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The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

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Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#21

Post by drdaeman »

natrius wrote: post #8
goldbrick wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part isn't true, specifically? We are dependent on blockchain miners, because without them our transactions don't get accepted. Moreover we have a couple established big players that control the market and no clear way for them to get disrupted, save abandoning Bitcoin entirely. Blockchains are much more than receipt paper. Receipt paper is a superfluous byproduct. The blockchain is the system of record.

This is untrue: "Because blockchain is consensual, after a certain point of centralization, the rules of the system depend on very few users." If a blockchain has rules that don't meet my needs, I can choose a different blockchain. If I adopt a blockchain that changes its rules to be undesirable, I can take the history I care about and move it to another blockchain. This argument depends on proof-of-stake. Some peopl…

> If a blockchain has rules that don't meet my needs, I can choose a different blockchain.

Had this happened with Bitcoin? I think I heard there are some quite major disagreements (something about block sizes and stuff) and there are a lot of users that aren't happy. I don't remember hearing them just "well, whatever" and forking off.

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#22

Post by kkennis »

brighton36 wrote: post #16
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #13

Imagine if BitTorrent, or Freenet/IPFS/GNUNet/etc. used a blockchain. They'd be completely infeasible for anyone except Google: you'd need petabytes of storage on your computer just to download a single movie (or a Linux ISO, or whatever). But they don't do that. These systems are actually distributed, and that's why they work.

'Blockchain' is a meaningless buzzword at this point. The innovation of Bitcoin was proof of work and/or the calibrations involved in securing Bitcoin with energy. When bitcoin became an unfundable space, the VC's and such moved into "Blockchain", which was marketed as the good parts of bitcoin, without the bad. Unfortunately, the space has seemingly gone on to only emulate the worst parts of bitcoin. Scams, ignoranc…

'Blockchain' isn't a meaningless buzzword, it's a database protocol. Its market positioning aside, there's a very real value that immutable databases offer from both a technological and a commercial perspective.

The blockchain protocol isn't going to 'save the world' - but once a little air gets let out of the balloon, it's going to see a lot of adoption in both financial institutions and back offices in a wide, wide, range of industries. For a world with lots of data and lots of shady actors, it just makes sense.

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#23

Post by jsmthrowaway »

Animats wrote: post #12

"The alternative on which we can build a great new Internet era is projects like GNU social, Friendica, Hubzilla, Diaspora, and efforts to design common protocols like ActivityPub, not on the blockchain." All the new federated social systems have failed, replaced by commercial, centralized systems. (IRC and email live on. Google thinks it owns Usenet, rebranded as "Google Groups", and a big chunk of email never passe…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11232429

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#24

Post by thescriptkiddie »

brighton36 wrote: post #16
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #13

Imagine if BitTorrent, or Freenet/IPFS/GNUNet/etc. used a blockchain. They'd be completely infeasible for anyone except Google: you'd need petabytes of storage on your computer just to download a single movie (or a Linux ISO, or whatever). But they don't do that. These systems are actually distributed, and that's why they work.

'Blockchain' is a meaningless buzzword at this point. The innovation of Bitcoin was proof of work and/or the calibrations involved in securing Bitcoin with energy. When bitcoin became an unfundable space, the VC's and such moved into "Blockchain", which was marketed as the good parts of bitcoin, without the bad. Unfortunately, the space has seemingly gone on to only emulate the worst parts of bitcoin. Scams, ignoranc…

You're entirely missing the point. Proof of work was old hat long before the bitcoin whitepaper was published. Bitcoin's innovation is using compounded proof of work to form a trustless immutable distributed database. Blockchain is the name of this particular data structure, not a buzzword.

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#25

Post by int_19h »

natrius wrote: post #8
goldbrick wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part isn't true, specifically? We are dependent on blockchain miners, because without them our transactions don't get accepted. Moreover we have a couple established big players that control the market and no clear way for them to get disrupted, save abandoning Bitcoin entirely. Blockchains are much more than receipt paper. Receipt paper is a superfluous byproduct. The blockchain is the system of record.

This is untrue: "Because blockchain is consensual, after a certain point of centralization, the rules of the system depend on very few users." If a blockchain has rules that don't meet my needs, I can choose a different blockchain. If I adopt a blockchain that changes its rules to be undesirable, I can take the history I care about and move it to another blockchain. This argument depends on proof-of-stake. Some peopl…

You can fork the blockchain, sure. But unless the majority of users do so, as well, the resulting fork is useless if you actually want to be able to send and receive money.

Now, banks and such will be some of the biggest users; and your average Joe won't even understand what the problem is with trusting them with the blockchain. So... good luck with getting that consensus.

