Module 6 · Ethereum & Shared Applications / 6.1
From websites to wallets.
What changes when a record can outlive the app that shows it.
Imagine spending years collecting items in a game. One day, the company closes the game. Your password still works in your memory. The items no longer work anywhere.
Now imagine one item is recorded on a public blockchain. The game closes, but that record remains. Another app might recognize it.
That difference is real. So are the limits hidden in the word “might.”
The web was already open.
The internet connects networks. The web is one way we use it: linked pages and applications reached through a browser. They are related, but they are not the same thing.
The early web made publishing and linking information much easier. You could move between independently run websites instead of staying inside one company’s service. Open standards helped make that possible.
Later, large platforms made it easy to post, search, shop, and build communities. They also became the keepers of many account records. A company could offer support and recovery, while deciding who could use its service.
People often call these patterns Web1 and Web2. They overlap. The early web was not entirely read-only, and today’s internet is not owned by a single company.
One interface reads a record that it does not alone maintain.
So the useful question is not “Which version is newer?” It is who keeps the record, and who can use it without asking that keeper?
A wallet can carry the permission.
In some blockchain applications, you use a wallet to prove control of a key. The application reads public records and accepts a signature when a change needs authorization. You do not have to create a separate company-held balance for every interface.
This family of ideas is often called Web3. The term has no single strict definition. A common goal is to let users control digital assets and use them across compatible applications.
Return to the game item. Its token record may survive the original game. But another developer must choose to support it. The artwork might live on a server that disappears. A token does not automatically grant copyright, a refund, or a useful place to play.
A portable record is a possibility for reuse, not a promise of universal compatibility.
Each layer has its own operators, controls, and failure conditions. This simplified view omits the RPC connection.
Control moves. Responsibility moves too.
A company account may offer password resets and an appeals process. A key-controlled asset may give you more direct control, but losing the key can remove your access. A public history can also expose more of your activity than you expect.
The website, its hosting, the service that connects your wallet to the network, the contract, and the blockchain may have different owners and failure points. A decentralized base network does not make every layer decentralized.
AI does not change that distinction. An AI assistant can help you use a conventional website or a blockchain application. It still acts through permissions. Giving a program spending access does not make its decisions reliable.
The useful improvement is a new option: shared records and programmable permissions that different applications can use. Sometimes a conventional database and a responsible operator are a better fit. The task determines which tradeoffs matter.
The idea to keep
The newer tools add ways to hold and use digital records. They do not replace the whole internet or remove every intermediary.
Next, you’ll meet the kind of blockchain built to run these shared applications.