web1, web2 and web3

web2 was a read-write and format.

but web2 had it's challenges — monetization.

in web1, information was limited (not in the amount but in quality). you only knew what was put out. you had to pay to get information. it made sense to subscribe to Forbes, rather than having to trek every day just to buy newspapers.

web2 kinda spoiled that business model — everyone had valuable information and would give it out for free (in the name of being a content creator).

the monetization process was the idea of selling data. you can use Facebook, get all the information you want for free — but Zuck will harvest your data and sell it to advertisers...in order to keep FB running. harvesting of data led to invasion of privacy

the ROI in selling of data was so enormous that companies that sold them was worth hundreds of billions of data.

in order to make the data more useful, they engaged in censorship

you can't say some things, use some products, perform some actions as it'd hurt the ROI with selling data.