Definition
The second generation of the World Wide Web, characterized by user-generated content, social media platforms, and centralized platform economies. Web2 describes the current dominant paradigm of the creator economy — YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Spotify, and similar platforms that aggregate creator content, own the audience relationship, and monetize through advertising while sharing a portion of revenue with creators. Web2 platforms are the primary infrastructure of the creator economy but are also the source of digital sharecropping dynamics.