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Is Web3 anything?

chris-granger.com

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Re: Is Web3 anything?

#181

Post by latchkey »

meheleventyone wrote: post #171
latchkey wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclosure: I'm a very very large miner and I've been doing it across many protocols over the last 7 years. You're right that miners choose profitability, but we also choose technology. I don't mine BTC any more, I mine with GPUs (and thus ETH). There are a dozen chains I could mine with these GPUs, but I'd like to see the success of ETH over others. I can tell you with certainty, no quorum of powerful individuals in…

Random question but as a large miner and supporter of ETH how will the proposed switch to PoS next year impact you?

Thanks for asking. My business model has always been larger than just mining ETH. I'm focused on building data centers for providing decentralized compute to all these web3 applications being built today. Mining (aka: being paid to validate anonymous transactions) is just one use case. You see all these articles about how a dApp went down because AWS was down? I'd like to help solve that issue. It isn't just about renting out servers or virtual machines. It is about providing compute in a way that nobody realizes where it is even hosted. True "cloud" in my eyes.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#182

Post by fnoof »

nprz wrote: post #125
CurrentB wrote: post #43

Nice read. What I don't get about all the crypto haters, who will probably make up the majority of replies here, are they really just happy with the status quo? Do they really think the current financial system is great and their online bank account is perfect and nothing radical is worth trying? That usernames and passwords given to each of a million different companies are so great, why would people want to manage…

HN readers love to pretend the status quo needs changing, but when anyone puts forth a concrete idea on how to make that change (like the crypto community), they'll agree there's an issue, but say that this solution isn't the right one. They will endlessly repeat this cycle and proclaim frustration when nothing ever changes.

HN is basically the “Dad internet”.

They’ll instinctively shoot down all your ideas, but their accumulated experience is helpful once in a real discussion.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#183

Post by can16358p »

Semaphor wrote: post #168
can16358p wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. For me it's all around pretty much everywhere, from TV ads to billboards. To be fair: Not necessarily web3 but generally crypto, but still.

I neither see tv ads nor billboards, but I also don’t mean crypto in general. Specifically, all the Web3 posts feel like people arguing against something that’s actually just a minor blip no-one (outside of crypto) cares about at all. Essentially all the outrage being the only thing giving it publicity.

I think it's one of those things that many don't realize that they need until they have it.

We're so used to financially being controlled by authorities so it's deemed normal. Governments can tax you however they want and that is "normal".

Coming from an extremely corrupted country/government I know how taking control of your assets is important, which web3 aims. To which extent it can succeed is another question though.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#184

Post by giantrobot »

monkeydust wrote: post #123
latenightcoding wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just like VR/AR and ML/AI of yesteryear." More like the same silly blockchain ideas that didnt work X years ago, getting recycled with a new buzzwords.

Yes, feel people have forgotten about the Blockchain-for-x period but I suspect it will now make a comeback for the wrong reasons.

We'll need to crowdsource some Big Data for some push content. Luckily it's all Object Oriented so we can run some AR social media code on it. I'll get an IM when it's finished on my 5G.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#185

Post by XorNot »

brotchie wrote: post #14

I feel like web3 continues the trend (in a good way) of the financialization of everything. The primitives of web3 effectively enable the fine grained economic measurement and distribution of every element of value-exchange, and gives folks the ability to participate in these cashflows where they were previously not able to. Now that there's standards for representations of value / governance / etc (ERC-20) now any p…

Economics 2.0 in Accelerando was considered a failure state for civilizations.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#186

Post by rndmio »

karlerss wrote: post #145
jayd16 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the thought experiment of a true anarchy, how do you ultimately enforce the off-chain part of a transaction? If BTC is traded for goods or services, how do you enforce that the goods and services have been sufficiently provided?

In OP article the interfacing with real world is solved by some group voting. In the real world, when disagreements arise, we have voting + due process + a hierarchy of courts. It could be argued that due process is an essential part of finding justice. Baking due process into a smart contract is, although extremely interesting, probably impossible.

Great, but take the example in the article. I roll in with my heavies and at gun point force enough of you to vote that the contract was complete even if it wasn't. You can't engineer people away and when you try you've undoubtedly missed something.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#187

Post by throwaway405769 »

jayd16 wrote: post #119
derefr wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Democracy solves the Byzantine agreement problem just fine already. That’s nice when you and your counterparty are part of the same democracy, or potentially allied ones. But how do you enforce contracts when your government and their government are at war? (The governments say “you shouldn’t; they’re the enemy.” Well, screw the governments, I want to make positive-sum trades in the hopes of increasing global GDP a…

In the thought experiment of a true anarchy, how do you ultimately enforce the off-chain part of a transaction? If BTC is traded for goods or services, how do you enforce that the goods and services have been sufficiently provided?

You would either need an arbitration service or an oracle for that. Look into Kleros and Chainlink.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#188

Post by meheleventyone »

latchkey wrote: post #181
meheleventyone wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Random question but as a large miner and supporter of ETH how will the proposed switch to PoS next year impact you?

Thanks for asking. My business model has always been larger than just mining ETH. I'm focused on building data centers for providing decentralized compute to all these web3 applications being built today. Mining (aka: being paid to validate anonymous transactions) is just one use case. You see all these articles about how a dApp went down because AWS was down? I'd like to help solve that issue. It isn't just about re…

Thanks for the answer it’s very interesting to see how the infrastructure spin off of mining could lead to more conventionally useful hosting. So in some sense you intend to be multi-region without the eye watering data transfer costs?

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#189

Post by BatteryMountain »

padolsey wrote: post #167

People keep saying 'trustless', without realizing the upsetting and very real truth that no mechanism is trustless. Even if you can, if well informed, verify the cryptographic integrity of any communication or data, you are also relying on and trusting the device, UI, and OS that you're using (+myriad stacks, libs, protocols). You are relying on every single medium between you and whatever it is that's verifiable. Le…

They have to trust that the power utilities and ISP's don't shut down their trustless distributed system.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#190

Post by _gf4m »

Longwelwind wrote: post #62
tracyhenry wrote: post #3

> Once submitted, that “contract” will be carried out exactly as specified. It is observable to everyone, debuggable, and non-falsifiable. But a centralized database can also achieve this, right? The premise of the general public trusting a blockchain more than an established, centralized 3rd party (e.g. government) seems so feeble.

If I understood Web3 correctly, it would be exactly like traditional web, except that: * The source code of all websites would be open-source, and accessible to anyone. It could still be changed, but it could not be done secretly. * All the actions of the users of the websites would be public. If we take social forums, for example Hacker News, it would mean that: * The algorithm behind the front page of social forums…

I think a platform like this is as impractical as you are thinking. However, there are potential other things you can do by mixing centralized services with decentralized ones. You could create a forum like hackernews that utilizes traditional infra but restricts access to users that hold NFTs or something similar. Think of something like a Patreon type deal where access to the service is tokenized. I've been kinda thinking of stuff I could do with a NFT project I've been working on and it's a thought I've been bouncing around.

There's no way I'd want to create something that is similar to what you're thinking, because it's pointless as you are thinking. Nobody would pay for this. Also messages such as these have no reason to be on an immutable blockchain. But you can certainly create specialized services for people that support your projects using ideas like this quite seemlessly.

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