3 Things Web2 Infrastructure Providers Should Know Before Leveraging Web3

We're excited to bring Transform 2022 back in person on July 19 and virtually from July 20-28. Join leaders in AI and data for in-depth discussions and exciting networking opportunities. Sign up today!

The growing size of the Web3 market has become too tempting to ignore by older Web2 infrastructure providers, especially smaller players who lack the resources to compete with Amazon Web Services (AWS). According to Prophecy Market Insights [subscription required], the global Web3 blockchain market was worth $1.23 billion in 2020, but is estimated to reach $87.76 billion by 2030, reflecting a projected annual growth rate of 45.2%.

There is no official definition of Web3. The general understanding in the industry is that Web1 was decentralized, although the functionality was limited. Then Web2 led to the centralization of data and power in the hands of a few giants. In the first quarter of 2022, the top three cloud infrastructure providers - AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud - collectively controlled 62% of the global cloud computing market, hosting most web applications on their servers. They act as the guardians of the web.

Web3 therefore aims to decentralize everything again by using blockchain technology to put control of data and privacy directly in the hands of users. It is a new Internet where applications, services and communities are created and owned by users.

Web2 players large and small have already explored ways to provide tools, storage, security, and other underlying infrastructure to blockchain developers. Here are three things they need to know before making the switch to Web3.

Event

MetaBeat 2022

MetaBeat will bring together thought leaders from across the Metaverse to advise on how Metaverse technology will transform the way all industries communicate and do business on October 3-4 in San Francisco, CA.

> register here 1. Decentralization is not the goal. It's a means to an end

Decentralization is the idea that no single entity controls or has the ability to control what users can and cannot do. This can help solve one of the biggest problems that haunts legacy platforms – centralized control, i.e. the power of the platform to target or ban users.

With so much discussion within the Web3 community about decentralization (decentralized finance, decentralized applications, etc.), it's easy to assume that decentralization is the holy grail of Web3. However, it is only a means to an end. The real goal of Web3 is to give users ownership of their data and avoid a single point of failure, and decentralization happens to be the way to achieve that.

Web3 infra-providers allow dApps (decentralized applications), wallets, crypto games and other projects to connect to blockchains to record and verify transactions. The Interplanetary File System (IPFS), for i...