---
title: 1.1 The History of the Internet
description: Review of the history of the internet and its revolutions to date.
---

# 1.1 Context: History of Internet and It’s Revolutions to Date

## Introduction

Understanding Crypto, and truly understanding the paradigm shift that crypto brings with it, starts by understanding our evolution towards ‘bits’ of data over time. While often this topic is discussed solely historically in terms of the evolution of the internet and the technology improvements in terms of hardware and software, it is also a topic that is highly influential on ethical and social fronts as well. 

So to be thorough about  this we will march up to the present by understanding the technical innovation of the internet in how it has evolved ethically and socially for the world at large - as the ethical and social ramifications of crypto is truly one its strongest value propositions. 

## Atoms and Bits

From 10,000 feet, what has the internet brought us? Who has it benefited? And what kinds of systems has it created up until this point? These key questions are an initial skirmish with the topic that will help us become oriented on where we stand today, both in terms of the adoption of the internet in our world (horizontally) as well as the potential of leveraging the internet in more sophisticated ways (vertically). 

The first revolution of the internet lies in how it has successfully_Gone Digital,_in our management of communication and systems. This is commonly introduced with the idea of bits of information, and the transmission of that information through very early infrastructure such as TCP-IP. 


![](@site/static/img/bootcamp/mod-em-1.1.1.png)


This is what has been known as Web 1.0 - or the OG Web. Snowden talks about it in his book_Permanent Record_. It was also the subject of the original Cypherpunks, as well as [the Declaration of Cyberspace Independence](https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence). It was a time of internet optimism, when the very early forums, chat-rooms, and websites were being created and shared openly. This Web is also known as the ‘Read Only’ Web. 

Key characteristics of Web 1.0 Include the following (1991 - 2004) 



* Read Only. 
* Static Websites.
* Personal Websites.
* Content Delivery Network. 

Web 1 begins to morph into Web 2 at around the dot com bubble circa 2004. Web2, unlike the Read only world of Web1 transitions into what is usually referred to as_the social web -_ or the read-write internet. 

Key characteristics of Web2 include (2003 - 2016 - present):



* Interaction between Users and Sites. 
* Interaction between Users. 
* Dynamic Content - that is responsive to users. 
* Things like Tagging, Blogging, Podcasting, Streaming, etc. 

This is most likely the Web that you grew up with. It is also the Web that has been responsible for the bulk of the wealth creation in the past 20 years in the United States.. Companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook (Meta), etc.


![](@site/static/img/bootcamp/mod-em-1.1.2.png)

Now there are some interesting presuppositions inherent in the nature of ownership from Web1 to Web2 that have had serious social and ethical impacts on our society. 

**_Web 1 =_**



* One dimensional. 
* Consume. 
* Share, without communicating (Post). 

**_Web 2 =_**

* Two dimensional, with underlying ownership. 
* Interact within someone’s system. 
* Consume, and Interact (Monitor). 

Herein lies the major changes that are important for understanding crypto specifically. The moment we have a third party, facilitating interaction between users on the internet, is the moment we open up a subtle form of ownership, decision making, and surveillance, that is the basis of what has been coined ‘Surveillance Capitalism’ by Harvard Professor Shoshana Zuboff. 

To put this simply, with the Web2 internet we enter a new Barron’s era of data collection, user surveillance, and targeted advertising all surrounding the surplus of data collected on and about users. In this internet, the user is both a consumer and a product. 

There are two resultant social challenges from this model that are worth mentioning: 



1. First, in terms of institutional resilience and rule of law: Keeping up! Many have probably heard about Uber’s government clashes, Social Media controversy on Twitter and Facebook, and Search results on Google. The point - which Shoshana documents quite well, is that the speed of software has led to major issues for legal infrastructure to keep up in this new domain. [Who decides, Who Decides] 

_“The online world is not truly bound by terrestrial laws…it’s the world’s largest ungoverned space.” They celebrate their claim to operational spaces beyond the reach of political institutions: the twenty first century equivalent of the ‘dark continents’ that drew nineteenth century European speculators to their shores.” – 104, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism_



2. Second, in terms of education and being able to stay on the front line of this emerging digital world: There is a reason tech bootcamps sprung up in the early 2010s and remain in high demand to this day - because schools and universities were not keeping up on how best to prepare students for an internet world. 

