[HN Gopher] Why Web3? ___________________________________________________________________ Why Web3? Author : simonebrunozzi Score : 122 points Date : 2021-12-29 17:50 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (avc.com) (TXT) w3m dump (avc.com) | DJBunnies wrote: | Web3 doesn't mean anything, it's just the adopted jargon of a | couple of groups with different visions for what it means. | | I fear more posts relating to said nonsense will only legitimize | those topics in the eyes of the uninformed. | [deleted] | csbartus wrote: | The single important question about web3 is: will it be free? Can | app devs just start building without paying the blockchain / | network fee? The same for users; can they just use apps for free? | | If not, the question is: do you pay with data, and go free, or do | you pay with real money and prices skyrocketing due to endless | speculations? | coffeefirst wrote: | And second, will it be easy? | | Everyone forgot the key to HTML / blogs / youtube / social | media was anyone could join and start doing stuff on a Sunday | afternoon. | csbartus wrote: | The author has a famous quote: in the future you'll have to pay | to work. His partner Albert is pushing for the universal basic | income. This pictures me a future: a playground for those who | willing to pay to work, for the rich, for those pursuing | wealth. The rest should rely on the UBI. | | I'm ok with that. A win-win for both sides. But let's finally | put the cards on the table. | Zaskoda wrote: | IMO, pay with money. End of story. Expecting services for free | got is into this horrible advertising model that turned us into | the product rather than customers. There are people promoting | gasless, free to use chains. That model is flawed. Financial | incentives is what finally made decentralized networks a real | thing. For a good explanation as to where we're going with | this, read "Who Owns The Future." | corobo wrote: | Excluding people without money sounds like the opposite | direction the internet should be headed :( | zzzeek wrote: | perspective of a not terribly interested party: | | * two years ago: "bitcoin! bitcoin! bitcoin!" - tech community: | "bitcoin is a pyramid scheme and also bad for the environment." | | * a year ago: "crypto! crypto! not bitcoin, there's others and | also fintech loves blockchain!" - tech community: "nope, still a | pyramid scheme, financial community goes whereever there's hype | and $$$, they couldnt care less about 'tech'" | | * 6 months ago: "nfts! nfts! look there's an actual thing | associated with it!" - tech communuty: "but you don't actually | _own_ anything. obvious speculation scam " | | * 2 months ago: "web3! web3! it's vague! except it's all about | those things above we just make it less obvious and more | buzzwordy!" - tech community: please leave | everfree wrote: | It feels like something or other cryptocurrency related floats | on the front page of Hacker News every other day, and | discussion about it is welcomed. I would call that the opposite | of "please leave". | capableweb wrote: | Want to share where I can read the unified opinion from the | "tech community"? I'd consider myself as part of the tech | community, but never said anything of those things, are you | sure you can speak for everyone in the community? | zzzeek wrote: | > Want to share where I can read the unified opinion from the | "tech community"? | | a good place to start would be the majority of replies on | this thread | capableweb wrote: | HN is such a small slice of the "tech community", if we see | the definition the same way (people who work in "tech"). I | don't think you should take anything you read here as | "majority of people in tech thinks like this", because the | size is so small. | ninkendo wrote: | What other online tech communities are there out there | that I can check out? If you say this is such a tiny one, | I'd love to see the "bigger than HN" community you must | be referring to. | brandonmenc wrote: | My experience is that the ratio of crypto skeptics here | on hn more or less mirrors that of any non-crypto focused | tech community (ex: coworkers, SIGs, etc) | davidhariri wrote: | > Frankly, it is all too much for me. | | Same. I've been actively unfollowing people on Twitter every day | to clean my feeds of it. I'm not anti-web3 or anti-crypto, but I | definitely don't need to read the same rhetoric from 100 people a | day. | | Decentralized trust could be great, but I wonder how much time | actually needs to be spent talking about it vs. actually building | it... | NicoJuicy wrote: | Same. | | I actually see a lot of comparison with the "firehose of | falsehoods", which is a known propaganda technique. | | I'm actually worried about people picking it up and getting | suckered in without knowing anything on the technical side. | tehjoker wrote: | The phrase "stock touts" comes to mind. | corobo wrote: | I do keep wondering if it's worth being first on the scene with | a new idea | | People pushing image NFTs will likely be keen to promote | anything that can ding an argument against the naysayers, | especially if they're cryptographically compensated somehow | (whatever the web3 version of affiliate links is, is it | airdrops?) | | Might be some free real estate to be had if anyone's got any | png-less ideas | | Side comment I do realise I probably come off super naive to | people who have already learned all this. I am trying! I've not | come across a less newcomer friendly community since I started | tinkering with Linux 20 years ago haha. "You just don't | understand" is almost as much a web3 catchphrase as wagmi | | Admittedly Linux is now my sole non-mobile daily driver, maybe | I'll get there with web3. Having had a tinker I do like the | idea of the tech, I've just not had the "click" into how it's | actually usable (for me) yet | | /blog | duxup wrote: | Crypto seems to attract a lot of high minded hot air as far as | social media goes. | Nav_Panel wrote: | As someone who's out here building a web3 site (and is a heavy | twitter user), I agree completely. Most of the twitter talking | heads also have no clue what they're talking about, waxing on | about grand visions when the first set of pragmatic | implications are already here, basically (metamask/web wallet | login). | corobo wrote: | Do you have a tech blog or anything folks could keep up with? | | Preferably RSS based but I'd sign up to a mail list | indigochill wrote: | > Decentralized trust could be great, but I wonder how much | time actually needs to be spent talking about it vs. actually | building it... | | And the order of operations. Traditionally, you build something | great (or an MVP) and market it. The crypto community has been | putting the marketing before the building. | | It's probably uncontroversial to say although cryptocurrency | -could- do great things, right now the bulk of trade in the | first world is speculation. Meanwhile there are television ads | in the US aimed at football fans telling them how they can | trade cryptocurrency. WTF does the average football fan need | with cryptocurrency? | jrsj wrote: | The reason you see this is that the entire "web3" landscape | is controlled by VCs. Also the underlying infra this stuff is | running on isn't very decentralized at all and with proof of | stake it likely never will be. | | If you want true decentralization you're going to need a | combination of Bitcoin/Lightning Network/side chains to | recreate a lot of what has been built out on other more | centralized platforms. But VCs don't want to fund this | because there's way less potential upside for them. | zhoujianfu wrote: | Or just bitcoin cash! | [deleted] | krrrh wrote: | This is such a good point. "Web 2.0" didn't really emerge as | a term of art until there was a need to describe the | widespread adoption of UGC, REST, & AJAX and blockbuster web | applications like gmail replacing desktop applications. | pedalpete wrote: | I was actually thinking the opposite. I seem to recall | talking about Web 2.0 and AJAX, SOAP, etc. before most apps | were built using those technologies. We were using AJAX | minimally, CSS was a thing, but UGC was still a few years | away, from what I recall. | cercatrova wrote: | > Traditionally, you build something great (or an MVP) and | market it. | | I don't like the Web3 hype either but generally people say | one should market their product first then build it if | there's enough demand, through a landing page capturing | emails or pre-payments, or other such ways of gauging demand. | | It just seems that Web3 fanatics took the marketing side too | far that they've forgotten they actually have to build a | product ( _that solves an actual problem, not yet another | coin_ ) for which the marketing will be used. | aquateen wrote: | > generally people say one should market their product | first then build it if there's enough demand | | I don't agree this is the common wisdom, and it's kind of a | surprising take to see on this website specifically. | cercatrova wrote: | It's what I commonly see on startup fora including HN, | reddit, IndieHackers etc. There's books about this method | like Lean Startup, Mom Test and so on. | | The advice to build first and market later is actually | advice that is much maligned in my experience, as there | are too many stories of engineers who build and then find | out they can't actually sell their product because they | focused too much on the building and not enough on | getting people to know about it. | lottin wrote: | > they can't actually sell their product because they | focused too much on the building and not enough on | getting people to know about it | | Or more likely, there was no demand for their product to | begin with. | cercatrova wrote: | Indeed, the worst is when they don't actually solve any | problems whatsoever, they treat it as a way to have fun | building the product, using new technologies, new | architectures etc. | | There's nothing wrong with building to learn but the | problem arises when engineers think building | automatically leads to business success; the two are | often entirely disjointed. WordPress is maligned as well | but it's wildly successful for Automattic. | ipaddr wrote: | The approach to validate ideas with conversation with | your target market when you are unsure if anyone will | buy. | | But in this case you need to validate it by building it | and proving it can be done. The market is already | prepped. | cercatrova wrote: | > in this case | | In which case, Web3? If so, I don't think the market is | prepped at all, I don't really see people using it for | what proponents say it'll be used for. If some other | case, please elucidate me, I'm not sure what you're | referring to otherwise. | nfw2 wrote: | Maybe it's not common wisdom in general, but it is a | pretty common viewpoint in the startup world. Building | products is expensive, and startups can't afford to build | something no one wants. It's pretty much universal advise | that finding an initial market fit should be the first | priority of any new startup. | | Literally making a sale before the product exists is the | extreme end of that philosophy. Whether or not this is | good advise, or even possible, probably depends a lot on | the domain. For most domains though, there is some degree | of market research that can and should be done before | investing in product development. | aquateen wrote: | I've been on this website a long time and I suppose the | userbase has grown quite a bit. I don't assume everyone | has read all of Paul Graham's articles or even know who | he is, but are you familiar with how YCombinator works? | | Enough money to survive on ramen for a few months and | build a demo. Get feedback from users and iterate over | and over. | nfw2 wrote: | I know multiple people personally who have been through | YC, and I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. | | Not every company that goes through YC are at the same | stage. I've heard of companies joining YC despite already | having over a million in ARR because of how valuable the | YC network is. | | YC invests 125k in each team, which is certainly enough | to last more than a few months eating ramen if you are | building the product yourself. | | Also, trying to sell a product using a demo is not | exactly the same as selling a finished product. At 0-1 | stage, you can bet the demo hides the rough edges to some | degree. | | I would say selling using a demo falls somewhere on the | sell-before-build spectrum, but one point I was trying to | make is that it is not necessarily black-and-white. | devin wrote: | To be fair, it's not a bad target market. Look at FanDuel and | PokerStars and such. For many watching, it's just a new kind | of gambling. The decision many are likely making is to throw | their money at bitcoin instead of placing a bet at an online | sportsbook. The feeling of "investing" in crypto versus | outright gambling is a nice little story to tell oneself, | even if it's not particularly true. | dathinab wrote: | I read an article recently which claimed that the majority of | transaction volume is not speculation, but scams, fraud and | similar. Like e.g. pyramid schemes. | | And that is where an average football fan needs crypto, to | provide more monetary volume for scams and speculators | manipulating the marked to siphon of. | | Or at least that was the take of the article, I'm not | completely sure in either direction. | mediocregopher wrote: | The difference between "speculation" and "scams, fraud, and | similar" is in the eye of the beholder. Lots of people find | all crypto to be a giant scam, others find all of it to be | a potential investment (hopefully with the understanding | that the long-tail of individual investments in the space | will go to zero). | acdha wrote: | > The difference between "speculation" and "scams, fraud, | and similar" is in the eye of the beholder. | | The definitions of those terms really comes down to | intention: a scammer is selling something they _know_ | does not deliver what they're promising while a | speculator should be making good-faith claims. This line | gets blurry with optimism but most of the cryptocurrency | speculation which called out is indeed misrepresentation | of what a potential buyer would get, such as claiming | that an NFT conveys ownership when it does not. | irrational wrote: | Have you seen the one with Matt Damon hawking a crypto site? | How much must it cost to get someone of his caliber to star | in your commercial? | ipaddr wrote: | To get George to do those expresso ads it costs 18 million. | | To get Matthew mcconaughey to drive 3 million. | | As for Matt Damon. cryto.com gave 1 million to water.org | and Matt said any money he makes will go to water.org and | that's worth millions. My guess 4-5 million on the highside | but probably 3 to 4 million | ThomPete wrote: | The crypto community does what every startup should do. They | find the customers before they start building i.e. they build | community first and in effect build products. | | To say that things aren't being build in the crypto community | is simply flat out false. | | It's one of the fastest developing industries and more and | more talent are leaving their previous jobs or industries. | unicornmama wrote: | Talent is pouring in because free money is gushing out from | the mother of all bubbles. Enjoy it while it lasts. | maybecrypto wrote: | Applies to me - leaving enterprise infrastructure for | crypto. I think the tech is mostly useless, but the hype | is real, the VC dollars are real. I want to try to | capitalize on this. | acdha wrote: | > Decentralized trust could be great, but I wonder how much | time actually needs to be spent talking about it vs. actually | building it... | | This is the tell for me that most of the people promoting it | are just trying to find buyers for their tokens: there's tons | of marketing for things which either don't exist at all or | offer a worse experience than the status quo, and it's very | rare to find someone who clearly understands the problem and | how we got there. For example, we started with a more | decentralized web than we have now -- any conversation about | how to go in a different direction needs to be based on the | economic factors which produced the current state. | CiPHPerCoder wrote: | Their MVP is a slide deck, or a sales website. | ehsankia wrote: | An interesting quote I heard was something along the lines | of: any action you take that doesn't cost fees on your wallet | is probably not actually running on web3. A lot of stuff you | see is just pretending to be web3 but not actually | decentralized. | acdha wrote: | Yes -- between the people who only work with a handful of | company's APIs or which are still completely dependent on | the real web, it seems a lot less decentralized than, say, | Tor. | throwaway984393 wrote: | Decentralized trust is another way of saying a grapevine. | Grapevine communication (or trust) is only useful in specific | circumstances, and is often actively detrimental. | | Why are so many people just going along with these concepts as | if they make sense? It's like nobody's using their brain. | stathibus wrote: | There's a small number of grifters leading a very large | number of naive tech types who genuinely believe they're | about to make a bunch of money on this thing they don't quite | understand but must be legit or there wouldn't be so many | people working on it. | brightstep wrote: | I think there's a class of crypto believers who see "Web3" as | a political movement, a way to dilute or break the power of | institutions like e.g. the fed, Facebook, etc. To them, the | grapevine is a secret sauce that will magically eliminate | centralized power. | jandrese wrote: | I thought the whole web of trust concept was proven | unworkable/unscalable with PGP? | | Most of crypto still seems like a solution in search of a | problem. Or they are solving the problems that people don't | have. The primary problem that most crypto systems seem to be | trying to solve is "How can I make the founders as rich as | possible?" | tehjoker wrote: | It's just a grift that people want you to buy into. That's why | they're so invested in talking about it. If the technology was | good, it'd practically sell itself. | closetnerd wrote: | This is often not necessarily the case. For web3 - I'm still | waiting to figure out what problem it can solve meaningfully. | threeseed wrote: | > I'm still waiting to figure out what problem it can solve | meaningfully | | Money laundering and other criminal behaviour. | | Many of the things we spent decades trying to remove from | the financial system will come roaring back in. Of course | it will come courtesy of young, wealthy, educated IT guys | who are the least exposed to any financial shocks. | Lordarminius wrote: | If you want to hate on crypto, that's your prerogative | but stop using the old, tired, false argument about money | laundering. It is easier to launder money through the | legacy financial system than through cryptocurrency. | tehjoker wrote: | If you want to retain your sanity and finances, unless | someone can explain in one sentence a clear and obvious use | for the technology, all of crypto can be explained as | unhinged speculation and rug pulls. We're over ten years in | at this point with insane investment and nothing has | appeared. | | My guess is that this is where the next financial crash | will come from since it's totally unregulated and the | "shadow banks" were mostly banned after 2008. All the | shadow money just goes to crypto. | ehsankia wrote: | That's more or less what the GP said. "If the technology is | good" applies both to how well it works, but also how | useful it is. Neither of those has a good answer yet. But | the best way to see it being useful is to actually create | an MVP and show it in practice, not through fancy words. | austincheney wrote: | Web3 is federated, not decentralized. The distinction is | significant. | jagger27 wrote: | > decentralized - disparate nodes communicating directly | using agreed upon conventions. There is no centrally managed | network. Think in terms of snail mail, IPv6, or phone | numbers. This could be as simple as people using an agreed | upon application to abstract away the transmission concerns | but that application does not route traffic through a third | party server. | | This definition really doesn't sit right with me. IPv6 and | phone numbers have central authorities. I can't just | configure my cellphone to receive calls from a number that I | wasn't issued by my carrier. Nor can my carrier issue me a | number from another country's number pool. To me, the phone | network is a great example of a federated network. IPv6 is | similar. I think snail mail is probably the best example of | something that is truly decentralized. Sure, there are | authorities that chop up plots of land and give them names | and numbers, but no one prevents me from asking a friend to | put a letter in the mailbox of 123 Main St. | | Please correct me if I'm missing some key semantic | argument(s). | jagger27 wrote: | Can you give a specific definition of federated in this | context? To me, federated means that autonomous entities can | talk to each other if they agree on a protocol. E.g. making a | phone call between different carriers, or, uhh, the internet. | austincheney wrote: | Here are the definitions from an older comment: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29640046 | verdverm wrote: | I like this distinction, but I will note that not all web3 is | federated or decentralized. It has been become more of a | marketing word for projects which both do and don't adhere to | the foundations. | dathinab wrote: | That's a problem I see, too. | | A lot of things are far less decentralized/federated in | practice then they claim to be. | | It's not uncommon that some of the points why something is | federated or even decentralized are only there in | hypothetical scenarios (let's say in theory) which just | don't happen in practice. Not because they technically | can't, but because there are no marked dynamics | insensitiveing it (probably more the opposite). | verdverm wrote: | Many of the protocol level 2 scaling like rollups are far | more centrally controlled than they lead you to believe | altdataseller wrote: | This article is filled with absolutely 0 reasons why Web 3.0 | should be taken seriously. | | All it says is: Web 3.0 matters because I say so. And we will | prove it, | | Yes.. and? | riffic wrote: | the hn crowd really needs to stop amplifying these authors with | buzzwords in the title sort of things. | riffic wrote: | Matt Baer, developer / owner of Write.as, has a competing and | differing vision of web3 (perhaps better labeled "web 3.0"): | | https://write.as/matt/what-would-a-real-web3-look-like | | It'd be preferable for users and developers to gravitate towards | a web built on community standards, rather than one built on an | exploitative ecosystem. Dave Winer notes "web3 is venture capital | wanting a new bubble to inflate so they can get the kinds of | returns they used to get." | (https://twitter.com/davewiner/status/1475876218905976843) | nayuki wrote: | > users can move from application to application, keeping their | data (and their login credentials stored in their wallet) as they | go | | "Keeping their login credentials in their wallet" was already | possible a long time ago with client-side TLS/SSL certificates. | But web developers didn't want to change from the classic | implementation of plaintext passwords. | | Porting personal data from one service to another is a problem, | so I'll give the author a point for that. | m_ke wrote: | Open food facts is an example of an open database that doesn't | need snake oil to thrive. If you really want to decentralize | access to data then the focus should be on open source and | publicly available data dumps. | | https://world.openfoodfacts.org/data | beardedman wrote: | The people who are advocating web3 are not the people who were | part of building web1 & web2 (whatever those even mean). They're | people who are idealistic & seem to disregard (or are ignorant | of) the effort in building infrastructure at scale. Building | things is hard. Building things that scale even harder & anybody | who has worked at a company that needs to scale knows there are | trade-offs between security, centralisation, reliability & making | things work for the user in a nice way. Web3 is a moot point | until somebody actually brings something real to the party. | Otherwise, IMO, it's a hype train. | | EDIT: Ironically, web3 also seems to be able to rip the | environment a new one. Which is pretty funny given the | demographic of its fans. | Zaskoda wrote: | I've been building for the Web since 1994. I advocate for Web | 3. | yks wrote: | What is the name of this cognitive bias that shows up in all web3 | conversations about how internet/web2 ended up being a success | and therefore web3 will too? If X led to Y, then Z that (we say) | is similar to X will also lead to Y. | Traubenfuchs wrote: | false equivalence | 58x14 wrote: | Maybe hindsight bias? | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias | ggregoire wrote: | HN meta: funnily enough, I made an extension that highlights | keywords on HN and I added "web3" to the list this morning after | reading this 3-week old comment: "It feels as if 5 similar | articles [about web3] reach the HN top page every day like this. | The same arguments are made, the same rebuttals are made, the | same comments are made ad nauseam, every single time, with no | apparent conclusion. Are we officially living in a simulation? | What's happening?" [1]. 2 hours later, I refresh the frontpage | and here we go. | | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29484941 | | Also if you looking for recent past threads about web3: | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&query=web3 | [deleted] | cableshaft wrote: | You're not kidding. I could swear I've read some of the | comments in here, word for word, in past web3 posts. I wasn't | even sure it was a new post at first, the comments (and the | replies to those comments!) have been so similar. | scubbo wrote: | The linked post[1], ironically, really helps to cement why I | consider web3 to be interesting technologically but mostly | nonsense from a product perspective. | | > As a first approximation all the big powerful internet | companies are really database providers. Facebook is a database | of people's profiles, their friend graphs and their status | updates. Paypal is a database of people's account balances. | Amazon is a database of SKUs, payment credentials and purchase | histories. Google is a database of web pages and query histories. | | This is profoundly, naively, staggeringly wrong. The products | that these companies provide to users[2] are not "the databases" | - they are "the ability to do useful, meaningful, real-life | impactful things". Facebook is not valuable as a service because | of its database - it's valuable because I am able to interact | with that database in ways that result in other people seeing the | thing that I posted. PayPal is not useful to me because of those | recorded balances - it is useful because merchants and financial | institutions respect those balances are being equivalent to | money. And so on - Amazon is useful because things actually show | up at my door, Google is useful because it can use those | links/queries to serve me the page that I was searching for. | | This is, ironically, why many claims of web3's supremacy fall | flat. As this[3] long-but-very-worthwhile rant about NFTs in | gaming makes clear, simply claiming "ownership" is almost | meaningless for anything other than simple financial transactions | (which, I callously suspect, is 99% of what web3 is actually | intended for anyway). If you want to say that you "own" a video | game gun, that's all well-and-good - but to actually use it in a | new game, that requires implementation effort from coders and | artists, balancing, support, etc. In fact, the pleasant-sounding | ideal of "own your digital assets anywhere!" is nonsense - it's | meaningless to _own_ something if you can't actually _do_ | anything with it. Ironically, it is actually _better_ for the | customer to have their data/assets/what-have-you in a single | database owned-and-operated by a single company - because then | there is a reason for that company to continue to provide support | for interactions _with_ that data. | | Don't get me wrong - the commodification of customer data by Big | Tech enrages and unsettles me, too, and I feel uncomfortable with | the fact that we mostly rent internet services rather than owning | them. But I've yet to see a convincing argument that Web3's | notion of "ownership" actually results in anything tangible, | anything other than bragging rights. If there's a way of | effecting that ownership such that you can actually _do_ | something with it (other than selling it), I'll be interested. | | [1] | https://continuations.com/post/671863718643105792/web3crypto... | | [2] Obviously, those databases are valuable to advertizing, | targeting, marketing, etc. companies, but I'm focusing on the | customer experience here. You can't build up a valuable database | if you cannot attract customers - and, anyway, isn't one of the | whole points of web3 that customer data _isn't_ for sale? (A | likely story...) | | [3] https://t.co/0X0mMRFD2O | minism wrote: | Appreciated your third paragraph and 3rd link. I'm struggling | with my own articulation about how NFTs dont intrinsically | themselves add value and yet are being treated/described as | such, and this helped clarify it a bit for me. | scubbo wrote: | Honestly, the linked article about NFTs in Video Games was | what really helped me with my articulation. It's long, but I | really recommend it. | | The situation makes me sad, because I think that | Web3/NFTs/etc. are some really interesting technologies, and | I really align the aims that they _claim_ to be supporting | (whether all proponents actually _do_ support those aims, or | are merely claiming to do so in order to make a quick buck, | is a different question). But the implementations that exist, | and the environmental damage that they currently cause, make | them utterly unsupportable to me. | ohazi wrote: | VC: "The key innovation is this new database!" | | _Points to slowest / lowest throughput / most expensive database | ever designed_ | | Sigh. | opendomain wrote: | I am looking for anyone interested in the domain Web3.net | | I am the founder of OpenDomain- we have contributed domains worth | millions to open source and other causes. All for Free. | faeyanpiraat wrote: | I do not understand who benefits and in what way from any of | this? | | Could you help me out on this? | selljamhere wrote: | > financial applications have been built on top of Ethereum that | all share the same database and users can move from application | to application, keeping their data (and their login credentials | stored in their wallet) as they go. | | Does anyone have examples of this in the wild? I often hear data | portability listed as one of the great benefits, but I don't have | a grasp on what that actually means. | | In my mind, the data needs to be structured to be useful, | otherwise other DAPs wouldn't be able to act on it. Who defines | the structure? And who manages changes? | everfree wrote: | Some examples of dApp data sharing in the wild: | | For example if you have Ether, you can use a decentralized | exchange (e.g. Uniswap) to swap it to stablecoins like USDC and | DAI, deposit that USDC and DAI into a collateralized lending | market (e.g. Compound), then deposit your deposit tickets into | a stable pair exchange (e.g. Curve) to earn maker fees when | others trade against your liquidity, while ALSO earning | interest fees that accrue to the underlying. This is possible | because these contracts are all able to share data about token | balances with each other. | | On a side note, DAI is actually a great example to illustrate | this kind of data sharing, because behind the scenes, DAI is | itself a synthetic asset backed by yet other assets. DAI | backing