I've been following Ethereum since it was announced and I remember that the appeal was that it was "Bitcoin 2.0". While email replaced the post and Bitcoin replaced fiat, Ethereum would replace legal papers (wills, birth certificates, etc).
I'm learning that Ethereum is a "World Computer" and decentralized apps (DApps) are simply applications, much like Facebook, Instagram, Google Drive, and so on. In order for someone to use the apps, they need to pay Ether. They can earn Ether by commissioning their personal machine to work a day job and help manage the whole World Computer with everyone else. Is this right so far?
My main confusion is: if Ethereum is a new "World Computer," it's basically a new internet, right? But on the current internet?
What happens to the internet of today? I've read HTML, CSS, JS are still utilized in Ethereum, but how? Do I point my browser to a web App/DApp? Or will there be special Ethereum browsers? I think that's essentially what Mist is, right?
I'm really interested in what Ethereum could mean for computing and the Internet of Things in the coming decade, but that's based on what I imagine the system to be. Any clarification is appreciated!
Best Answer
There's the logical layer of the Internet and there's the physical layer of the Internet. Ethereum is a tool for decentralizing a particular part of the logical layer of the Internet. The physical layer of the Internet remains to be decentralized. (Meshnet projects like Hyperboria are taking aim at that aspect of decentralizing all the things.)
Ethereum can be paired with software such as the Mist browser, Whisper, and IPFS (and the upcoming Swarm) to provide a decentralized, Web-like experience. HTML, CSS, and JS are all used exactly as they were before. They're just part of the presentation layer, and they don't really care about how they're passed around. Whether they're being downloaded from a central server somewhere or a swarm of peers, it's all the same to them. They're just text files with special filename extensions.
Ethereum proper allows some of the logic that currently lives on centralized servers to be moved onto a blockchain. In some cases, all the logic currently living on centralized servers can reasonably be moved over. In most cases, the greatest value-add is going to come from moving only over the most sensitive components that must be agreed upon by all parties and either keeping the more computationally-intensive components on a central server somewhere, or else employing a weaker form of consensus, such as Piper Merriam's Ethereum Computation Market.
And, of course, if there is private data involved that cannot under any circumstances be shared with the public, you're either going to need a central server for that or you're going to need to employ some clever cryptography to decentralize that aspect as well.