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#26

Post by natrius »

drdaeman wrote: post #21
natrius wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is untrue: "Because blockchain is consensual, after a certain point of centralization, the rules of the system depend on very few users." If a blockchain has rules that don't meet my needs, I can choose a different blockchain. If I adopt a blockchain that changes its rules to be undesirable, I can take the history I care about and move it to another blockchain. This argument depends on proof-of-stake. Some peopl…

> If a blockchain has rules that don't meet my needs, I can choose a different blockchain. Had this happened with Bitcoin? I think I heard there are some quite major disagreements (something about block sizes and stuff) and there are a lot of users that aren't happy. I don't remember hearing them just "well, whatever" and forking off.

Bitcoin is a special case because it's only really intended to be used as a ledger for bitcoins. Currencies are a collective delusion: they're valuable because other people think they are valuable. Any dispute over what the source of truth is for a currency's ledger strains that delusion, possibly to the breaking point. The value of the currency would suffer, which would defeat the purpose of a fork.

Ethereum is a general purpose blockchain. Forking it could hurt the value of ether, but for many applications, the value of ether doesn't matter. Moving a blockchain-based Twitter from one fork to another is relatively easy and consequence-free.

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#27

Post by CyberDildonics »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #13

Imagine if BitTorrent, or Freenet/IPFS/GNUNet/etc. used a blockchain. They'd be completely infeasible for anyone except Google: you'd need petabytes of storage on your computer just to download a single movie (or a Linux ISO, or whatever). But they don't do that. These systems are actually distributed, and that's why they work.

There seems to be a pretty big leap in logic from 'using a blockchain' to 'infeasible for anyone except google'. You do realize that an internationally roaming cell phone data plan can sync with the blockchain right?

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#28

Post by natrius »

kkennis wrote: post #22
brighton36 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Blockchain' is a meaningless buzzword at this point. The innovation of Bitcoin was proof of work and/or the calibrations involved in securing Bitcoin with energy. When bitcoin became an unfundable space, the VC's and such moved into "Blockchain", which was marketed as the good parts of bitcoin, without the bad. Unfortunately, the space has seemingly gone on to only emulate the worst parts of bitcoin. Scams, ignoranc…

'Blockchain' isn't a meaningless buzzword, it's a database protocol. Its market positioning aside, there's a very real value that immutable databases offer from both a technological and a commercial perspective. The blockchain protocol isn't going to 'save the world' - but once a little air gets let out of the balloon, it's going to see a lot of adoption in both financial institutions and back offices in a wide, wide…

Blockchains won't save the world all on their own, but developers who believe our world is in peril because of avoidable issues of economic and social organization should definitely try to use blockchains to save the world. Blockchains are the raw material of social coordination. They can absolutely be used to solve social problems.

Overzealousness is unfashionable. Be unfashionable until you're convinced that you're actually wrong.

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#29

Post by stcredzero »

fallenshell wrote: post #19
Animats wrote: post #12

"The alternative on which we can build a great new Internet era is projects like GNU social, Friendica, Hubzilla, Diaspora, and efforts to design common protocols like ActivityPub, not on the blockchain." All the new federated social systems have failed, replaced by commercial, centralized systems. (IRC and email live on. Google thinks it owns Usenet, rebranded as "Google Groups", and a big chunk of email never passe…

Besides, there's the convenience and ease of use aspect. Most of these federated services are not easy to use for the average newcomer or tech-illiterate user demographic, for example. And sometimes they're inconvenient.

Couldn't a federated system that looks like a centralized system work? What if something like Diaspora just installed itself on an AWS EC2 instance for you, and you only had to enter a credit card?

Re: The blockchain is a threat to the distributed future of the Internet

#30

Post by drdaeman »

natrius wrote: post #26
drdaeman wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a blockchain has rules that don't meet my needs, I can choose a different blockchain. Had this happened with Bitcoin? I think I heard there are some quite major disagreements (something about block sizes and stuff) and there are a lot of users that aren't happy. I don't remember hearing them just "well, whatever" and forking off.

Bitcoin is a special case because it's only really intended to be used as a ledger for bitcoins. Currencies are a collective delusion: they're valuable because other people think they are valuable. Any dispute over what the source of truth is for a currency's ledger strains that delusion, possibly to the breaking point. The value of the currency would suffer, which would defeat the purpose of a fork. Ethereum is a ge…

> Moving a blockchain-based Twitter from one fork to another is relatively easy and consequence-free.

I'm not sure it's really consequence-free. It's essentially a netsplit, where the forking party lose connectivity with everyone who's left. Consider the case where Twitter (the centralized one) is suddenly falling apart over some issue into two distinct non-interoperating services. Technically - sure - it's a no-brainer, but socially it feels quite complicated to me.

(I guess, this would work if the app would be designed to use multiple blockchains. I need to give it some thought.)

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