is what defines Web2.

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Wikipedia, and Instagram are canonical Web2 products. They turned the internet from a collection of publisher-created pages into a participatory medium where anyone can produce content. This created entirely new economic models, influencer marketing, ad-supported free services, platform-mediated marketplaces.

The downside of Web2 is that a small number of companies control the platforms that billions of people use. They own the data, set the algorithms, and can deplatform users at will. Web3 emerged partly as a reaction to this concentration of power. Tim O'Reilly's 2005 essay named Web 2.0: platforms, user content, and central companies. Web3 is a reaction to that stack.