Introduction to the Internet Computer for dapp users
The Internet Computer was designed with improving the user experience of smart contracts and dapps running on a blockchain.
Compared to other blockchains
Compared to other smart contract blokchains like Ethereum, the Internet Computer offers the following immediate benefits to dapp users:
Direct Web Experience
Smart contracts on the Internet Computer securely serve web-content directly to users. This is unique among other projects where most L1 blockchains have dapps where a small part of the logic runs in a smart contract, but the actual consumer-facing web or interface is hosted on a centralized cloud provider (e.g. AWS) instead of being served directly from the blockchain.
The Internet Computer serving dapps whose code is hosted and executed entirely on-chain unlocks the power of smart contracts.
Example, the Motoko Playground's fronted and backend code runs entirely on-chain: Motoko Plaground. This is unique to blockchain dapps.
Users do not pay for access
Dapp users on Ethereum typically have to pay for using smart contracts. Besides the high-fees, it also means that the users have to install plugins or other software (and pay via tokens). The IC's "canister pays model" means that dapp developers can pay for the storage and compute to create a frictionless user experience as Motoko Plaground.
Fast user experience
Traditional smart contracts are slow and serve poor user experiences. That is why many dapp developers often use non-blockchain technologies for most of their "dapp." The IC's design goal is that developers can build consumer-facing experiences that are as fast as they would expect from centralized servers. Dapp developers do not need to choose between "smart contracts" and "fast."
From a blockchain POV, Internet Computer Performance performance tests shows the IC latency at 200 milliseconds for query calls (reads) and 2 seconds for update calls (writes). As of December 1, 2021, The Internet Computer can handle 250,000 queries per second and 11,500 update calls per second.
Internet Identity
Internet Identity is a blockchain authentication system enables you to sign in securely and anonymously to dapps on the Internet Computer. This makes logging into dapps much easier and safer for dapp consumers. Besides providing a safer authentication experience, it is a service native to the IC so dapp developers who need authentication systems do not need to build their own.
Compared to centralized compute platforms
Decentralization
Unlike applications hosted on centralized providers (e.g. Finance, games, etc...) smart contracts on the Internet Computer are tamperproof so dapp users can trust they will execute as intended.