even includes derivative assets that themselves | represent claims on liquidity denominated in yet other assets | in external contracts (e.g. UNIV2WBTCETH). The tangled web of | assets backed by other assets is insane, honestly, but it's all | made possible by contracts sharing data with each other. | | As a second example, you could take some bitcoin, bridge it | onto Ethereum (using e.g. the REN network), and deposit and | earn interest on it on a collateralized lending platform. These | actions all require data about ETH balances and token balances | to be portable across dApps, and in this case even portability | across the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks. | | A non-monetary example of data portability within Ethereum is | the Ethereum Name Service. Like DNS, the name database is | public and can be queried by other dApps. As a bonus, names in | ENS also follow the ERC-721 token standard which provides a | standard way to share data about who owns which names, so it's | theoretically possible to write contracts that themselves write | derivatives on name ownership, for example to give someone a | collateralized loan backed by the value of their ENS name, or | to have a contract that owns an ENS name but that requires a | majority DAO vote in order to manage the name or transfer | ownership. | | In summary, for the most part dApps are purposely written in | such a way that they can be easily integrated with other dApps | using open standards and without asking permission, which is | why the space sometimes gets a "money legos" moniker. | | The data structures that allow these apps to pass data between | each other are defined by the ERC-20 and ERC-721 token | standards, which list standard method interfaces for smart | contracts to store and query each others' token balances, and I | believe were officiated as standards by the Ethereum | Foundation. These standards are currently widely supported | across all Ethereum smart contracts that involve tokens. | selljamhere wrote: | Thanks for the examples. | | The monetary case seems like the natural first step. The name | service case seems more interesting. It isn't a financial | instrument, so it demonstrates DAP utility for non-financial | application. | | You referenced a few standards that the DAPs adhere to, which | lines up with assumptions I've had about the data schema | management. In a generalized sense, it seems that community | members, or a governing body, will propose changes, and if | the community accepts them, the changes will be implemented | into the network. | | It seems to me the name service case has parallels to | identity management through protocols such as SAML and LDAP. | | But I'm still trying to wrap my head around examples I've | heard such as building DAP social media apps that allow users | to move their data to another DAP social app. Thinking of the | social media sites we have today, they all consider their | profile structures and models proprietary, as market | differentiators that set each one apart from their | competitors, and make up the "secret sauce" that gives social | value to their users. | | How would a DAP be able to maintain similar differentiators? | Or is the expectation that only certain things such as basic | profile information be stored on the blockchain, able to move | to other DAPs, while other proprietary functionality is | managed elsewhere? | everfree wrote: | Well, decentralized exchanges usually maintain their moat | through liquidity (the catch-22 of attracting liquidity to | a new dex without users, and attracting users without | liquidity). | | Ethereum Name Service maintains their moat through | legitimacy. You could copy paste the contract and start | issuing .eth names of your own, but the ENS team is | generally trusted by the community and thus their specific | instance of the contract (at their contract address) is | already widely integrated into products. | | You're right that social media dApps perhaps don't have a | "moat" like that, which may be part of why we've seen so | many of them blossom and fail, while none of them really | catch on like with other types of services. Though that | might be just as much due to the fact that social media is | a low-value service compared to money transfer, and | blockchains just haven't become scalable enough yet for a | meaningful part of the social media stack to be run cost- | efficiently on the blockchain. | | Personally I've always been less sold on cryptocurrency | networks as a host for social media, as I believe | traditional decentralized web2 schemes like ActivityPub | (Mastodon) still have a long way to race in that regard | before the scheme needs to be complicated with a blockchain | integration. | | What I do believe will happen is similar to you explained, | where just profile info (and maybe a profile image hash) is | stored on the blockchain while other data is stored off- | chain. Ethereum Name Service already acts as a profile | service in a lot of ways as it already has records for your | twitter handle, github handle, etc. as well as support for | custom records. One global name standard like ENS would for | example allow you to pick your Mastodon profile up and move | it seamlessly to another instance, with the authorization | of that cross-server move handled by the blockchain. | johnpanny342 wrote: | kkjjkgjjgg wrote: | I hate the name - were we not at web3.0 already? I am rooting for | decentralized solutions, but I could barely muster the energy to | look up what "web3" is supposed to be. | einarfd wrote: | I'm flabbergasted over the web3 term, and that anyone is using it | unironical. The web2.0 term, went from something that was a bit | awkward but ok in the beginning, to something that you want to | laugh at people using. Then someone takes that, adds one to it, | and thinks it's a good name for their tech? | JaggerFoo wrote: | I see a few ways where blockchain/token/NFT/DAO | technology/structure makes sense for enterprises - unfortunately | I can't elaborate. | | In the U.S., VC's are the only ones that can contribute and speed | up projects, since the SEC has no safe harbors that allow smaller | startups to innovate. So either do not innovate or try with the | worry of the SEC killing your project. It's best for smaller | projects to not allow any U.S. investment, but even then you may | have a problem. | | It kind of seems as if the U.S. is protecting Wall Street from | Web3 under the guise of protecting retail investors. There are a | lot of players that are currently collecting "Economic Rent" that | may be displaced by Web3 innovation. | | But there is also a lot of hype and streams of B.S. on twitter, | where I had to unsubscribe to a few of the gurus, and wondered if | all they did is produce fodder for the masses Aping into Crypto, | so they can be brought to slaughter. | | Cheers | cblconfederate wrote: | The legitimacy of a worldwide database can be solved if the UN | decides to run a MySQL instance, creates APIs for transactions | between individuals, and agrees on a worldwide legal framework | for transactions. In the eyes of many this would look more | legitimate than the "network of terrorists and CP". I don't think | that argument is enough | malermeister wrote: | There's already a worldwide API for transactions between | individuals. It's called SWIFT. | jmull wrote: | The post this post links to a few times [1] is the more | interesting one: | | https://continuations.com/post/671863718643105792/web3crypto... | | Still, it's unconvincing to me. | | It argues web3 is about permissionless data. The problem with | that is we already have permissionless data -- you can put almost | any kind of data you want on a server and encourage people honor | it. What they actually want is shared data, governed by rules | that hard for anyone to change, and use that as scaffolding to | build systems around consequential data. That's kind of | interesting, but what happens when the rules conflict with | reality. E.g., when the blockchain says you own the land but the | law says someone else does? Now you could agree to make a | blockchain database is the authority on something, even | contractually, which would help it harmonize with laws to a | decent degree. But that would be an individual decision and | doesn't preclude scams, fraud, people acting in bad faith, etc. | | Ultimately blockchains about data of any consequence will have to | comport with applicable laws and regulations, just like | everything else. The lack of flexibility likewise makes | blockchain pretty useless for softer things, like social | networks. (It's kind of silly to even bring up social networks in | this context, but the post brings up Facebook.) | tfang17 wrote: | Wonder what Fred thinks about having a single-shared database | (Ethereum) vs. having multiple shared databases (SOLUNAVAX). | offbeatrock wrote: | why not sell an existing service as a new one by swapping the | current database for a private centrally controlled blockchain? | Think of all the cheddar. | endisneigh wrote: | Let's say all crypto goes down in value 10% year after year in | 2022 indefinitely. | | This shouldn't necessarily affect the value or necessity (or lack | thereof) of Web3. Can Web3 practically succeed under these | conditions? | | Unfortunately after engaging with many in person and on this | forum, I've yet to hear a coherent strategy or purpose for Web3 | that doesn't rely on centralized entities at any part of the | chain, or rely on crypto going up. | christopherwxyz wrote: | Consider that lots of companies have relatively small market | caps relative to their profit mandate, and yet they still | provide a crucial value to their customers. | | GE with a workforce of over 174,000 employees sells 75 billion | dollars in goods and services, yet has a price to sales ratio | of 1.37. | jayd16 wrote: | Can we stop talking about web3 unless we're talking about an | actual spec, service or product? | capableweb wrote: | Why? Web3 is an idea/concept, much like the web itself or the | internet (neither are "an actual spec, service or product"), | but we can still discuss the web and the internet no? | Traubenfuchs wrote: | Sorry, there are none. Only premined ICO scams, crypto | speculation and NFT scams/speculation. | tarkin2 wrote: | Build something! All this talking makes me suspect this just to | increase the hype around and price of various crypto currencies. | jrm4 wrote: | The thing I find perhaps the most telling is what's missing -- | namely the lack of discussion around the already-done | implementations of the technologies that are being hyped as | "web3" things; e.g. there is _certainly_ quite a bit that could | be learned from Second Life slash The Sims slash Roblox slash | Minecraft, and yet, all hype and no grownup discussion of what | could be learned here. | [deleted] | throwaway984393 wrote: | The saddest thing about all this is how much real improvement we | could make to the world if nerd billionaires would stop chasing | stupid ideas they don't understand. | | It's like rewriting a codebase. You know it's just going to be | expensive, time-consuming, introduce tons of new bugs, and may | not even solve the customer's problem. But it _feels good_ , so | people bumble forward, confident in their ignorance of the real | outcome. | beders wrote: | I still don't get the economics of this. Who is paying for the | hosting and maintenance costs? | rambambram wrote: | Web3 is nothing but an echo chamber. A very empty echo chamber, | so it echoes pretty nice. I'm back to the worldwide web. | Zaskoda wrote: | Perhaps you mean World Wide Web. ;-) | dgudkov wrote: | Decentralized cryptoapps may have a point, but somehow "web3" | proponents forget that there there can be decentralization | without crypto at all. | | Web2 succeeded because Web1 protocols haven't been developed to | withstand abuse. For instance, the email protocol (Web1) hasn't | got an extension that would enable receiving emails only from | authorized senders. As a result, email is heavily abused by spam | and phishing to a degree that only a handful of large email | providers can effectively deal with it. The centralization of | email services is typical for Web2. | | RSS (Web1) hasn't got an extension that would enable access | restriction and following. As a result, centralized proprietary | ad-driven social networks (Web2) took over. | | HTTP (Web1) hasn't developed a micropayment mechanism. As a | result, the current internet is monetized through all-pervasive | ads (Web2) with all the terrible destructive downsides that come | from ad-driven media. | layer8 wrote: | Email isn't web1. It isn't web-anything. | vinnie-io wrote: | there are no practical use cases for blockchain outside of git | root_axis wrote: | I'm not convinced. | | People talk grand about "permissionless data" but I fail to see | any practical applications. NFTs are a scam and are retroactively | obsoleted by digital signatures. All of the ideas about logistics | tracking, deed tracking, etc etc are all rendered pointless by | the oracle problem, you can get identical guarantees with digital | signatures minus the blockchain. | | DeFi is DOA. Gas fees are insane, "layer 2" is just a diplomatic | way of saying "offchain centralization", every DeFi scheme is a | money loser relative to just buying eth and waiting for a pump, | "collateralized" loans where you pay coin so someone will loan | you coin is not a valuable use-case to the vast majority of the | population... | | None of this is about giving power back to individuals, it's all | about making money on mining fees and cryptocurrency speculation. | doomrobo wrote: | > NFTs are a scam and are retroactively obsoleted by digital | signatures | | I'm not one to ever defend NFTs, but this is not right. Suppose | I bought an extremely trendy natural number k [?] Z and I have | a signature s from its inventor that says "doomrobo owns k". | Suppose in a year the trend has passed and I'd like to sell k. | How do I transfer ownership to someone else? Clearly sending s | doesn't suffice, since s is public. Do I need a new signature? | | Ok different setup: s is actually a signature from _me_ and the | inventor saying "the non-inventor pubkey that signed of this | message is the owner of k". How do I transfer s now? Do I send | my signing secret key? Who makes sure I deleted my copy of the | signing key? | galaxyLogic wrote: | Good questions. | | Let's say I create a piece of digital art and create an NFT | out of it. The NFT somehow starts increasing in value. Then I | copy my original digital art-asset and perhaps use a Photo- | Shop filter to make it have a different hue. I turn that into | another NFT. And I keep on doing this for all colors of the | rainbow. | | What prevents me from creating new NFTs with the same or | slightly modified underlying digital asset? | raesene9 wrote: | In many cases you don't even need to modify it. Ownership | of an NFT often does not provide copyright on the original | image (https://www.wipo.int/wipo_magazine/en/2021/04/articl | e_0007.h... has some interesting details on what you do and | don't get with an NFT). So if you made the original image, | you can just mint a new NFT of that image and sell it. | | Heck you can mint as many NFTs as you like of any image you | own the copyright of :) | kpommerenke wrote: | Why do I need to own the copyright to mint an NFT of the | image? | stathibus wrote: | The photoshopping step is unnecessary. You can literally | mint infinite NFTs of the same piece of digital art. | makeee wrote: | This isn't any different than an artist offering a limited | run of physical prints and then going back on their word. | There's generally some level of trust between the buyer and | the artist and if they break that trust then they hurt | demand for their work. I've been following the NFT space | for years and I haven't seen this issue crop up much at | all. | quickthrower2 wrote: | It is worse than that, there are no pixels! The NFT is a | short string, usually a URL. It's effectively a QR code! | You can create as many copies as you like. The "value" of | an NFT comes in somehow convincing people you are the | official one. This needs a lot of clout: e.g. a sale by | Sotherbys that is well known that people can trace back the | NFT to. In a sense its like a digital antique when there | are easy fakes. | | My way of thinking is an NFT is a shitcoin with supply 1 | and smallest denomination 1. | jandrese wrote: | A NFT is just a digital receipt, and there's nothing that | ties the receipt to the original creator or work except for | a bit of text that the person creating the NFT has full | control over. So they are effectively worthless for | determining ownership, especially for copyright purposes. | | The "non-fungible" part refers only to the receipt, not the | original work. | corobo wrote: | > What prevents me from creating new NFTs with the same or | slightly modified underlying digital asset? | | That one seems like a classic supply and demand thing. Make | too many, sell none | | Having said that, that does actually seem to be the | business model in this wave. At least for the ones people | are heavily pushing that get on on my radar. Maybe not hues | but "accessories" (procedurally generated png layers, | flattened) | krrrh wrote: | Walter Benjamin talked about this problem in 1935 [0]. It's | particularly an issue with photography as an art form. For | instance Jeff Wall's masters are all stored as RAW digital | files and displayed as light boxes [1]. Theoretically he | could produce an unlimited number of editions of each work, | and theoretically anyone working at a record label who had | received a copy of the hq file could do the same [2]. | | What prevents this and maintains the value of the work is | that there are legal and social norms enforced through a | vast network of institutions (galleries, museums, | collectors, art fairs) that ensure that there will never be | more than 1 actual edition of the work, or 2 or 3, whatever | it is the number never changes after it is set, and minting | more editions would be professional suicide, and the | network of institutions would never allow or recognize it | even if an artist tried it. | | Lawrence Lessig's book _Code_ developed the argument that | any combination of social norms, legal structures | /enforcement, and code or infrastructure can function as | law, and sanction or foster certain behaviour and markets. | "Code is law" was a clever observation and a bit of a | revelation, but the NFT crowd seem to believe that it's | enough or that it has more value than the social norms and | contract law of the existing art world. It's engineering | mindset hubris. | | There's an attempt now to work social norms into the NFT | space and enforce etiquette around "right-clicking", but | convincing collectors of paintings that they could continue | to collect photography was less of a challenge than | convincing generations raised on BitTorrent, DRM wars, and | authorless memes to introduce false scarcity into online | digital abundance. | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Ag | e_of_... [1] https://artblart.com/tag/transparency-in- | light-box/ [2] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Destroyed_Room:_B- | Sides_an... | root_axis wrote: | The NFT would contain "$doomrobo_public_key owns $k as of | $date" signed with the minter's private key. When you decide | to sell someone the NFT you append "$new_owner_public_key | owns $k as of $date" to the NFT and sign it with your private | key: this establishes a secure and verifiable chain of | ownership. | quickthrower2 wrote: | You can send two of those assignment signatures to two | different parties simultaneously. | | Is there a way in your system to avoid the double send? | root_axis wrote: | You can do the same thing with blockchain NFTs, just mint | another blockchain NFT with the same content. You can say | "well, the NFT that was minted first is the true | original" but the same is true of the "double sent" | digital signature NFT, one will be dated more recently | than the other, which affords one identical guarantees of | authenticity to the blockchain NFT. | codesternews wrote: | There is some project. NFT Replicas - | https://nftreplicas.net/ Nothing is stopping any one to | mint another NFT with same content. | root_axis wrote: | Indeed, but NFT enthusiasts would say that the replicas | are not valid because they were not originally minted by | the trusted author, of course, nothing is stopping the | author from minting multiple NFTs of the same content so | the point is moot. | quickthrower2 wrote: | Thats not the same thing. | [deleted] | root_axis wrote: | I just explained why it is. A one line response of "nuh | uh" is not convincing. | quickthrower2 wrote: | Its an analogy and diverts from the original point. We | were talking about how you were going to solve double | spends without a chain. | | You point about minting another is an interesting point | but its not a double spend so we veer off the topic. | | If we take your point then its the same as saying anyone | can create a new crypto and call it Bitcoin. If I have an | OG Bitcoin and you have a fake one then you can steel my | real one. No you cant. | | The reason is that people discern what Bitcoin is vs. | other coins. | | NFT cooy/paste is a problem but it is a distinct and | different problem to double spend. | root_axis wrote: | > _We were talking about how you were going to solve | double spends without a chain._ | | "Double spend" is a cryptocurrency problem, NFTs do not | have this problem since unlike "currencies" the goal is | to create a "non fungible" record of ownership for an | off-chain asset; a chain of digital signatures satisfies | this need, the double spend issue is not relevant to the | stated use-case. | quickthrower2 wrote: | The genesis of this discussion is "NFTs are a scam and | are retroactively obsoleted by digital signatures". I | basically said "how to avoid double spend in digital | signatures", someone replied "but you can clone NFTs!". I | said "yes but that is different". | | You are correct double spend is not a problem with NFT | because they piggy back on crypto layers. | | However double spend is a problem with just digital | signatures that "retroactively obsoleted" NFTs. | | Since there are multiple people commenting and steering | the thread in different directions I feel this is being | filibustered. So ill stop replying. Im exhausted! | root_axis wrote: | > _However double spend is a problem with just digital | signatures that "retroactively obsoleted" NFTs._ | | As I already stated, this is not true. Nobody can stop an | author from minting two different blockchain NFTs | pointing to the same content, there's no difference | between that and "double spending" a digital signature | NFT. At the end of the day, the only thing the NFT does | is prove "the author authorized this verbal statement of | ownership", a digitally signed text file does exactly the | same thing. | saurik wrote: | The only difference between a fungible token and a non- | fungible token is its fungibility: everything else is the | same. The stated use case for both is "I want to know for | certain who owns something". A chain of digital | signatures fails to satisfy that need. Please stop being | so assertive about something you clearly don't know | anything about: there are tons of useful complaints about | how people are using NFTs, but this is not one of them. | root_axis wrote: | A semantic distinction without an actual difference. At | the end of the day all an NFT does is state "author X | gives ownership of Y to Z", if you trust the public key | of X a signed text file stating "author X gives ownership | of Y to Z" gives you identical guarantees to a blockchain | NFT stating the same thing. Nothing stops author X from | minting a blockchain NFT that states "author X gives | ownership of Y to Z" and also an additional blockchain | NFT stating "author X gives ownership of Y to Q"... it's | literally just a digitally signed string. | saurik wrote: | What blockchains provide is transaction ordering as a | service. If Y is an NFT, what prevents that from | happening is the code on the blockchain: the same kind of | code (literally, on Ethereum) that prevents Y from being | a fungible token for a cryptocurrency that they send to | two people (aka "double spend"). | | If Y is not an NFT, but you know the original owner X, | and you wish to create an NFT, the same kind of | mechanisms work: the first time you attempt to assign | ownership is the canonical one. Which you seemed to get | up-thread, you just failed to "do the math" to see why | digital signatures alone don't support that as you are so | sure cryptocurrencies have no value. | | If you send two digital signatures to two people claiming | they both own something, the big issue is that the second | person might not even know the first person exists. You | need some kind of mechanism to invalidate the second one | by exposing the first one in a trustless global ledger of | events.... that's what blockchains provide. | | If you only care about the semantics of disputes--which | is potentially fair for claims over a physical object: it | acts as a kind of "second factor"--you get a long way by | just including the entire chain back to the root whenever | you transfer ownership, allowing people to show | prominence over other chains they obviously dominate... | | ...but any time there is a _conflict_ --and not just on | the original sale!--in your histories you can't compare | timestamps to resolve the dispute as you _can 't trust | them_: digital signatures _cannot_ show that one thing | happened before the other thing as any timestamp is just | data being signed, attached by the signer, and is | meaningless. | | To resolve these conflicts you need to use your | distributed ledger to establish that no such signature | has been signed previously: you need a way to | _authoritatively_ assign prominence. If you have a | solution for this, what you have invented is a | cryptocurrency and could be used as such (as there is no | relevant difference between fungible and non-fungible | tokens). | | (And note that this is true even if you try to solve this | by using some complex web-of trust of a ton of random | third-parties or overlapping sets of parties that | different people haphazardly might choose to trust | instead of a linear blockchain... you are just talking | about systems like Holochain or Stellar or Avalanche | instead of systems like Bitcoin or Ethereum.) | throw_nbvc1234 wrote: | Wouldn't the author be different if you just minted a | copy? So if the original is from a trust/known entity | (like an IRL company or suitably famous artist) this | doesn't work. The list of trusted entities could be | centralized, crowd-sourced, hand-managed, or anything | else; let people decide who they trust to make those | determinations and let them switch between them at will. | root_axis wrote: | > _Wouldn 't the author be different if you just minted a | copy?_ | | The problem being described above is the possibility of | the trusted author minting multiple digital signature | NFTs for the same content. A reseller can't create a copy | because they can't sign a message conferring ownership | from the trusted source without their private key. | kkjjkgjjgg wrote: | But at least you can check the blockchain for all the | content the author has created. | [deleted] | root_axis wrote: | The author could use a unique private key for each | blockchain NFT if they wanted to avoid that. | kkjjkgjjgg wrote: | The problem of how to associate a NFT with a physical | object is a different one from the transfer/spending | problem. | | I think that is the "minting" problem. | | An artist simply signing stuff does not even prove that a | physical object corresponding to the token exists. | | I like to think of other use cases, like real estate or | stock options. If you talk about a plot of land, it seems | feasible to find a unique identifier (you could even | involve the government). | | Edit: HN does not allow me any more replies right now, so | I have to leave it at that. The reason why a "government | signature on the deed" would achieve the same thing is | because we trust on the government to keep a proper | ledger. And the government asks for a lot of money for a | transfer. | root_axis wrote: | > _I like to think of other use cases, like real estate | or stock options. If you talk about a plot of land, it | seems feasible to find a unique identifier (you could | even involve the government)._ | | A deed digitally signed by the government's private key | satisfies this need without a blockchain. | k-kr wrote: | You can require edition number / total copies in the | original signed claim. Beyond that, you take it to the | courts, which is the same thing you would need to do if | the same resource was reminded on blockchain. The | blockchain may only make it easier to detect a double | mint. | kkjjkgjjgg wrote: | No it doesn't, because you can simply keep selling the | "old" version with the signature that say that you are the | owner. It is digital, so you can make an an endless number | of copies. | root_axis wrote: | You can do the exact same thing with a blockchain NFT - | there's absolutely no difference in terms of outcome. | Each "sale" generates a unique digital signature NFT | because the public key of the person buying is | incorporated as part of the cryptographic signature. | kkjjkgjjgg wrote: | Every sale is on the blockchain, so if somebody creates | multiple sales of the same item, it would immediately be | visible. Of course it depends on the implementation, how | do you identify an object? | | Leonardo could still create one NFT saying "this is | ownership of my painting of the woman that always looks | at the beholder" and another saying "this is ownership of | my painting "Mona Lisa" and it would perhaps not be | immediately clear that they are the same painting. | | Nevertheless, that is the "minting" problem and not the | "spending" (or transfer) problem. | | Edit: HN does not allow me any more replies at this | point, sorry. | lottin wrote: | > Every sale is on the blockchain, so if somebody creates | multiple sales of the same item, it would immediately be | visible. | | There is an infinite number of blockchains. | root_axis wrote: | > _Every sale is on the blockchain, so if somebody | creates multiple sales of the same item, it would | immediately be visible_ | | Just use a different private key for each sale. | andreilys wrote: | _DeFi is DOA. Gas fees are insane, "layer 2" is just a | diplomatic way of saying "offchain centralization"_ | | It may come as a surprise but there are other chains that | support DeFi apps and which do not have high gas fees like | Ethereum. For example, Avalanche and Solana. | | Collateralized crypto loans are the equivalent of people taking | loans out on their equity position so they don't have to pay | cap gains and don't need to Liquidate. So the use case is | already demonstrated, it's just now applied in a crypto world. | mgraczyk wrote: | That is not why people take out loans. They do it for | leverage and to avoid selling because they want exposure to | ETH or BTC. There are easier ways to avoid taxes. | nfw2 wrote: | Do digital signatures really make the blockchain obsolete if | they fill the same niche? | | Even if blockchain are technically equivalent to digital | signatures, it seems like it has some real advantages from a | business perspective: - it is capturing the market of people | who want to buy "official" digital assets and is becoming the | de facto way to do so - the market is one that should have | strong network effects - gaining the trust of that market is | crucial to supporting these sort of trades | | I still think NFTs are a bubble that will come back down to | Earth eventually. But I also find sneaker and stamp collectors | equally perplexing, and people don't discuss these phenomena | with the same sort of skepticism. | jaredsohn wrote: | >But I also find sneaker and stamp collectors equally | perplexing, | | People for the most part don't get rich off of stamps. Is | more of a