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Is Web3 Bullshit?

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Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#181

Post by austincheney »

throw0101a wrote: post #109
austincheney wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 provider for all your family to access? That is centralized: an agreed upon location for everyone to access. As there are multiple places where the family photos can be posted (Facebook, 500px, Google, etc), that demonstrates that the web is decentralized. What it may not b…

Choice is not a principle concept of decentralization. In decentralization the only quality that matters is degree of autonomy. If I need your common access point to send/receive content the system is highly centralized as autonomy is fully vested in the third party content host.

The presence of choice only means there are multiple centralized systems not interconnecting.

This is why the web is highly centralized despite choice and why Web3 won’t work. Web3 is focused upon federated solutions. A federated solution is semi-autonomous, less centralized than the web but not fully decentralized.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#182

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

ethanbond wrote: post #155
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?”

Then stop acting like it’s a currency and/or infrastructure. If it just spirals indefinitely in value then it can’t be used as either. Pretty straightforward.

Gold has spiraled indefinitely in value and has been used as currency and/or infrastructure for thousands of years.

https://www.thebalance.com/gold-price-history-3305646

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#183

Post by k__ »

I think, web3 has potential.

Is it full with grifters?

Sure, but I wouldn't call the stuff that happened in the last 20 years on the internet as sound, even if it was often law abiding.

Web3 is full of ponzi schemes and, at least to me, the rich people web2 "created" tell there is something wrong too.

Decentralization is an opportunity, and I know this doesn't require blockchains, but I had the impression that OSS, and software in general, lacked in terms of "payment on the protocol level".

So, I think, this could lead to a new, better, era, for the internet. If we take the right steps.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#184

Post by fivea »

lottin wrote: post #135
flooow wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Tokens are neither deflationary nor inflationary. The idea that an asset is deflationary or inflationary implies that the supply of the asset determines its price. This is incorrect from a theoretical standpoint, as well as from what empirical evidence tells us. It's a misapplication of the Quantity Theory of Money. QTM is a theory of money, it doesn't apply to stocks, tokens, assets in general, or in situations wher…

> The idea that an asset is deflationary or inflationary implies that the supply of the asset determines its price.

Isn't this one of the most basic properties of supply and demand, though?

I mean,what do you expect to happen if your supply is artificially capped and early adopters start to pump up demand for the stuff they own?

In fact, isn't that the whole point of these schemes? I mean,do you know anyone who decided to waste their own money subsidizing anything related to crypto? Each and every single evangelist and proponent of crypto is invested in getting in cheap and pumping it up to get out with the maximum possible markup.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#185

Post by lottin »

woodruffw wrote: post #153
lottin wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> which is a big assumption because it assumes bitcoin deposits at institutions will always be backed by full reserves Where is this assumption coming from? I have never heard this before. > 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. Putting non-competing sectors of the economy in competition against each other…

> Where is this assumption coming from? I have never heard this before.

The global supply of bitcoins is fixed if and only if financial institutions are not allowed to hold fractional reserves against deposits.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#186

Post by JofArnold »

mov wrote: post #152

I would like to see more discussion around P2P solutions like https://dat-ecosystem.org/ and the fundamental principles around distributed networks/economies. I really like the idea of being able to "git clone" your data/website into your own local browser and just make it's own webserver. For most of content we generate, that would probably be enough. I don't see the point of trying to place everything in a blockcha…

I wish more people said this: P2P is discussed far less than it should be, in my opinion.

Blockchains have their uses - some of which I think offer real value - but from both a utility and ideological standpoint, if many people in "web3" truly stood by their principles they would be working on these kinds of technologies first. (For context, for my small part I'm attempting to build P2P zk rollups to allow users to prove to each other the correctness of their off-chain work)

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#187

Post by splintercell »

kevinak wrote: post #81

Ironically the people pushing for Web3 are mostly those that do not understand why decentralisation is key^1. The projects pushed by these individuals and corporations are largely very centralised. Look at the Solana fiasco a while back where the network went down and required a coordinated restart. Another centralising power in these "smart" blockchains are the stable coin issuers. In the event of a hard fork^2 Teth…

> Only Bitcoin is actually sufficiently decentralised to withstand large take-over attempts and politics, IMO.

This is just a meme. If large blockers in the blocksize wars had won, the statement would still be true. Today, you cannot go against Blockstream's capture of bitcoin's IP (whatever happens will happen with the direction of /r/bitcoin, bitcointalk, @bitcoin, bitcoin.org, and bitcoin github owners).

With complete censorship both bitcoin subreddit and bitcointalk site stopped and advocacy of increase in blocksize. I hardly consider this as 'defending a take-over attempts', but if you think that was a fair action then sure bitcoin is 'decentralized' enoguh to withstand take-over attempts and politics, whatever.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#188

Post by detaro »

JofArnold wrote: post #186
mov wrote: post #152

I would like to see more discussion around P2P solutions like https://dat-ecosystem.org/ and the fundamental principles around distributed networks/economies. I really like the idea of being able to "git clone" your data/website into your own local browser and just make it's own webserver. For most of content we generate, that would probably be enough. I don't see the point of trying to place everything in a blockcha…

I wish more people said this: P2P is discussed far less than it should be, in my opinion. Blockchains have their uses - some of which I think offer real value - but from both a utility and ideological standpoint, if many people in "web3" truly stood by their principles they would be working on these kinds of technologies first. (For context, for my small part I'm attempting to build P2P zk rollups to allow users to p…

The "current" use of web3 kind of started like that (at least my impression), it's only somewhat recently that the big noise about it comes from the blockchain corner. Which is kind of annoying, because it drowns out the rest.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#189

Post by fivea »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #150
flooow wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?”

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

Eve though you framed your challenge as a "no true Scotsman" argument, history is packed with IPOs that tanked after the companies went public.

https://money.howstuffworks.com/10-biggest-ipo-flops.htm

Last year Uber dropped considerably when it's IPO got out of the gate.

The main mistake of your argument is trying to compare something with tangible value with schemes driven by speculation and fear of missing out.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#190

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

fivea wrote: post #189
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?”

> Show me a stock anyone is interested in that isn’t expected to go up and reward early adopters. Eve though you framed your challenge as a "no true Scotsman" argument, history is packed with IPOs that tanked after the companies went public. https://money.howstuffworks.com/10-biggest-ipo-flops.htm Last year Uber dropped considerably when it's IPO got out of the gate. The main mistake of your argument is trying to com…

No one was interested in it. :)

I don’t see why stocks have tangible value and tokens used to interact with a network don’t. A stock is a vacuous unverifiable virtual piece of paper. At least if you have a Bitcoin or Ether you can prove what you have and know how many there are.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-02-17/dole-f...

Most stocks don’t even have dividends any more so what else is a stock for other than selling to the next greater fool?

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