The Decentralised Web (DWeb) attempts to connect people, websites, and organisations to each other via open protocols, usually based on innovative web standards, distributed systems, and sometimes cryptographic primitives.
DWeb aims to break data silos, avoid platform lock-in, and build censorship-resistance directly into the protocol, while offering a similar user experience and performance to apps built on Web2 standards.
Some of the DWeb community can be loosely related to Web3 (such as IPFS or the AT Protocol), but many DWeb projects intentionally distance themselves from cryptocurrencies and their enthusiasts (such as ActivityPub & the Fediverse).
Advantages
- Pragmatic approach to solving the Web2 platform lock-in problem, adhering to web standards without unnecessarily relying on blockchains.
Limitations
- The focus on censorship-resistance may have unintended consequences on privacy, especially regarding data confidentiality. In DWeb, data is often treated as a commodity that, once distributed across the decentralised network, can completely escape the control of the originating user.
Could it be useful for our requirements?
- DWeb is a fundamental building block to solve the requirement of Censorship-Resistance, especially for the Decentralised Moderation solution.
- DWeb also provides excellent interoperability, at least within the chosen protocol ecosystem.