Hacker News Reader

Comment by mcv | Hacker News Reader

I would really like web3 to go back to distributed networks. Fediverse and all that. I guess cryptocurrencies fit in there too; I guess web3 would have its light and dark side. But decentralisation would be a nice theme.

TikTok isn't really fundamentally different from the stuff we consider web2, is it?

(I actually think imposing these artificial "generations" on web evolution is silly, but if we're going to do it, I'd prefer to use it to steer it towards something positive.)

View on HN

>TikTok isn't really fundamentally different from the stuff we consider web2, is it?

Yes, it is. It's only superficially similar (technically "user-generated" content). It's a qualitative difference. The fundamental difference is human-curated vs algorithmic. You go on youtube or instagram or tiktok and all you see is what the algorithm pushes: usually the shittiest most junk content imaginable. It's a qualitative difference from having your blogs and following links and etc.

The other main difference is of course that it's now all commercial. Everything everywhere, be it a google search for "best blender" to a youtube frontpage, is trying to sell you stuff or to make you click on ads. It contaminates everything.

But what about this is TikTok specific? Google and Facebook have done the exact same thing for ages.

I think Web N isn't about the actual tech being used, it's about the way the tech is being used and how it interacts with the real world and our society. Web 1 was HTML informational web sites, maybe some chat rooms and games here and there but not much affect on the real world. Web 2 was/is the "web app" where you can transact various business online, and group into communities and stuff and which is well integrated into our lives. Web 3, I think, is currently being formed and I have no idea what it is, but whomever can figure that out will be the first nrillionaire or whatever. The tech itself is just all the same if/else statements in a different order.

It's interesting because, at the time of Web 2, it was not only the "social media" proposition the only one, but also AJAX as well as more Javascript-driven websites (with more interaction potential). It was also the time of widgets and iframes, where all kinds of interesting 3rd party integrations appeared, like the bookmarklets (remember Yahoo Pipes, netvibes, RSS?). Unfortunately, the seed of advertising pretty much killed the rest over time.

This exactly. And getting content from third party sites dynamically. The classic example was having a Google Maps thing on your site where you'd show your, or even yet another party's data on a map. There was increasing amounts of data becoming available, apis opening up, governments releasing data sets. Combining all of that into something interesting, that was the real promise of web 2.0.

And then everybody started using that to add trackers and push ads.

The advent of the smartphone and touchscreen is essentially the defining characteristic of Web 2.0 and we haven't really approached Web 3.0+ in any meaningful way, in my experience. However, I am not a computer architecture/hw guru, yet I still expect the future to be pleasantly surprising despite this, erm, rather unnecessarily difficult time.

The big hurdle is that for some reason people think that video content cannot be decentralized and that building off-platform brands tend to be a lot harder then playing the algorithm for most professional creators.

Web3 as a brand is probably dead having been tarnished by association with the cryptoscam community, but there is some hint that the zeitgeists is for both creators and consumers wanting a more direct relationship that can only really come via more decentralization of control.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com