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Is Web3 Bullshit?

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Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#341
post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often feel like I’m missing a key piece of technological or intellectual insight when I read bullish articles like the linked one. I cannot see a single use-case in there that would definitively be improved by the use of blockchain, and in most cases, I’d expect the opposite to happen.

What do you think about cryptocurrency enabled sports betting and prediction markets? There's a pretty clear technical path to these replacing traditional sports betting market makers and I personally cannot wait. Current market makers like DraftKings still put out betting lines with insane spreads, because in the US atleast, their markets are protected by regulatory capture. This [1] is one of the projects I have my…

Since the use of an oracle introduces a source of information external to the blockchain, we’re left with centralization issues again. I feel like this removes the unique advantage of using the technology in the first place.

I suppose there are ways to gamble exclusively using the blockchain, but I don’t think sports betting is among them.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#342
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has been fantastic for my small business. The fees aren't too crippling (around 15% of revenue) and FBA is an absolute Godsend for anyone based outside of the US trying to crack into that market (similar for Europe). I could not thank Mr. Bezos more for the opportunities Amazon has given my family. The income from FBA was a major factor in my decision to quit my job back in 2020, and because of that my daughte…

How much you get for shilling?

You can't post like this here, and we ban accounts that do. Please read the rules and don't do this again.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#343
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does this preoccupation with payments come from all of a sudden? Personally I don't want "payments" implemented in my web browser, and I seriously doubt that that would be in anyone's interest.

I found it pretty eye opening to be able to make payments freely and (practically) pseudonomously, in contrast to which all other digital payments systems are heavily permissioned. Crypto UI may not be great but try sending a wire internationally in the banking system and you are presented with 2-3 massively leaky abstractions (why should I the consumer have to research the difference in ACH, electronic wire) with va…

I make international payments pretty often and have never been presented with a leaky abstraction, suffered from "censorship" or anything like that. "Permissioned" is simply a consequence of that fact that most countries establish barriers to the free movement of people, goods and capitals in and out of their territory. You're not going to solve that with technology, because it's not a technological problem. It's not even clear that it's a problem.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I guess we can drop the "latest".

Regardless as to whether Eth is currently overpriced, real people pay gas fees to the Ethereum network to use the services it provides. And regardless as to how you feel about value of those services, to those people who are paying those fees, those services do have value. In other words, the price of Eth is derived in part from real demand for the use of the services of the Ethereum network. If speculative interest…

Why would I pay gas when a Pi board gives me the same amount of computing power but is cheaper?

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#345
post #75

It’s like that headline about the internet being a glorified fax machine in 1999. [0] It was wrong to put your name on that piece for posterity to see (and mock you) , but if you listened to that article and shorted the Nasdaq you’d have made 5000% type returns . And if Krugman himself listened to his own brain , he’d have had enough money not to care about that piece or make people forget about it The web3 might not…

It always comes back to money, not what cool things you can do with it.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#346
post #75

It’s like that headline about the internet being a glorified fax machine in 1999. [0] It was wrong to put your name on that piece for posterity to see (and mock you) , but if you listened to that article and shorted the Nasdaq you’d have made 5000% type returns . And if Krugman himself listened to his own brain , he’d have had enough money not to care about that piece or make people forget about it The web3 might not…

It always comes back to money, not what cool things you can do with it.

Everybody conceives cool things in their minds but the cooler the idea the more it’s a winner take all market

Web1.0 teaches this just by looking at the big tech giants which dominate. There’s space for only one in each of the big tech sub fields. Search - social media -cloud - Desktop OS - phone OS

The ideal is to bet on a trend instead of a company and do so when the rising tide lifts all boats such as Nasdaq 1995-2000 and Bitcoin 2010-2020.

I get what you are saying but in today society there is not only no glory but outright ridicule and financial trouble for people who have a cool project which gets copied by a giant . It ends up in tears .

I wish it was different . I contacted on LinkedIn the guy who put together the first Facebook like social network in 2000. He works for Sony and nobody knows his name

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#347
post #2

Reading 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. This gives me the initial dropbox dismissal comment (you can do it trivially with ftp) vibe... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

It's been years, over a decade since bitcoin came out, and still nothing useful came out of it. Dropbox was well understood to be useful shortly after it came out and the initial reactions were over.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#348
post #2

Reading 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.…

> Compute power is nearing post scarcity Nearing? 99.9% of the Internet content I care about is pure text. In quantities could be served and stored on SBC or a phone from 10 years ago. Think of text messaging, IM rooms, forums like HN or mailing lists, activitypub. Do the math around how much text a person can consume in a day and how much data can a SBC handle in a day.

> Do the math around how much text a person can consume in a day and how much data can a SBC handle in a day.

A $0.80 microcontroller would get you pretty far.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think capitalism is going anywhere. "Web3" might succeed but, absent a political fight, only if it can be assimilated into existing capital and power structures.

I'm not sure you fully got the point I was trying to make. Despite all the claims from crypto advocates about crypto freeing us from existing power structures, I think the truth is actually the opposite. Crypto entrenches existing power structures, where capital = power. You can see that formalized in various decentralized organizations where votes are allocated by token count, or in other words, more capital means m…

Yes! That's what I've been saying. If crypto succeeds, it will be because it serves capital (what crypto believers refer to as "centralixed authority") not in spite of it.

Re: Is Web3 Bullshit?

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure you fully got the point I was trying to make. Despite all the claims from crypto advocates about crypto freeing us from existing power structures, I think the truth is actually the opposite. Crypto entrenches existing power structures, where capital = power. You can see that formalized in various decentralized organizations where votes are allocated by token count, or in other words, more capital means m…

Yes! That's what I've been saying. If crypto succeeds, it will be because it serves capital (what crypto believers refer to as "centralixed authority") not in spite of it.

Ah! It was I who misunderstood you then. Glad to hear we're on the same page!
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