_“Any consideration of the division of learning must resolve these dilemmas expressed in three essential questions. The first question is “Who knows?” This is a question about the distribution of knowledge and whether one is included or excluded from the opportunity to learn. The second question is “Who decides?” This is a question about authority: Which people, institutions, or processes determine who is included in learning, what are they able to learn, and how they are able to act on their knowledge. What is the legitimate basis of that authority? The third question is, “Who decides who decides?” This is a question about Power. What is the source of power that undergirds the authority to share or withhold knowledge?” - 180, Age of Surveillance Capitalism._

Both of these social challenges from the rise of Web2 on a social scale, are extremely relevant for our discussions about Web3 and the world of crypto. 

## Geographical Imbalances of Internet Adoption and Leap-Frogging

Equally relevant, is the geographical dissemination of the internet - and how today, after 20 years - large parts of the world are still not brought fully online. 


![](@site/static/img/bootcamp/mod-em-1.1.3.png)


As the graphic shows quite thoroughly, internet adoption was largely a Western / Developed phenomenon for the first couple of decades. Balaji - someone we will speak of quite in detail in this course - has spoken much about what bringing India online will mean, for both the users and services of the internet. 

Relevant for us, in this discussion of the geographical roll out of the internet, is the idea of ‘leapfrogging’. Leapfrogging refers to a country's capacities to speed-up their technological development by skipping a previous step in technology evolution and simply adopting the ‘state of play’ as it exists in the present day. 

For much of the global south, that is only just coming online, the thesis is that these areas which also happen to be demographically rich in young people - are going to be huge hotbeds of focus for the future user-base of both Web 2 and Web 3. 

## Web2 to Web3: The Current State of Play

Today we have an interesting state of play as we wade into the world of crypto. On the one hand, we are seeing rising developer counts from Africa, India, and SouthEast Asia. 


![](@site/static/img/bootcamp/mod-em-1.1.4.png)


On the other hand, there is very, very limited exposure between active developers globally, and active developers working on ‘Web3’. 


![](@site/static/img/bootcamp/mod-em-1.1.5.png)


Of the more than 26 million developers around the world - only about [20,000 are ](https://cryptoforinnovation.org/web3-developers-at-an-all-time-high-and-growing-faster-than-ever/)building in Web3. 

In a similar sense, of the 5 billion people who are using the internet around the world, only about [70 million people](https://financesonline.com/number-of-blockchain-wallet-users/) have ever opened up a wallet in crypto (and that number is probably much lower due to people having multiple wallets). 

All of this is to say, that when we zoom out and look at the evolution of Web3, as compared to Web1 and Web2, we stand most likely around the early internet year of 1998 in terms of users, adoption, and products developed: 


![](@site/static/img/bootcamp/mod-em-1.1.6.png)


## What is Web3.0 all about?

The goal of this course is to answer the question_What is Web 3.0 all about_? And while we will do this comprehensively, we can start by hinting that Web3.0 is a radical overhaul of the Web2.0 data monopolization era, it is a synthesis of the features of both Web1.0 and Web2.0 in such a way that **we come full circle,** whereby the User can both_own_ and_interact_ in an increasingly colorful digital world. 

Without giving too much more away, lets summarize what matters in the buildup to Web3: 

## Summary

The most important takeaways from this overview and scene-setting can be summarized in the following main points: 



* The digitization process has been an evolving process both in terms of the development of the internet itself, as well as its geographical adoption. It has also pushed new frontiers of social, education, and institutional questions. 
* Rapid development in the internet era brings along with it geographical winners, new user-bases, opportunities for countries to leapfrog, and incredible amounts of wealth creation and value. 
* We have to enter and understand this emerging Web3 environment keeping in mind - this evolution of the internet cannot be separated from its ethical and social implications, the fact that much of the world is only coming online today, and that there is an existing hoard of developers that remain to cross over into the world of Web3. 

This is the landscape we inherit at hand! 