hobby than an investment. | [deleted] | jedberg wrote: | HN wasn't around when Web2.0 became a thing, but I don't remember | Slashdot being filled with constant articles justifying Web2.0. | I'm am just forgetting or were we as a community a lot less | divided about it? | codingdave wrote: | It was less divided, but that was at least in part because "Web | 2.0" was about the web. This usage of "web3" to mean | crypto/blockchain has nothing to do with the web, and therefore | feels completely absurd to me. | rafiki6 wrote: | I think there was less to be divided about. Back then, the best | the evangelist could do was create a blog and try to game SEO | to get noticed. They could post on a few popular forums, but | discoverability was limited and algorithms designed to pump | engagement didn't exist because social media platforms were in | their infancy. It's a different world today. The barrier is | lower. Blogging influentially is as easy as posting a medium | article and pushing it on the social media platforms. So | specific voices which tend to be controversial are getting way | more amplified. Then the algorithms just creates echo chambers | to keep the users engaged to pump up the ad revenue. | | That being said, Web 2.0 had two primary themes and business | value propositions. It was social media/ads, and e-commerce. | Those were pretty clear and there was no confusion about how | money would be made. Out of those was born what I like to call | Web 2.5, where basically every industry was getting SaaSified | in one form or another. Out of this was born big data and the | emergence of the most recent ML hype due to the need to create | these algos to maximize ad driven profit. | | Crypto/Decentralization/Web 3.0 has a much much more | challenging road ahead to get mass adoption. Outside of the | obvious scaling issues decentralization brings about, | decentralized apps have a much less clear path to monetization. | That's in essence why they need to create their own economies | with tokens and crypto. Really for "Web 3.0" to be successful, | we are looking towards a whole scale reimagining of how | economies function. This is entirely different than using the | internet to create analogs to real world things like stores or | newspapers. | | The value proposition of social media was abundant, and the | path to profitability was clear. Ditto for ecommerce platforms. | Ditto for the majority of SaaS applications. | | I think the fundamental divide here is talking about Web 3.0, | (or ICOs, DApps, DeFi, NFTs, or w/e the "use case" of the day | is), generally seems to be avoiding talking about the true | value proposition of decentralization, which will face such | tremendous resistance from powerful world governments, that | it's akin to a war being fought to creating a new world order | and evolution of how human society is shaped. The stakes are | much higher and failure is much more likely. | | I wouldn't be surprised if all the most successful projects | just end up being centralized layers on top of the protocols | and all they really end up doing is usurping the place of some | existing Web 2.0 platforms due to some network effect pushed | forward by a few key influencers. That's essentially what | happened with TCP/IP and HTTP. I don't see why it will be any | different this time. | danenania wrote: | Web 2.0 was a label created to describe an emergent trend | (ajax, rich ui, rounded corners, drop shadows) that was well | underway by the time the label was popular. | | web3 seems to be attempting the reverse: popularize the label | first and hope the trend follows. | snowwrestler wrote: | When thinking about web3 I try to maintain a mental distinction | between the enthusiasm for new ways of building applications, and | the technical capabilities available to do so now. | | To the extent there is something "there" in web3, I think it is | mostly the former--the enthusiasm. | | I saw someone write that there is a whole generation that grew up | in a web dominated by Facebook, YouTube, etc. and they are hungry | for a new way of doing things that feels free. I grew up with the | original implementation of the WWW so I feel a lot of empathy for | this point of view. It felt incredibly exciting and free. | | That said, the "web3" technology so far seems to be a dumpster | fire. NFTs are packed with wash-sale scammers, and smart | contracts are super inefficient, or break in expensive ways, or | both. Although to be fair the early Web 1.0 was largely a | dumpster fire too. :-) | | I think there is a big risk that the enthusiasm gets coopted by | "solutions" that are in fact still centralized and just the old | rulers in new clothes. I have to say that seeing so much boosting | from rich established VCs does not seem like a good signal in | that regard. | | When I see someone whose job it is to centralize huge control and | rewards on behalf of their investors shouting that web3 is | freedom from control and centralization... I start to feel | dubious. | PaulHoule wrote: | The author struggles to make the point that Web3 has value. Isn't | "another opportunity for grift" a source of value for grifters? | JohnWhigham wrote: | He's a VC, he needs to project that they invest in things that | have value. They're part of the grift. I have 0 faith in | _anything_ coming out of a VC 's office to be beneficial to | society. An interesting business? Sure! But in the long run it | will not be a good thing. | PaulHoule wrote: | That guy usually writes some good articles and seems to have | some sense but since the NFT grift hit it big the blockheads | have really gone down a rabbit hole. | creeble wrote: | Or even mention the "value" of the many DeFi apps that are | available on the ethereum blockchain. What do they do? | | My real question is: why would an investor want to put money | into a company that doesn't "own" the data from their | customers? Do they even _have_ customers? What is their | business model? | | I know, I know - they make commissions on all those billions of | transactions that will happen on the blockchain. Right? Is the | value simply coming up with new ways to add cost to | transactions? | | I'm lost. Even when web2 was in an eyeballs race, I understood | that you could monetize eyeballs with advertising (in what I | considered a worst-case model). And SaaS was an obvious model, | even if Marc Benioff seemed to yell about it a lot. | | What is a web3 business model outside of currency exchange? | PaulHoule wrote: | On a very small scale I am working on a next-generation web | for myself and people immediately around me. | | My #1 principle is cost minimization so that I don't need to | worry about what it costs to run. | | Futurists circa 1970 expected that people would be getting | their news from something like cnn.com in the Early 1980s | | https://www.niemanlab.org/2013/08/summer-reading-2013-the- | in... | | In some sense it came true in that you could access the AP | newswire on Compuserve and the Source and that there were | teletext services in Europe. | | All of these faced bad economics. The cost of CompuServe was | astronomical. The only one that came close to mass market was | Minitel in France and that was because the phone company saw | they could save money on directory services. | | The web came along because technology had progressed an order | of magnitude past feasibility to the point where people could | publish stuff on the web and not worry about what it costs. | That act of closing the circle and making it financial | sustainable really trashed it. | todd3834 wrote: | I wish I could separate decentralized database from volatile | investment. I understand that it can provide an incentive to get | paid for essentially hosting part of the database. Is your | average person benefiting from this or did we just give most of | the centralization to mining farms where electricity is cheaper? | | Is web3 crypto money? Is it peer to peer? Is it blockchain? | | Does the blockchain really make sense for something like a HN | clone or an instagram? | | If I were trying to proselytize web3 I would be promoting tech | demos and convincing people why it is better. Like the Rails blog | video that blew all of our minds in the past. We all wanted to | use Rails after that. The benefits were clear. | rednerrus wrote: | Every commenter in this thread should disclose their web3 | holdings as part of their comments. | | I have a fairly large doge holding that I mined in the very | beginning and haven't felt like dealing with. | wslh wrote: | The crux of web3 is the UX, last mile, and/or listing problem: | even if you, hypothetically, could find a decentralized solution | for every centralized one, the last interface to this mechanism | will be centralized. | | Your UI (e.g. mobile app) is centralized so the best UI will | eventually win because most end users care about UX or will enter | this interface because they see a well paid ad. If this UI (e.g. | a decentralized search engine interface) wants to censor some | content then it will win over the decentralized protocol behind | it. | nathias wrote: | Why would UI need to be centralized? Even in normal SPAs the | client is making most of the work, the UI is fairly trivial to | decentralize and there were a few examples on hn already. | wslh wrote: | This is very simple: imagine you have decentralized Uber/Lyft | so now all the logic occurs in a decentralized way. | | Now, Uber^2 publishes a great mobile app, the mobile app is | obviously centralized and they can decide to use or not and | how to use the decentralized mechanism because they are the | winners as the UX. | | Isn't this obvious? | nathias wrote: | Oh you're thinking that centralized apps would always | produce better UX for some reason? I think centralized apps | are making UX necessarily worse, because they implement | dark patterns in order to milk their users, while in a | decentralized ones you can just make your own. For example, | matrix vs discord, one I can customize and interact with | however I want the other is garbage and if I change | anything I will get banned. | ReggieCommaRose wrote: | The topic at hand is mainstream adoption and I think | empirically the world disagrees with you. | nathias wrote: | I'm sure you believe mainstream adoption is a consequence | of a software having good UX and being very useful, I | don't. | wslh wrote: | Mainstream adoption is independent if the app is | centralized or not. You are ignoring the people who use | Netflix, TikTok, Instagram, etc. People care about the | brand offering not if they are decentralized or not. | nathias wrote: | If you don't see the problem being solved, it's you. | Shadonototra wrote: | because institutions lost their influence | | no kids reads newspaper, nor they watch the TV, traditional | propaganda has no effect on them | | web3 would be a way to centralize everything again, so propaganda | could be better targeted, opinions controlled, and easily censor- | able | | you lol'd at china and their social credit score system? don't be | jealous, you'll have yours! but it wont be about being a good | citizen, it'll be about being a servant consumerist | | i see web3.0 as a way for the establishment to regain the | influence they lost on their people | | the boomers trying to stay relevant | | the people late to the internet party, can't have a piece of the | cake, so they want to force their way in | | a way for societal scammers to keep doing what they love doing | | NFT people? they can't wait selling art they bought for $5 from | fivers and pretend you own a piece of a database they rent on | digital ocean for $5 a month | | lol, what a wonderful plan, definitely something China is jealous | of, no wonder they are looking for ways to get the hell out of | this planet and conquer the space | | because there is one thing that would definitely kill our | species, if the west tries to expand its shitty society outside | of this dying planet | | -- | | i mean, people dream of meta verse, how ridiculous, therefore i | can be ridiculous with my posts too! who cares, we not looking | for transcending humankind, are we? my bad my bad, i mean, you | not even trying lol | qaq wrote: | One thing that is confusing most loud supporters of Web3 are VCs | and yet: "It all comes down to the database that sits behind an | application. If that database is controlled by a single entity | (think company, think big tech), then enormous market power | accrues to the owner/administrator of that database. | | If, on the other hand, the database is an open public database | that is not controlled and administered by a single company, but | instead is a truly open system available to all, then that kind | of market power cannot be built up around a data asset" So why | are they flowing billions of dollars into this ? If there is no | locking what will create outsized returns for them? | fleddr wrote: | Almost all web3 projects issue their own tokens. Before they | allow you to buy any of these tokens, they reserve part of the | supply to the dev team and VCs. The rest of the supply is | issued to the community. | | If the project/token is successful, the monetary value of the | token rises, which funds the development teams and helps VCs to | get a return. | | So as always, big capital gets the early access, and us mortal | do not. | | Still, for a serious project it's not as bad as it sounds. It | could still end up meaning the project is 75% community owned, | rather than the 0% in a fully central organization. | | You should apply scrutiny though to the "decentralized" claim. | Most web3 projects aren't very decentralized at all. | m_ke wrote: | 1. Because it's a ponzi scheme and they get to get in on the | ground floor. See: | https://mobile.twitter.com/intangiblecoins/status/1473302581... | | 2. Because they're rich libertarians who see crypto as a way to | protect their assets from the government | jrsj wrote: | The only thing more annoying than libertarian crypto bros is | progressives who don't like crypto because people have made | money off it or they see it as inherently right wing | technology (the Soviet Union said that about computers | originally, you can see how that worked out for them) | inopinatus wrote: | Maybe so, but they're not in this thread. | | Criticising the whole shebang as a bunch of charletans | pitching snake oil to the gullible isn't "progressive", | it's common sense. | shafyy wrote: | Perfectly summarized. | matchagaucho wrote: | Because experienced VCs know web 1.0 also started with | decentralized / libertarian ideals, but ultimately early | players built walled gardens and gatekeeping around the "world | wide web". | | They don't want to miss the web3 boat, and they're betting the | web 1.0/web 2.0 playbooks still apply. | jayd16 wrote: | Agreed. Most of the decentralization talk is Kabuki and it's | still about controlling the platform. | moflome wrote: | Upvoting for the use of kabuki in explaining the | melodramatic pantomime of crypto hype, if only we were all | more artisanal in building out this nascent blockchain | tech. Imagine if tcp/ip were invented today with all this | pre-marketing by VCs | Apocryphon wrote: | Indeed, a world ruled by feudal lords and corporate fiefs | still possesses as little liberty as one ruled by a | centralized empire. | tehjoker wrote: | Less liberty really as the ability of corporations to | intervene in your life far surpasses the capacity feudal | states had on a day-to-day basis. | zaptheimpaler wrote: | Consider a few simple examples - | | It is possible to buy crypto purely peer to peer e.g just 2 | people posting on a forum. Yet, most people buy it on an | exchange and pay the transaction fees. | | It is possible to set up a wordpress server on your home PC or | a cheap VPS, yet most people buy it off wordpress.com | | It is possible to replicate an ETF with relatively low effort | by just looking up their holdings every month and rebalancing, | yet most people pay the ETF fees. | | It is possible to make great coffee at home yet people go to | coffee shops. | | --- | | The main idea IMO is just relying on people to