Web2

Web2 describes the second generation of the World Wide Web that emerged in the early 2000s. 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.