The Web’s Evolution: The Socio-Technical Transition Towards a Decentralized Web3

The internet has undergone a profound transformation, evolving from an academic-military experiment into the dominant infrastructure of the platform-based Web 2.0, and is now potentially transitioning toward a decentralized Web3. While this evolution is often portrayed as a primarily technical process, this chapter emphasizes the importance of understanding the socio-political and institutional conditions necessary for the scaling and stabilization of such innovations. Grounded in transition theory and the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP), the chapter offers an ex-post analysis of the internet’s development as a socio-technical transition, shaped by developments such as the World Wide Web, search engines and the rise of commercial platforms. It then turns to Web3 as a niche innovation characterized by decentralized architectures, blockchain-based ownership models, and user data sovereignty. These developments both challenge and introduce alternative logics to the dominant logic of centralized platforms. The chapter demonstrates the applicability of MLP to digital infrastructures and stimulates new questions about how socio-technical transitions unfold in this context. Drawing on the concept of strategic niche management, it explores how decentralized technologies might be shielded, nurtured, and empowered to mature further and play a role in shaping possible future configurations of the internet. The chapter concludes by identifying landscape pressures, such as regulatory shifts and public concerns over data privacy, that may create windows of opportunity for systemic change and offers practical insights into how stakeholders can strategically shape such transitions.