v2.0, After That, It’s Cheesy

Remember when slapping a shiny number on a product felt daring? HTML 3.2 arrived in the 1990s wearing frames, much like aviator shades. People whispered about 4.01 as if it were the moon landing. Life was good. Then someone discovered the decimal point’s bigger cousin, the point‑oh, and everything went off the rails.

Web 2.0: The Peak of the Hype Mountain

Stop Counting, Start Building: Version Numbers After v2.0 Jump the Shark.¹

In 2004, the tech world underwent a collective rebrand, referring to the existing web as “Web 2.0.” The upgrade primarily involved rounded buttons and the removal of shadows, yet almost every technologist cheered.

Sir Tim Berners‑Lee, the person who built the web, shrugged and called the moniker “a piece of jargon” because nobody could define it consistently. Nearly two decades later, that verdict still stings like bad wireless.

Web 3.0: A Sequels‑to‑the‑Sequel Problem

Hollywood teaches us that the third movie in a franchise rarely works. The same rule applies to the Internet. Web 3.0 tries to dazzle with blockchains, tokens, metaverses, and other nouns that summon polite nods at conferences. Detractors simply call it a meaningless buzzword without a coherent feature list. If your elevator pitch requires a whitepaper, it might be time to hit the ground floor.

Industry 4.0: Manufacturing’s Turn at the Buzzword Buffet

To avoid being outmarketed, factories adopted “Industry 4.0,” a label that promises smart-everything. Sober engineers emphasize that success still depends on clear goals, better systems, and fewer press releases. In other words, automation is helpful, but numbering the revolution will not tighten a single bolt.

HTML Drops the Digits and Lives Happily

“I was there, Gandalf, I was there 3000 years ago.”

I know because, during the early HTML5 hype, I registered the domain html5.in and started writing about HTML5 there. I sold the domain to a broker, who bought it on behalf of Microsoft.

Well, HTML, the language of the web, did something radical. It stopped counting. In 2011, the WHATWG team declared that “HTML is the new HTML5,” demoting numerals to the history books and treating the spec as a living standard. It was a move to trim needless bureaucracy. Today, you rarely hear anyone brag about using HTML7 because there is no such thing as HTML7, just HTML, evolving quietly.

…But Why

• Math Inflation. Each extra digit must feel bigger than the last. After 3.0, marketers flirt with 4.0, 5D, Xtreme, or Infinity. Eventually, the integers look like Marvel movie titles.
• Moving Goalposts. Once you brand the next era, every incremental improvement triggers a debate over whether it truly constitutes the promised future.
• Backward Mystery. Users cannot tell which pieces belong to which version. Ask ten people to define Web 3.0, and you will collect eleven answers plus somebody’s NFT² pitch deck.
• Engineering Fatigue. Teams prefer shipping features to updating slide decks. No one writes code that checks if (webVersion >= 4.0) before rendering a button.
• Eternal Beta. When everything is versioned, nothing feels finished. Continuous delivery is excellent; continuous branding is exhausting.

What Now

• Use Release Year. If you really want a marketing version, use the year. It is easier to remember and makes a lot more sense. Microsoft and Apple are doing it.
• Ship Verbally. Describe what your thing does, not which number it is.
• Respect the Feet on the Ground. Engineers already juggle frameworks and patches. Spare them an extra numeral to memorise.
• Let the Community Decide Worth. If users notice the change, they will give it their own nickname anyway. Remember “Ajax”?³ Nobody waited for a steering committee.

Version numbers had their moment. Beyond v2.0, they rarely inform, and they often confuse. The web, like language, works best when it grows organically. So the next time someone invites you to invest in Web 5.0 or Industry 6.2, smile, sip your tea, and ask what problem they actually solve. If the answer starts with a decimal, feel free to round it down to zero.