There is an endless amount of jargon associated with the new Internet technology. It’s hard to keep your eyes from tearing up every time a podcast host tries to explain what cryptocurrency, blockchain, NFTs, and DOE are. Well, add another term to that list: Web3.

Some call it the next natural evolution of the Internet. Others believe that it is a dangerous scam. But that hasn’t stopped companies from investing billions of dollars in the technology, according to Crunchbase.

So what is Web3?

Web3 advocates like to tell a story about the Internet in three parts. The early days of the Internet are described as “Web 1.0” where people could post information in the form of read-only blogs. Everything was decentralized and disorganized. Web 2.0, the Internet as we know it today, added the ability to edit, publish, and write on malleable web pages. According to this story, corporations quickly consolidated and organized traffic (think Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and began trading personal data for “free” services.

Web 3.0, abbreviated as “Web3,” is just a way of referring to a proposed evolution of the current Internet framework we use today. According to Wired, it has been touted as a solution to corporate monopolization of the Internet, through a decentralized system that works on the same technology that supports cryptocurrency.

Gavin Wood, the co-founder of the Ethereum cryptocurrency, coined the term (no pun intended) “Web 3.0” and compares the Internet as we know it to a “big baby” that “has aged without growing.”

In a post on his personal blog, Wood writes that “today’s digital architecture will magnify society’s ills, not limit them” by transferring power and trust to institutions that are not always incentivized to be honest or serve the well-being of their constituents.

The solution Wood proposes is Web3, which (as a very simplified explanation) puts ownership of the Internet in the hands of users by doling out “tokens” for participating. These tokens would go into an encrypted coin wallet that also identifies you as the user to the rest of the internet. A user could spend his coins to democratically vote on how he wants his Internet pockets to look, according to the Harvard Business Review.

What are the dangers of Web3?

According to software engineer and author Stephen Diehl, Web3 has “exactly the same economics as a Ponzi scheme.” The buzz around cryptocurrency and Web3 is based on a speculative market, and the technology has zero real market value. Like trading cards, the value changes subjectively.

Web3 and crypto are plagued with insecurity. Molly White, a crypto researcher, also has a problem with Web3, calling it “a huge trap that is pouring lighter fluid onto our already burning planet.” She has compiled a library of scams related to investing in Web3 startups, NFTs, and stolen crypto tokens, exposing the dangers of unregulated technology.

Atlantic writer Rex Woodbury believes that Web3 incentives would turn everything into investable assets, injecting a transaction into every relationship and confusing human agency with financial obligation.

Web3 supporters promise to solve many of today’s Internet problems. Critics fear it is a dangerous bubble that will burst soon. Experts on both sides of the argument agree: The Internet as we know it is plagued with problems and needs to be remade. But the question remains: is Web3 the future?