As I recall the original conception of the web was such that it was inherently browsable _and_ editable (the first web browser was also a WYSIWYG editor). After people forgot about this and subsequently rediscovered an easier form of publishing user-generated content via web apps (PHP) "Web 2.0" took off. Ever since then I've used "Web 3.0" as a casual tongue-in-cheek reference to emerging web technologies and concepts; I never thought I'd see it seriously applied to technologies like blockchain and asymmetric key cryptography.
Is Web3 Bullshit?
201–210 of 383 posts
Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?
#202Reading through the linked article on "real world uses for Web3", most of them seem to consist of things that public key cryptography has been able to solve for decades (persistent identity, multiple persistent identities) or things you could do anyway ("right now, people can only go to facebook or Google. With Web3, everyone can have their own space!!") because the writer has apparently never heard of a web server.…
> because the writer has apparently never heard of a web server. But blockchains do introduce a technical capability that never existed before: shared, “trustless” access to and control over data. Previously, you could run your own webserver, your own email server, etc, and you could trust your own data, but other people collaborating with you would need to trust you to manage that data, and trust that you hadn’t man…
> But blockchains do introduce a technical capability that never existed before: shared, “trustless” access to and control over data.
But that's not a new capability. You can do that with existing tech. At most, it seems to me, what blockchains introduce is convenience, but it comes with a pretty heavy cost in terms of computational resources.
Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?
#203I 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, a…
I keep wondering where all those millions invested in NFTs (fairly insanely, it seems to me) are actually coming from, and one plausible potential answer is "all those rich people web2 'created'" who now have more money than they know what to do with.
I don't think they are somehow separate things in that or other ways, as if "web3" is like some new counter-power to "web2".
Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?
#204Reading through the linked article on "real world uses for Web3", most of them seem to consist of things that public key cryptography has been able to solve for decades (persistent identity, multiple persistent identities) or things you could do anyway ("right now, people can only go to facebook or Google. With Web3, everyone can have their own space!!") because the writer has apparently never heard of a web server.…
One more point from that article I noticed: in a section talking about taking on multiple projects, the author writes "This is how much of Hollywood works." How can you not think: well, if this is how much of Hollywood works now, isn't that proof that you don't need a blockchain for it?!
Not to mention that "how Hollywood works" is seriously problematic as it is. I'm not sure it should be replicated.
Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?
#205I have the impression that most comments here are either biased against cryptocurrencies or trying to push for them blindly. That's a bit sad considering we should at least be discussing the technology here. web3 is a marketing brand that defines a future version of web apps where the frontend is a compiled SPA possibly hosted on decentralised platforms (IPFS) and where the backend is a decentralised blockchain (and…
There's a question that isn't answered and that's why would users care about those details of the backend. In the end, a solution can be as technologically elegant as you want, but the thing it really needs to do is improve from the users' point of view. And I don't think it does. For most people, a decentralized platform will usually be worse (speed, latency), and only very rarely better, than a centralized server.…
A BTC wallet is infinitely more user friendly than a banking website that only works in chrome xor firefox and constantly locks you out for reasons they don't want you to know about and severely limits your transfer sizes. If you do EFT and wait between 3 and 10 days each time, even bitcoin is better than this.
Centralized web is horrible and dead. Literally _anything_ is a better alternative. The user can be convinced to adopt superior tech even if he does not explicitly know the problems. It just has to feel better.
> it doesn't need to be technically elegant, but user-facing elegant.
dont worry bro. the "set user = happy" voodoo dance has already been done. every cryptocoin wallet is a browser plugin or mobile app with 90% of code for themeing with all the bugs and slowness smartcrap/web users are accustomed to. you are even discouraged from rnunning yoyr own node
Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?
#206Web3 makes great sense when energy is abundant [1] and we're more concerned with the "ownership problem" and who should become wealthy and who not and its socio-economic (and political) justifcation, which was largely what we had occupied ourselves in the past 100 years, but in a different lingo: eg communism/socialism vs capitalism.
[1]: when we reach Type 1 as a civilization with eg large-scale application of fusion power. (According to mass–energy equivalence, Type I implies the conversion of about 2 kg of matter to energy per second https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale#Type_I_civiliz... )
It'll never be a perfect system. But overall we shouldn't under-estimate the impacts of the wealth transfer [2] created by BTC, ETH, etc, to the hands of young and tech-believed optimists. And what this means from an evolutionary consumer-market perspective and how cultures are being shaped very differently (in US, EU, China, etc). (I’m in Hangzhou now and it's quite surreal to hear random people chatting about NFT in a cafe here despite CCP's ban of cryptos.)
[2] There were ponzi schemes for sure. But there are (a larger number of) honest people that became wealthy simply because they bought some BTC at $10 and are holding to this day too.
Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
> because the writer has apparently never heard of a web server. This is a constant issue I have with crypto advocates. Most of the use cases can be done with crypto, but also with other techs (sometimes it's as simple as "we need a database for this"). But there's never a serious analysis of why those use cases have not been covered with previous tech, and when you point out that there might be issues other than the…
I love pointing out that if it becomes a serious currency banks would offer bitcoin-denominated loans (causing an increase in money supply); and if there's then a credit crunch the Fed could offer bitcoin-denominated (but unbacked) bonds. It would be like the gold standard all over again.
There's no way to create "unbacked" bitcoin. You either have the transaction outputs pointing at your wallet address on the public blockchain, or you do not. Nobody wants or will accept FedBTC.
Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?
#208Crypto fans are always hurling accusations of FOMO on those of us who just "don't get it". But web3 strikes me as those very same people experiencing FOMO because they missed out printing a bunch of money for themselves in the early days of the web by actually providing novel value - which in hindsight now all looks like really obvious low-hanging fruit, hence the FOMO - so they're hoping to "get in on the ground flo…
> Crypto fans are always hurling accusations of FOMO on those of us who just "don't get it".
That's just a cheap way to dismiss critics and has no actual basis in reality. The best thing to do is ignore it.
Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes web was decentralised till it became centralised with big tech gatekeepers. AMZN makes more money from sellers fee than AWS now. Thus killing small businesses - the lifeblood of most economies. Link below. It is time to get rid of gatekeepers, toll collector and have control of our data & communities. Web 3 is a way do that and will take about a decade as the infra builds out. So it certainly is BS for big tech l…
What were you able to do in the 90s that you cannot do now on the web? I do not subscribe to this mumbo jumbo about gatekeepers, data stealing, centralised internet etc. While true, you are literally free to use any service you like, nobody is forcing you to spend your dollar here or there. Good products are usually driven by commercial entities. I would love to use something else besides Android or iOS that is not b…
You can’t run a mailserver from your home without significant issues.
Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
How would I rectify that against the model of supply and demand, where increasing supply without increasing demand would result in its price deflating?
I don't understand the question.