Is Web3 Bullshit? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#141

Post by pas » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 1:22 PM UTC

sixQuarks wrote: post #129

Note to people reading these comments: HN Is notoriously anti-bitcoin and crypto. It was within hacker news discussions that I first heard about bitcoin, back when it was trading for less than one dollar. I did not buy bitcoin because I figured the hacker news crowd was very intelligent and knew a scam when they saw one. Just Keep this in mind when reading these comments make sure you take them with a grain of salt.

Back when slaves were cheap HN was not recommending investing in slaves. /s

So that said, the hivemind has the right reasons, but that doesn't really mean much, since the world is not run according to the HN technocrat ideology. Plus, HN is not an investment forum. Aaaaand, HN loves startup stories about companies that create real proper disruptive bona fide value, like UBER/Amazon, but the early UBER/Amazon not the late sexist/market-size-abusing labor-exploiting one, you follow right?

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#142

Post by pas » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 1:24 PM UTC

mccorrinall wrote: post #137

oleks wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you can earn money on something, does not make it good.

I think that bitcoin is actually a good solution to the double spending problem in decentralized currencies.

Um, what double spending problem? Do you mean the problem that the US has with cashing paper checks?

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#143

Post by bikamonki » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

Let's agree on a definition first: web 3.0 is using blockchain tech to replace current server-side computing (static file hosting, functions/processing, databases, etc) and online centralized services (payments, identity, etc).

So, is it bs? No, it is not. If you are a developer, you can go now and build a dapp (a web3 application or distributed app).

So far so good, but:

A simple dapp will cost cents to host/run (even better: will cost only once!) but, can it scale? How easy/cheap would be to run a big, very big, social net? An online store such as Amazon? Uber?

No "password-reset" mechanism. That just sucks.

Keeping the current web safe for your uncle is a pain, yes, that uncle that clicks on every link sent from the rich African prince. Imagine keeping it safe once you help him install a chrome-ext crypto wallet so he can login and consume content from a dapp social net?

It is not really decentralized: you public facing dapp cannot be directly served from the nodes of a blockchain, you need a gateway, that is a centralized web server (good luck making SSL work for your registered domain!).

It would take many years for businesses to migrate/adopt web 3.0 standards. We are barely finishing moving tech to "online versions" from traditional client-server apps.

Miners are businesses, running nodes costs money, they ought to make more of what they spend otherwise they will just disconnect the node. Your data/code may be distributed but its persistence/availability depends on the economic success of whatever project you choose to trust. Early adopters of web 2.0 server-less apps experienced this first hand when they had to port their projects from Parse to something else when FB bought it and shut it down.

Professional miners are needed. You are not going to build your banking dapp on the spare capacities of our laptop's hard drives and CPUs, or are you? Might as well trust the engineers at Google or AWS who have it already figured out and are charging reasonably for it, no?

In sum: web 3.0 tech is here, it is interesting, but it is not a hammer for every nail.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#144

Post by anchpop » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

flooow wrote: post #77

mattlondon wrote: post #7

It saddens me that they chose "web3" for the latest crypto pyramid scheme. Call it what you want, but please don't sully the web with your plat du jour crypto antics. Also for what it is worth, the web has been decentralised from the very start, I don't see what the fuss is about apart from just everyone getting rich selling the next hot coin/token/whatever.

If the crypto community wants to demonstrate that it isn't a giant Ponzi scheme, why not come up with a non-deflationary token, which will not massively reward 'early adopters' at the expense of everyone else, in perpetuity? (A non-deflationary token would be one where the supply grows by some reasonable percentage every year, effectively acting as a flat tax on one's holdings). In reality, non-deflationary cryptocur…

there are a ton of cryptocurrencies where the supply grows every year. dogecoin, tezos, ethereum (this may have changed recently), etc

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#145

Post by bko » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

flooow wrote: post #77

mattlondon wrote: post #7

It saddens me that they chose "web3" for the latest crypto pyramid scheme. Call it what you want, but please don't sully the web with your plat du jour crypto antics. Also for what it is worth, the web has been decentralised from the very start, I don't see what the fuss is about apart from just everyone getting rich selling the next hot coin/token/whatever.

If the crypto community wants to demonstrate that it isn't a giant Ponzi scheme, why not come up with a non-deflationary token, which will not massively reward 'early adopters' at the expense of everyone else, in perpetuity? (A non-deflationary token would be one where the supply grows by some reasonable percentage every year, effectively acting as a flat tax on one's holdings). In reality, non-deflationary cryptocur…

Isn't Ether (on ethereum), the second most valuable token after bitcoin, non-deflationary? There's no cap and the monetary policy changes regularly. I don't think anyone believes that there is a hard cap. Same is true for BNB, Tether and SOL the third, fourth and fifth most popular coins.