be willing to | buy into whatever new thing has a lot of marketing and hype | behind it. They consistently do. Even if web3 is a truly open | system, people will remain too apathetic to learn how that | system works - they will just go to the most popular platform | and pay the fee. | | --- | | The other angle IMO is that banks and tradfi in a lot of places | really do suck hard. They don't need to innovate at all and | rarely do. The only reason they don't have competition is piles | of red tape, regulation, lobbying, corruption etc. All it takes | is someone to make a half-decent website/app that makes things | a little better (e.g Robinhood) and crypto is a way to do that | while getting around all the old regulation. | ivalm wrote: | > The main idea IMO is just relying on people to be willing | to buy into whatever new thing has a lot of marketing and | hype behind it. They consistently do. Even if web3 is a truly | open system, people will remain too apathetic to learn how | that system works - they will just go to the most popular | platform and pay the fee | | Then why not do it on web2? Web2, as it relies on trusted | authorities, is fundamentally cheaper to run than web3. | | > It is possible to replicate an ETF with relatively low | effort by just looking up their holdings every month and | rebalancing, yet most people pay the ETF fees. | | ETFs rebalance without incurring capital gains, which is a | massive advantage. | verdverm wrote: | > Then why not do it on web2 | | Because you need something new and abstract to attract the | rubes | k__ wrote: | My theory: | | Some people believe that this type of decentralization could be | a force that can't be stopped by traditional companies and want | to get in as soon as possible so they don't end up on the | losing side of history. | | Of course, rich people simply diversify their assets and crypto | is just one of many bets they do, so it's not 100% sure this | will happen. | polskibus wrote: | The locking is in the company that controls the spec of the | protocol and its reference implementation. It's always been | about getting as many people onboard as possible, this time the | bait is decentralisation. | codesternews wrote: | but they are not company people? | | company does not own anything nor database? | | I think just coins? | say_it_as_it_is wrote: | Could you explain that business model? | z3t4 wrote: | You do not need to make money from the product directly. | Think for example if the Bitcoin creator would get 10 cent | every time someone mentioned Bitcoin. Or the easiest | business model of them all, sell ads on your org site. | capableweb wrote: | > Think for example if the Bitcoin creator would get 10 | cent every time someone mentioned Bitcoin | | Eh, how would that work exactly? | | > Or the easiest business model of them all, sell ads on | your org site | | That's great, but I can ensure you: none of us in the | cryptocurrency ecosystem wants anything to do with ads. | Also, can't really build a big business by having ads on | your website. | z3t4 wrote: | There are casual games that are mostly funded by | merchandise (Angry Birds). The game makes the brand | popular, then they sell kid toys and clothing. I don't | know _exactly_ how you would get paid by just someone | mentioning your trademark, but it might be your business | innovation - as in order to reach unicorn status you | either need to innovate in the business area, or innovate | in the product area - you do not need to innovate in | both! (heck it 's probably enough to copy/apply an | already successful business model on an already | successful/invented product, but in a combination that no | one yet has tried) | jasonzemos wrote: | One company controls the specification and reference | implementation. These gimmicks tend to be "open" so | contributions can flow in from anywhere, but the company | has full priority and benefits by controlling the pace and | final result. | | Outsider contributions are submitted publicly, while | features developed by the company start in secret and can | remain secret as long as possible. The company's | contributions are rammed through while outsiders contend | with endless bikeshedding with no guarantee they will get | anything they need. | | In the end there is no sensible reason for any other entity | to partner with the controlling company. The partner finds | they are prevented from innovating while being bogged down | by the "process." The controlling party then seeks to | cannibalize the partner's product during this time by | shelving any of their unique features and ideas. Once the | partner moves on, the requisite changes and fixes to the | specification are magically pushed through. | | I wouldn't call this a core business model as much as an | enhancement to one. Fundamentally it's an attention grift | -- a bamboozle of complex rules, procedures and processes, | cloaked in goodwill, and furnished by a large interest and | future hope at any given time. | lowwave wrote: | >One company controls the specification and reference | implementation. These gimmicks tend to be "open" so | contributions can flow in from anywhere, but the company | has full priority and benefits by controlling the pace | and final result. | | Google Chrome for example | darawk wrote: | Except all these things can be trivially forked. If you | don't like how the VC one is doing things, just fork it. | There are a billion forks of everything in the crypto | space, for exactly this reason. | lowwave wrote: | yes, when was the last time you see google chrome forked | and adopted a large user base? That is event with big VC | money behind it Brave for example. Open source is now | days used a marketing scheme to attract developers to | work for free, and attract user to think that is open. | polskibus wrote: | It's easy to fork the code but not the user base. | capableweb wrote: | Find some problem that requires a ecosystem. Create this | ecosystem and carry a large stake in it. Have the stake be | a part of the ecosystem somehow. In the future, once the | problem has a solution/ecosystem, start selling parts of | the stake. | kordlessagain wrote: | > If there is no locking what will create outsized returns for | them? | | Controlling consensus through proof of stake would give them an | advantage. | pyrale wrote: | Because coins are not regulated like stock. An IPO is not | something you can do anyway you want. | hughrr wrote: | I wouldn't think too far into this. All that is required is the | application of experience and appropriate cynicism. The tech | isn't even relevant and neither is the reality. | | web3 is a marketing term and is easy to leverage hype on as it | implies progression and a new arena of opportunity. | | By the time anyone has peeled off the marketing and realised | it's the same old bullshit people will be too far in to admit | it and death march over the horizon. | codesternews wrote: | What happens when I the company create a databse (let's say | facebook) and Developer A create more compelling application | that facebook company? | | 1.Where is the controlling part. 2. what facebook internal | advantage/motivation to create and hire more engineers and give | dopemine to more people? | | Saying company facebook own coin which has no value what does | this even mean? | | Explain to me. | Apocryphon wrote: | Wouldn't an open database lead to loads of ACID issues or is | the point of blockchain to prevent that | drawkbox wrote: | Further, open databases will potentially make it harder for | iterative change on that data. | | Structures and versioning become harder when that is | distributed at the protocol/standard level. Right now the web | is already distributed, the protocols/standards are open and | versioning data/content/apps/endpoints on top of that is | easy, but updating protocols/standards takes time. Apps are a | second layer to that, versioning is harder as you have to | roll out updates and the OSs/standards they are built on are | the slower changing part, web3 is even harder as updates and | versioning of the protocol/standards AND the data/content on | top will need to propagate and there may be pushback and | splits/forks as we are seeing ETH being difficult to change | core protocols/flows. There may be innovations on this as we | go but also turbulence until that is realized. | | For some areas like personal data and ledger data not | changing much is good. For anything beyond that it makes it | harder to change. Versioning and iterative change is already | difficult in some cases when a company has full control over | the structures. Getting multiple companies to agree on | standards is harder, especially when that impacts revenues on | those systems. The same will happen with web3 maybe more | intensely. Right now even open standards are actively killed | off because they share data. Right now "web2" could have | shared databases, and there are some, but companies push away | from that and actively look to own data which is a problem. | However the same will happen with web3 at additional levels | including the protocols/standards now. | | What may happen is APIs public facades/interfaces/signatures | are more atomic/stable and less changing which is always nice | to have, with the guts of the structures being more | keyed/document data formats. I am always a fan of iterative | change that doesn't nuke the public interfaces/facades unless | absolutely necessary. It may lead to "cleaner" more generic | public interfaces potentially, but it may also lead to | stagnate iterations and infighting like current web | standards. In a way, web3 is more about standards than what | is built on it. Standards can be flexible or not, both with | their pros and cons. | | In a way with cryptocurrency, the real goal of the investors | of web3 is recreating the web with a sort of toll system, | that can be good and bad but their aim is collecting on | actions on new protocols/standards. | | Taking control away from companies for important data like | personal data and shared public data may be good, but there | is also some trouble ahead and many things to work out. The | same type of sharks that capture that data are looking to go | lower in the stack and control that area, and extracting | fees/tolls on the movement in that structure even if it is an | open database. There are pros and cons to all of this. | throw_nbvc1234 wrote: | > In a way with cryptocurrency, the real goal of the | investors of web3 is recreating the web with a sort of toll | system, that can be good and bad but their aim is | collecting on actions on new protocols/standards. | | One could argue that today's web is a combination of ad- | based revenue and tolls run by (near?) monopolies: app | stores, marketplaces, ect... The crypto-like alternatives | such as substack and patreon are growing though and will | likely have a niche even if/when crypto fails. The | centralization of those crypto-like alternatives is a risk | though. I recall one substack author giving email-export as | a rationale to choose substack but that's a feature that | presumably could just be turned off whenever. | Apocryphon wrote: | What makes these alternatives "crypto-like" other than | being less centralized? Are they even less centralized, | other than being platforms owned by smaller corporations | that choose to (for now) exercise a lighter touch? | jshen wrote: | It's a very limited database that is very slow and scales | poorly. | capableweb wrote: | The currently most popular implementation of this "open | database" (Bitcoin) is indeed slow and scales poorly. But | if you start looking into the new ideas, you'll find there | are plenty of still decentralized blockchains with much | faster confirmation times (even as low as 5 seconds) today. | endisneigh wrote: | Which coins have confirmation times that low with the | volume of Bitcoin? | capableweb wrote: | The volume has nothing to do with the confirmation time, | it's a constant no matter if it's 1 or 10000 | transactions. Avalanche, Algorand, Polygon and more fits | the bill of very fast transactions, in case you're | interested in looking into the matter further. | jshen wrote: | Nothing can promise constant performance at infinite | volume. 10,000 transactions are a tiny number for most | modern and popular products these days. | jshen wrote: | 5 seconds is a long time, especially when a normal modern | tech stack can do the same things in milliseconds. I'd | also love a reference showing that any of these chains | can handle 100k requests per second with a latency of a | few seconds. I've never seen it. | kevinak wrote: | The amount of space in a Bitcoin block is around 7 TPS. | | Other blockchains make decentralization tradeoffs to | process more transactions on-chain per second. For | example, Ethereum requires better hardware: larger | storage, better CPU and more memory. Solana makes even | larger tradeoffs: expensive server hardware costing up to | $25000, making it pretty much a central service | controlled by the few. | | The key innovation of Bitcoin is the decentralization; | almost anyone can participate and no one can control it. | Sacrificing this for negligble is not worth it. | Especially since there are smarter ways to scale the | system. Even if you could improve throughput by 100x by | making the system slightly less decentralized you would | still not reach VISA levels of TPS. | | The correct way to scale these systems is using off-chain | solutions like the Lightning Network. This way you can | process millions of transactions per second. | ehsankia wrote: | Not only that, but every operation would cost fees, right? | | Good luck convincing people that every time they logging | into their account or literally do any action will cost | them some fees. Refreshed the page? Oops that'll cost ya! | PragmaticPulp wrote: | In theory, these web3 platforms would still need to function as | a business to continue existing. Moving the platform onto a | blockchain removes the need for centralized servers, but it | necessitates massive amounts of distributed compute power to | keep it going. | | Every blockchain project knows that they need to incentivize | their miners somehow. This is usually a combination of fees | from users and new tokens minted via built-in inflation (yes, | inflation ironically powers much of the crypto space and will | continue to do so for a long time). | | So I always aks: | | 1) What problem are these web3 platforms solving? | | 2) Who are they solving it for? | | 3) Are those people actually willing to pay the blockchain | premium to use a web3 platform over a centralized platform? | | The theory, of course, is that blockchain will evolve over time | to become less resource hungry and therefore cheap enough to | compete with incumbents, but that's a long way away. Many | projects have started cheating by smuggling centralization into | their architecture but emphasizing their blockchain and hoping | nobody cares enough about the difference. | | But where do VCs come into the equation? They're not setting up | the mining operations that will power these businesses and | collect the fees in the future. They're investing in _tokens_ | that will ostensibly be used to pay the miners in the future. | | The whole game is about introducing artificial tokens, quietly | giving a huge number of those tokens to founders and early | investors (in exchange for actual money, of course), and then | hyping the platform to the moon so everyone can cash out their | tokens to a new wave of speculators. | galaxyLogic wrote: | > introducing artificial tokens, quietly giving a huge number | of those tokens to founders and early investors (in exchange | for actual money, of course), and then hyping the platform to | the moon so everyone can cash out their tokens to a new wave | of speculators. | | In other words a Ponzi-scheme | throw_nbvc1234 wrote: | It's a ponzi-scheme if there's no value behind the hype. | it's not inherently a ponzi scheme. It's the same way in | the current private equity start-up world just that only | VC's and connected individuals are exposed to the all