The difference is that you can create a service which is controlled by nobody. The "servers" are run by the entire network. Nobody has special permissions on th

The difference is that you can create a service which is controlled by nobody. The "servers" are run by the entire network. Nobody has special permissions on the software, yet this software can accept money, pay money, deploy new contracts (prewritten obviously) etc. This is one extreme obviously, and applications exist on a spectrum from that to something fully centralized (for example USDT where they have full money printing controls). The point is that web3 enables building apps anywhere on that spectrum.