The world is evolving and so is the internet. Unless you are living under a rock on a deserted island, you would have heard that the internet is moving to Web3 – the third version of the world wide web.

Simply put, the third version of the web promises the users to become the ‘(part)owners’ of the internet and own their data, information, creations and transactions rather than be dependent on a bunch of big technology firms collectively called ‘The Big Tech’. Additionally, the users can fund themselves by accepting payments (and pre-payments) from their customers and patrons reducing the dependence on investors and banking institutions. Long story short, the third version of the web promises to bring the creators into focus and control and convert their online address not only into a creator’s showcase, but wallet and high-security safe-box as well.

Personally, I think that there is no way the world can escape web3, earlier or later, the web2 properties (build), communications, warehousing and transactions will move to web3. While all this might sound very exciting and promising, but there are challenges. Global as well as local, technological and when it comes to India – cultural as well.

Let’s talk about India. There are 750 million internet users in India and 5 million web domains are owned by Indians. In comparison there are slightly more than 300 million internet users in the United States. There are 130 million web domains owned by the Americans.

Number of domains owned by a country divided by the number of internet users is called the Domain Penetration in the country. In the current state, Domain Penetration in the United States is about 43% where as it is 0.6% in India. By any standards, that’s a sad stated to be in when it comes to ‘online’ presence. If domain penetration is so low for web2, it will be much lower for web3.

Why is the Domain Penetration so low in India?

Most of the internet users in India are ‘consumers’ of content. Although many of them, thanks to Apps like TikTok, Reels etc have started becoming ‘creators’, but that has been limited to mostly creative arts. Businesses still have a long way to go and figure out how to use the internet and let the world know what they are up to.

98% of the businesses in India have less than 10 employees. Most of these businesses do not have in-house IT teams to build and manage websites. A large majority of them do not even understand the complexities involved in building and maintaining a website. So, almost all of them outsource the design, build and maintenance of the website to external parties. A large majority of them do not even understand the complexities involved in building and maintaining a website. And majority of these external teams are unreliable. Hence, not many businesses attempt to get ‘online’ via their own websites, those who do, make a half-hearted attempt.

Another factor is that per capita income of an average American is ten times that of an average Indian. The cost of acquiring a domain, get hosting and building a website is almost same for the two. So, an internet user in the United States is much more likely to acquire a domain and build a website than an Indian – Individual or business.

The combined factors of low incomes and revenues, lack of understanding of technology, no in-house IT teams and the cost of building a website makes the total cost and effort required look like an expense rather than an investment. Indians love cutting expenses and there goes the ‘expense’ of building, owning and maintaining a website.

Now in a scenario where the business does not have access to its domain and hosting details it is unjust to expect the users to understand and adopt Web3, blockchain and smart contracts.

What the users want?

The users want a place online to display and promote what they offer (services or products), generate leads and manage communication with the prospects that leads to sale of their products and services. More importantly they would value all this if this can be managed on their own without depending on a third party.

This, the first step to web3 this is decentralization – not on the block-chain, but on web2. Where the user has access to and control of her domain and website content. Where the user can make changes to any content on the website as and when required without dependency on another team. Once this is achieved, taking the users on to web 3 will become much easier.

This article was also published on inc42 website. Below is the link.

https://inc42.com/resources/first-step-towards-web-3-0-decentralising-web-2-0/