the | risk and all the profit. | threeseed wrote: | > It's a ponzi-scheme if there's no value behind the hype | | But what's the value ? | | I am still after a few years now trying to understand | what it actually is. | mumblemumble wrote: | As time goes on, the ever-evolving nature of the predictions | about how crypto will change the world for the better keeps | looking more and more like the ever-evolving nature of the | predictions we were seeing 50 years ago about how the space | aliens were going to come along and change the world for the | better. | | Granted, crypto has a bit of an advantage over the space aliens | in the race to realize a transformative impact on the world, by | virtue of the fact that it actually exists. That's not the | parallel I'm trying to draw here. It's more... it seems that | they're both a situation where people are really just attached to | this one amorphous romantic idea, and the specifics really don't | matter at all. Meaning they can be freely reconfigured, at will | and without much limit, in order to ensure we're always talking | about something that's off in the future rather than something we | might expect to happen now, let alone in the past. Which, | something like that is absolutely perfect fodder for daydreaming. | | So then I ask myself, "Is kicking a ball through it a core part | of the plan, or is this goalpost really just a thing that's fun | to move around?" | | Perhaps my problem is that there's not really any romance in my | soul. | arbuge wrote: | I read this as yet another article stating how great web3 is | going to be and how important the decentralization aspect is, | without making it clear exactly why this is the case, and what | concrete examples of things we'll be able to do with it (that | we're unable to do today) are. | | Web3 sounds to me like one of those soap opera startups PG talks | about. They sound like a great idea when you propose them, but do | people really want them in reality? | numbsafari wrote: | With web3, there is no deplatforming, no moderation, no | accountability. There is no responsibility. | | That's what they really want. They want a system that, in their | minds, won't be subject to regulation or social pressure. | | They are still mad that Reddit blocked certain groups. That | parler got banned from public clouds. | | Those are the things that made them "wake up" to the need for | web3. | | Deleting data and social accountability are important features | that they find abhorrent. | corobo wrote: | > With web3, there is no deplatforming, no moderation, no | accountability | | A collection of NFTs got deplatformed, moderated, and even | accepted accountability yesterday | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29714296 | mritchie712 wrote: | It was "sitcom" startups[0], something like "uber for dogs". I | guess some of web3 qualifies, but I don't think something like | Ethereum would fit that category at all. | | 0 - http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html | adventured wrote: | > If, on the other hand, the database is an open public database | that is not controlled and administered by a single company, but | instead is a truly open system available to all, then that kind | of market power cannot be built up around a data asset | | That's just so blatantly and obviously false it's rather | remarkable that he wrote it. | | Absolutely nothing stops companies from becoming the dominant | providers - aka big tech - that utilize said database at the | application layer. Indeed that's exactly what will happen. You | don't need to own the database to build a big tech monopoly on | top of it. Microsoft didn't own the primary distribution channel | for Windows 95, and they didn't own the hardware it ran on | either. Google (search, circa 1999) didn't own the Internet, or | the PC, or the operating system, or the cable line, or the | telecom infrastructure, and so on. Consumers develop preferences, | companies develop advantages (through superior products or other | means), and the market dominance centralizes to one or a few | providers. That's always inevitable short of government | intervention. You don't have to own the database to build a | monopoly on top of it. The better products (or via other leverage | points) will win out and dominate and will be extraordinarily | difficult to compete with, their advantage will become entrenched | as their product gains in complexity and capability (ie competing | with Google in 1998 was far easier than it would have been by | 2012, as they scaled their capabilities and made enormous | investments globally); the cost to keep up the with the winners | soars and few will try (see: lack of dozens or hundreds of new | competitors to Uber and Lyft, few are even trying at this point, | the potential competition gives up for obvious reasons). | | Say hello to Coinbase & Co. We've already seen this process in | action in crypto, many times over. | simonw wrote: | > If, on the other hand, the database is an open public database | that is not controlled and administered by a single company, but | instead is a truly open system available to all, then that kind | of market power cannot be built up around a data asset. | | But it's a crap database. It's incredibly slow and incredibly | expensive. The benefits we get from using a slow, expensive | database need to be absolutely enormous for this to turn out to | be worthwhile. | xrd wrote: | If you read the post he recommends from his partner, that is | covered in detail by comparing it to the PC, which compared | poorly to mainframes, but was cheap. And, that Clayton | Christenson remarked that having a singular facet that is | unique and very different, is a good starting point for a | revolution. | tome wrote: | This is not very convincing though, because the cheap, but | otherwise poorly-specced PC could do something useful, e.g., | run spreadsheets. "Web3" can't do anything useful yet that's | not already predicated on its own value, that is, sure you | can "transfer value" with Bitcoin or Etherium, but that's | predicated on those "tokens" actually having value. Its value | is built on itself. The PC on the other hand had fundamental | value. | [deleted] | intrasight wrote: | In fiction, Hiro Protagonist got in early and bought some prime | real-estate in the metaverse. Many IRL did the same with Bitcoin | and made a killing. If you think all the lucrative web2 | properties have already been claimed, then it makes sense to | create virgin territory in web3 and stake a claim. | evan_ wrote: | Hiro delivered pizzas and lived in a storage unit with a | roommate. His metaverse "wealth" was essentially worthless to | him in real life. Real-life real estate is valuable because | they're not making more land. Virtual real estate does not have | that limitation. | | (Also IIRC he helped create the Metaverse, he didn't simply buy | in early.) | intrasight wrote: | "bought in early" by investing his time. | | Web3 will succeed if it succeeds in creating artificial | scarcity - just as Bitcoin has succeeded in doing. I am | pessimistic, but there are lots of people who think | otherwise. I do think that it will have a "real-estate" | aspect to it soas to have scarcity of place. | | Here's a thought: can we repurpose all the Bitcoin | computation to doing something useful like rendering the | metaverse? | runako wrote: | This argument is simple, but forgets that the Internet has | essentially had permission-less databases before, notably in IRC, | XMPP, and email. Anyone can run an IRC or XMPP node, anyone can | run email. The protocols are open and free (as in money) to use. | But time and again the masses of Internet users choose | centralized alternatives. | | It's interesting to see this already playing out in the Web 3 | space. Users concentrate transactions on a few (< 50) sites. The | space is considered investable by VMS because they expect | companies to be able to create lock-in similar to what Slack did | with chat or Facebook did with Web forums. | leifg wrote: | I think the argument made implicitly is that with web3 you | could actually monetize your contribution. If you run an IRC | server you (usually) only have cost. One part of web3 is tokens | so you can actually earn some fake money by running an IRC | server. | | I think if you look at the economics of that though I don't | think it will turn out in your favor. You are either making | 10ct a month from it or you'll have to heavily invest in | hardware to (potentially) turn a profit. | | The reason some of that works now is because we have an | inflated price of tokens and people are speculating on it going | up. But that makes it not an appealing service for you to pay | for. | | And all of that forgets that the vast majority of people is not | willing to pay anything to use a service. No matter how often | web3 people will yell "If you don't pay for it, you're the | product". | runako wrote: | I remember so much of the time I spent on IRC and XMPP | overlapped with the period in my life when I had the fewest | financial resources. It would have been net negative for me | if the popular chat spaces had been accompanied by any kind | of toll. | malermeister wrote: | Big plus to this point. The idea behind web3 seems to be | "the web, but everything is an attempt to gauge people for | money now". | | How is that better? Who asked for more money to be involved | everywhere? I just want an open space to hang out with | people and share ideas and data, I don't want everything to | become a gated community. | tfang17 wrote: | A lot of HN hate on Web3... is the alternative to lay down and | let big tech win? | undeadsushi wrote: | Yes the marketing is annoying, but have you actually experimented | with the world of Web3. Have you played with defi, bought in | early any gaming tokens? The fact that all of this can happen on- | chain where it's completely transparent is really unique. It's | why there has been so many companies explode into the 50M-100M | revenue range in 2021 - | https://consensys.net/reports/web3-report-q3-2021/ | corobo wrote: | No, can't afford it | neurobashing wrote: | be wary of any person talking about you're going to have this big | distributed consensus, based on some kind of buy-in to something, | without first finding out who has the most buy-in, and just what | it takes to overcome their %. | sergiotapia wrote: | I feel sad that this beautiful thing has been usurped by | shysters, grifters and scumbags. Web3 is decentralization. Not | crypto, not blockchain, not your shitcoin, not your mining and | most definitely not your NFTs. | | We need to take it back for our children's sake. | corobo wrote: | I'm on board | | How? | Barrin92 wrote: | public data isn't going to keep things decentralized because data | isn't the only thing that matters, if anything it matters less | and less. Core part of what large internet services do is | _process_ data and provide services built on top of a lot of | compute. | | We have big internet companies because processing that amount of | information is computationally expensive and thus centralization | is the economic solution. Not even traditional p2p solutions have | yet been able to compete with large entities, and 'web3' with its | crypto solutions is substantially worse because it's | computationally more expensive by design. | | Not to mention there's also the fairly obvious point that a lot | of those companies exist by processing data that is inherently | private because users demand it to be so. Nobody is willingly | going to put their chat messages on the blockchain to be read by | the public. | mnd999 wrote: | Enough already, flag this crap off the site. | verdverm wrote: | The biggest issue I see for web3 and permissionless data is the | same issue we complain about with the Facebook debate... | | How do we manage the tradeoff between misinformation and | censorship? | | Permissionless swings the pendulum to one extreme which would | seem to lead to an existential dilemma. | mark242 wrote: | "Permissionless data" is actively harmful to people who do not | want their data put into an immutable datastore. It smacks of | "moderation-free content" which is simply a nonstarter. | | If web3 is truly about privacy and data portability, then 90% of | the people working on DeFi should shift their efforts to making a | better browser, possibly one that incorporates IPFS natively and | quickly. | 58x14 wrote: | This reads like an obligatory post on the topic with no real | substance. I'm on mobile so it's a good opportunity to succinctly | express what I view as the major, near-future positives for Web3: | | - identity and trustless SSO via things like ENS and "sign in | with {client such as metamask}" | | - data sovereignty, or at least less platform lock-in, especially | for low/no code users | | - grants, crowdfunding, and other financial support for useful | open-source projects. This may be the most provably successful | outcome to date in Web3; I'm confident I could cite enough | sources here with a little homework. | | I encourage all readers to disassociate (or rather decouple) the | terms "cryptocurrency" and "NFT" from Web3. Web3, while still | fairly nebulous, in my current understanding, is mostly protocol- | level implementations of web paradigms incorporating | decentralized technologies. Like any growing technology, there | will be many variations, and the unscrupulous outliers should not | overshadow the constellation of fascinating things humanity can | speedrun with these new building blocks. | tptacek wrote: | The SSO thing has come up before. Trustless, decentralized, | immutable databases are essentially the exact opposite of what | you want in an SSO system; it's hard to think of an application | where blockchain technology has less promise than SSO, which is | about fine-grained policy control, out-of-band account recovery | (the hardest problem in SSO), instantaneous revocation, and | centralization of controls. | Zamicol wrote: | Anytime the ENS sign in stuff is brought up, I feel obligated | to point out the following: | | Alex Van de Sande, the co-founder of ENS, posted in 2018 an | interesting demo with UniLogin, "[Universal Logins demo for | Ethereum](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5t94cCg6XE)". [The | project was abandoned in 2020](https://medium.com/universal- | ethereum/out-of-gas-were-shutti...). | | This is a hard problem that needs a fantastic solution. I don't | think sign in with Ethereum is better than UniLogin. UniLogin | was good, the team was smart, and this was still too much of a | problem for them to feel like it was worth their time to solve. | | Then there's the significant problem of state expiry. How do | you log out? I don't see that they're really addressing this | problem. Right now the EIP has the attitude to "push that | problem down to the servers". Websites need complete solutions, | not more problems. Others have already made progress down this | road, and I don't see anything different from what has already | been done before. | balaji1 wrote: | what's web3? -\\_(tsu)_/- | rzzzt wrote: | A blockchain of NFTs! | fleddr wrote: | Just relax and let it play out. The author is right. Web3 needs | to deliver a killer app. Something with broad consumer appeal | that would not be possible with web2. Something your mum would | use. | | If such a thing is never delivered, skeptical you was right and | you can have your "told you" moment. If it does get delivered, | you were wrong, and we may be at the start of something | drastically new. | | As tens of billions is flowing into these projects, either | outcome is going to be very interesting. | simonebrunozzi wrote: | I think it's really easy to be doubtful about web3, especially | given how much BS is floating in the space, and the high amount | of pure speculative trades having been made so far. | | I still believe that there's something there, but I'm not sure | what it is. I am also unsure that the current wave of companies | will be able to find it. | | The different between the early adoption of web2 and this current | web3 cycle is that