What are you talking about? Random shit-coins that have deflationary economics?

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#146

Post by lottin » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #116

Hjfrf wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dogecoin is a copy+paste of bitcoin with a few config values changed. That's why it shares the inflationary model. The reason bitcoin is often described as deflationary is that many coins are lost, and the inflation is somewhat priced-in.

How is Bitcoin inflationary? Even without coin lossage (a ridiculous concept in any other financial system, short of literally setting your money on fire), the network is programmed to eventually stop minting coins. Fixed supply on increased demand (if it’s the economic substitute we’ve all been promised) is the precondition for deflationary movement. No amount of “pricing in” changes that.

Even if we assume a fixed global supply of bitcoins (which is a big assumption because it assumes bitcoin deposits at institutions will always be backed by full reserves), that doesn't mean that the supply of bitcoins in a particular economic area will be fixed. It most certainly won't, unless international trade stops.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#147

Post by paulgb » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

austincheney wrote: post #68

mattlondon wrote: post #7

It saddens me that they chose "web3" for the latest crypto pyramid scheme. Call it what you want, but please don't sully the web with your plat du jour crypto antics. Also for what it is worth, the web has been decentralised from the very start, I don't see what the fuss is about apart from just everyone getting rich selling the next hot coin/token/whatever.

I agree that cryptocurrency is a pyramid scheme, but the web is incredibly centralized. The whole point of DNS is to normalize an easy to remember name to an address so that everyone can access that same address easily. That is almost the purest essence of centralization. In practice if you want to share family photos with your family do you upload those photos to a third party like a social media site or a cloud pro…

> The goal of the web, as it was invented. was to allow decentralized content access via hyperlinks. That vision is essentially dead. Content is now an index on a database behind a walled garden.

This is a hard truth that web3 will have to face: centralization happens naturally in decentralized systems.

As a recent web3 example, when twitter teased the idea of verified NFT avatars, half the comments were saying things like that they should piggyback on OpenSea verification so that people don’t just re-mint other people’s NFTs.

OpenSea has taken investment a $10b valuation, to me that implies that the people financially backing web3 think they’ll be able to extract rent by being a central player in it.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#148

Post by vegetablepotpie » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

fifilura wrote: post #92

wruza wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sadness comes from the fact people perceive X N as better than X N-1. As if web got any better with 2 (in a general sense, not in tech). And what’s this anyway, The Web? Are we spiders, or maybe fishermen? Ridiculous. Don’t stick too much to these names.

> My sadness comes from the fact people perceive X N as better than X N-1 Terminator 3 Home Alone 3 Jurassic Park 3 Police academy 3 Alien 3 The list is long...

GPL 3

Gnome 3

All these third iterations…

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#149

Post by john37386 » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 1:27 PM UTC

Maybe web3 is not only about crypto bs. It's probably more about accountability and repudiation. To remove the control to central corporations like the FANG. To stop spreading hate speech and encourage to destroy the planet.

I really hate the web 2.0 personally and I stay far away from it. I'm not trying to convince anyone to follow my path, but I'm hoping that the true meaning of Internet will shine soon. Maybe the 3.0 is the way to go and in my opinion it cannot be worst than 2.0.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#150

Post by JohnJamesRambo » Sun, Dec 05, 2021, 1:28 PM UTC

flooow wrote: post #77

mattlondon wrote: post #7

It saddens me that they chose "web3" for the latest crypto pyramid scheme. Call it what you want, but please don't sully the web with your plat du jour crypto antics. Also for what it is worth, the web has been decentralised from the very start, I don't see what the fuss is about apart from just everyone getting rich selling the next hot coin/token/whatever.

If the crypto community wants to demonstrate that it isn't a giant Ponzi scheme, why not come up with a non-deflationary token, which will not massively reward 'early adopters' at the expense of everyone else, in perpetuity? (A non-deflationary token would be one where the supply grows by some reasonable percentage every year, effectively acting as a flat tax on one's holdings). In reality, non-deflationary cryptocur…

Show me a stock anyone is interested in that isn’t expected to go up and reward early adopters.

“If the stock community wants to demonstrate that it isn't a giant Ponzi scheme, why not come up with a non-deflationary stock, which will not massively reward 'early adopters' at the expense of everyone else, in perpetuity?”