Looks like people just use fancy words at random and are clueless about their meaning
Web 3 is just the decentralized web. It is a possible future, which we are not even there yet. Our mainly applications today are all based in social media and high use of personal data , which is the web 2.0
A web 4 or 5 will eventually happen, after some disruptive technology shows up. It will take some years for sure.
I recently made a summary about web 1 2 and 3:
A brief history of the web:
Web 1.0:
Static webpages, such as geocities. From 1990 to 2004.
That web phase is also known as "
read only web"
Web 2.0
Since 2004 until today (yeah, we are on web 2)
Read-write web.
It growed with social media platforms where everyone can share content and read and write on the web. Main name is Facebook.
There is a great problem with centralization and ownership of personal data
Web 3
Is related to decentralized app, and ia still in development. Ethereum and bitcoin are the main names.
Read-write-ownMore details here:
https://ethereum.org/en/web3/