web2 brought a proper value to its users. I | still fail to see how web3 is providing value at all. | | Perhaps specific aspects of crypto (e.g. NFT used for real estate | transactions) will be the killer app? | PragmaticPulp wrote: | > Perhaps specific aspects of crypto (e.g. NFT used for real | estate transactions) will be the killer app? | | I consider myself to be very good at security, offsite | encrypted backups, managing private keys, and other opsec | details. | | But there's _no way_ I 'd ever want the ownership of my house | or cars or other property controlled by an NFT. If something | happens to my private keys, am I stuck with the house forever? | If my private keys are stolen, does someone else suddenly own | my house because they have the NFT? | | In a hypothetical world where NFTs were the token of real | estate ownership, governments would simply step in and make | sets of laws to override and re-issue the NFTs according to | legal outcomes. They would store the overrides and other | information in a centralized database that they control, and | everyone would be bound to respect the overrides in the | centralized database. So the NFT becomes a gimmick. | kurttheviking wrote: | > But there's no way I'd ever want the ownership of my house | or cars or other property controlled by an NFT. | | +1. My dad died in 2015 and the lawyer who held his Will had | apparently gone out of business in the early 00s. I spent a | lot of time in the probate courts but was eventually able to | gain access to the assets so I could clear the estate, settle | his debts, and put him to rest. Arbitrated reversibility and | sanctioned transfer of title is a feature, not a bug...I feel | that point often gets lost in the web3 debates. | cinntaile wrote: | In many countries real estate transactions are validated by a | notary elite that has a lot of political clout. Technical | superiority is not even a factor here. | NationalPark wrote: | Which countries? | pphysch wrote: | Global finance will eventually be eclipsed by large-scale | economic planning systems. It will probably take a couple decades | for finance to go the way of alchemy, but the signs of its | irrelevance are there: hilarious schemes like SPACs, DeFi, NFTs. | Totally divorced from the underlying economics. | malermeister wrote: | I think you are right and I think China is leading the way | here. | rytill wrote: | Interesting take. I'm not sure many would agree with you. Care | to expand or point us somewhere where your ideas are expanded? | 0xcde4c3db wrote: | I'd be interested too. I've seen takes loosely along these | lines before, but my familiarity is pretty shallow and I | don't remember specific sources. There's a line of thought | that traditional pro-capitalism analysis of the "economic | calculation problem" would tell us that a massive corporate | retailer like Walmart should be mired in inefficiency | compared to retailers with more localized authority (e.g. | regional or franchised chains). Since that's not what we see, | something must be missing from the analysis. For example, | some have proposed that technological advancements (in fields | including telecommunications, logistics, and accounting) have | made centralization radically cheaper and more effective | since the 1980s or so. | pg_bot wrote: | I think the VCs are stuck between a rock and a hard place. It | makes sense to invest in "web3" because of the potential power | law returns if someone figures out how to make something useful. | However, I think we've had enough time to evaluate enough of | these technologies to claim that the emperor has no clothes. It | may take a few years but I think every single web3 investment | will have to be written off as a complete loss. There is just no | problem being solved there that couldn't be solved more | efficiently elsewhere. | capableweb wrote: | > However, I think we've had enough time to evaluate enough of | these technologies | | "We" (humanity) started working on networking/the foundations | of the internet in the 1970s, and it wasn't until late 1990s | that it actually became mainstream and started providing a | solution to "real" problems we had at that time. What makes you | confident we can judge cryptocurrencies in just ~12 years | instead of ~20 years it took for the internet to take hold? | | > There is just no problem being solved there that couldn't be | solved more efficiently elsewhere. | | How about a network where anyone with a computer could transfer | X amount of _something_ to someone else, without having to rely | on a single 3rd party? You 'll say that it's not a problem in | practice, but the same thing was said about email in the past. | uncomputation wrote: | The value prop here is the "without a third party" bit I | presume? That seems more like a political or ethical | preference rather than true value. Email allowed you to | instantly and perfectly send a message anywhere at any time, | and you could cut down on machine and paper/ink costs. | Genuine value. | | Ironically, the crypto way of doing transactions is more like | the fax machine to Venmo's email. The former is slow and more | expensive, while the latter is instant and free. | | Edit: I'd also like to point out you still have a third party | in crypto. It's just that the third party is the entire | network rather than a single company. | capableweb wrote: | If you compare email to snailmail, the same argument could | be made. That it's over the internet is just a preference, | why care about email when normal mail works perfectly fine? | | "Without a single 3rd party" is a technical feature, one | that allows people to transfer money anywhere, for any | reason via any device connected to the internet, without | having to open up a bank account. According to the last | numbers I've read, the number of "unbanked" people is above | 1 billion in the world, some in my family is included | there. For them, cryptocurrencies gives them the | opportunity of sending/receiving currency cross-border much | easier than what Venmo/Paypal/Transferwise/WesternUnion | ever been able to provide (and trust me, we've tried most | platforms). | | The Bitcoin way of doing transactions is indeed slow and | expensive, but there are many alternatives out there, if | you care to look for them. | | > Edit: I'd also like to point out you still have a third | party in crypto. It's just that the third party is the | entire network rather than a single company. | | Yup, that's why my comment includes "single 3rd party", not | just "any 3rd party". Everyone who understands blockchain | understands that there are 3rd parties involved, not | everyone seems to understand the difference between | multiple and single 3rd parties though. | notahacker wrote: | If you ask "why care about email when normal mail works | just as fine" then "because you _always_ get it quicker " | is a much better answer for "well there are edge cases | where an unbanked person might actually have access to a | local cryptocurrency speculator offering them spendable | cash for less commission than Western Union or the local | hawala service" | pg_bot wrote: | "If you compare email to snailmail, the same argument | could be made. That it's over the internet is just a | preference, why care about email when normal mail works | perfectly fine?" | | This is nonsense. Email is orders of magnitude cheaper | and faster than snail mail. Talk to any business owner | who made the switch from physically mailing bills to | emailing their clients invoices and ask them how much | time and money they saved. The value proposition for | email is obvious. | unicornmama wrote: | Talk to 8 year old me who made the switch from physically | mailing letters to my grandfather to emailing him. | tome wrote: | Computer networking already had value in the 1970s (and | before)! | pg_bot wrote: | Even in the early days of computing, there were obvious | benefits to networking computers. The work wasn't done for no | reason, there was clear value in coming up with all of these | protocols. The main reason it took so long for general | adoption was the fact that computers were not in most family | homes until the 1990s. The barrier to adopting the internet | wasn't the inherent value of the protocols it was the cost of | the machine to the average consumer. | | I'm confident in saying this because we are further along in | the computing adoption cycle and we haven't really come up | with anything useful. | | Your point about transferring something to someone else | without a third party ignores transaction costs. Who cares if | you need a third party if you are purchasing something | legally and the cost to transact is low? | saurik wrote: | I mean, if I want to send you some money, and let's say you | are just in Canada (I am in the United States), my options | are limited and many are super expensive... and almost all | of them take forever. The only cheap, easy, and fast way is | PayPal (or their subsidiary Venmo), which I don't think | anyone truly _likes_ (evidence for which is easy: find | literally any thread on Hacker News about them that isn 't | using their existence to defend why cryptocurrencies are | unnecessary). | | Other than PayPal, Bitcoin (or Ethereum and Avalanche or | what have you) is much easier than all of these systems, | and while it currently may or may not be as cheap, it was | frankly a "first draft": the subsequent protocols the | community is using are all (incrementally) cheaper and the | ecosystem has even been succeeding at improving the overall | scalability. If you tell me your Bitcoin address--no matter | where you are in this increasingly global world--I can | reliably send you money. | pg_bot wrote: | The best case scenario I can see is that cryptocurrencies | push the US banking system to adopt something like the | British "Faster Payment Services". If anyone begins to | gain adoption they will be outcompeted by incumbent | banks. It has never been the case that banking has been | limited by technology for quicker and cheaper | transactions in the US. | [deleted] | [deleted] | rexreed wrote: | I posted a while ago a comment that large tech companies and | their investors are not really motivated for decentralized | systems, but that they have to tell the markets they are. | Otherwise they will face increasing regulatory and liability | pressure due to how they wield control and power over their | platforms and customers / users (products). On the one hand they | want to be shielded from the effects of running large, | centralized systems, but on the other hand, they don't want to | give up their walled gardens, customer lock-in, captive audience, | no right-to-repair benefits. [0] | | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29449724 | Kiro wrote: | I don't like how the extreme hatred toward Web3 has spiraled into | "I see no practical application for decentralization". Crypto and | blockchain aside, how can you not see the utility in an open | firehose database/API without gate keepers? | | Don't conflate decentralization with blockchain. | stathibus wrote: | Web3 is like a solution in search of a problem, except worse, | because the solution does not actually solve the problem. | [deleted] | moritonal wrote: | Because the only reason I can imagine someone wanting a open | database without gate keepers is for something the society I've | aligned with has decided is illegal. | | At the end of the day, I guess I trust the goverment I vote for | and the banks I decide on more than a distributed group of | strangers. Do you have an example of a DB that was unfairly | limited by a gate keeper? | Kiro wrote: | Facebook, Twitter or any walled garden. I can't build any app | I want on top of those without risking it being limited, | restricted or shut down... If they even provide an API at | all. | epistasis wrote: | There's an easy counter to "I see no practical application for | decentralization," which is to provide an example of that | application. | | I'm not convinced that Bitcoin or currencies are a practical | application that results in net gain (economic or otherwise) to | humanity. The internet was obvious from day 1, even if the | actual end applications ended up quite a bit different. | | > how can you not see the utility in an open firehose | database/API without gate keepers? | | This is what I don't see. The "gate keepers" are often a | positive, not a negative. And it's hard for me to imagine what | sort of database is being held back because of gatekeepers. | Kiro wrote: | The gate keepers are preventing me from building the kind of | apps I want. Just the other day people here reminisced about | the days when Twitter used to have an open API and how bad it | is that they shut it down. | | I want to build apps without having to worry about ever being | restricted, limited or shut down. | dmitriid wrote: | > I want to build apps without having to worry about ever | being restricted, limited or shut down. | | So. Where's blockchain-powered Twitters and Facebooks then? | For all the talk about gatekeeping and decentralization no | actual apps appeared that would in any way support your | words. | jcun4128 wrote: | I was thinking about this, not sure if entirely the same. | | For example the YT dislikes going away. What if you got | people to install a chrome extension where it tracked urls | with upvotes/downvotes (game system). The database is | shared between installed apps no central db... would it | work? | | I could be far off with the intent of the application but | another example is mesh networking where it is nice to not | have a central pipe but is it going to be as good, | particularly the case of cross continent. | Traubenfuchs wrote: | Because they keep talking and talking and all we get is get | rich quick schemes involving blockchains and crypto. | | Where are the applications? | mendyberger wrote: | It blows my mind how many people keep dismissing | decentralization because of problems in the NFT space. | Jetrel wrote: | We're not. | | We don't need blockchain for decentralization. That's what | we're dismissing. Blockchain is a set of cancer cells that | have metastasized into the existing zeitgeist surrounding | decentralization efforts. It offers nothing, and just poisons | our existing work. | tootie wrote: | The issue is that decentralization is orthogonal to the | supposed problems to be solved. | jandrese wrote: | Anything "web scale" without gatekeepers is immediately | colonized by criminals, neo-Nazis, redpill edgelords, | pedophiles, and all other such manner of people who are always | looking for a new place to exist after being kicked out of | every other one. | | Unmoderated discussion doesn't scale. The noise floor rises | faster than the population of the service until it collapses | under the weight of the trolls. | Kiro wrote: | Moderation and filtering can happen on the user application | layer with the underlying data still being open and | accessible. Right now the gate keepers are Big Tech deciding | who and when someone or something can access the data. | jandrese wrote: | Personal spam control has its own issues. Managing the | filter can end up consuming all of your time on the | platform and that effort has to be replicated for every | user. Worse, public perception will be that your platform | is unusable because the horrendous first impression it | makes. | | So maybe you decided to make public filter lists, but then | the people making the filters end up being the defacto | operators of the platform and you're back to square 1. | Kiro wrote: | I mostly meant the app you're using to access the data | doing the moderation for you. | | I don't think we would be back to square 1. We would | still have the possibility to create new clients and | build whatever applications we want without being under | the mercy of Big Tech holding the data hostage. Sure, | maybe one such app talking to the open platform would | become dominant and the de facto operator but at least it | wouldn't have the power to restrict, limit or shut down | other apps. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-12-29 23:00 UTC)