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Web3 is going just great

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Re: Web3 is going just great

#211

Post by AlexandrB »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #72

As someone building in web3, I'll give an example. When I sold my first business, escrow.com wanted >$20K for the domain transfer from godaddy. If you sell a domain on ethereum (ENS), the escrow requires only a smart contract and fees scale with the network so like $50 right now. I'm working on connecting the two. Intermediaries are a huge reason the web is the way it is. If we can eliminate them, the internet looks…

> Intermediaries are a huge reason the web is the way it is. If we can eliminate them, the internet looks very different.

That's what makes me the most skeptical. I don't see a lack of intermediaries in crypto and the crypto intermediaries are far sketchier than their non-crypto counterparts. Just compare Tether to your local bank. Tether could pull the rug on USDT tomorrow and your recourse would be... what? Same with NFTs and the entities hosting the actual art you're paying for. I can have some confidence that Steam will be around 10 years from now; not so sure about boredapeyachtclub.com. The most notable party that's removed from the equation by crypto is the only one I have some small measure of influence on - the government.

From the outside it looks like: "meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

Re: Web3 is going just great

#213

Post by ahtihn »

dvt wrote: post #174
acdha wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of disingenuous, since when is log4j “web 2.0”? > The claim that Web3 is rife with hacks, when you have daily hacks of Web2 (are we just ignoring Log4j, which is a huge deal and happened 2 days ago) That’s also worth thinking less shallowly about for a second reason: if a cryptocurrency service, wallet, etc. you used was hacked due to log4j, you’d lose everything without recourse. This is not true of the mat…

> Speaking of disingenuous, since when is log4j “web 2.0”? Let's assume Web 2.0 is 2008 to the present day. Every single big corp I worked at during that time was a Java shop (serving via Tomcat/Jetty), and log4j is ubiquitous in every Java shop. Minecraft (a gaming epitome of Web 2.0), basically blew up because of Log4j.

Sorry but log4j is not ubiquitous. Slf4j with logback has a significant presence. Spring boot doesn't come with log4j backend by default.

Re: Web3 is going just great

#214

Post by victorvosk »

The vast majority of the stuff on this timeline are hacks and user mistakes, not sure that constitutes a "grift". The only difference between this and all of other tech sectors is they can't cover up the fact they got hacked.

I think the biggest hurdle to web3 is user responsibility and tech savviness. There was an assumption that younger generations would become better at advanced tech as time went on but that doesn't seem to be playing out. Using an iPhone effectively and avoiding online scams are two different skillsets. The problem is rampant in all tech, not just crypto.

Centralized organizations protect users from the absurdly dumb stuff they do. You can't have decentralized institutions and an adult nanny service at the same time.

All that being said, most of HN seems hypocritically upset at crypto. Its a distributed encrypted database, with some having distributed remote procedures. Nothing more than fancy tech. Are people scamming with it? Sure, but people have scammed with everything under the sun since the beginning of time, nothing has changed about human nature.

Re: Web3 is going just great

#215

Post by ipaddr »

dontreact wrote: post #195
erulabs wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you'll roll your eyes at this response, but a large chunk of economists don't believe there is value in anything. Your definition of "value" might mean "utility" or "what the US treasury says this is worth", or something else entirely. Starting a discussion with "well, it doesn't have any value" is more or less meaningless, and borders on economically illiterate, excuse the harshness. My stuffed animal from…

What's going to happen when people start trying to retire by selling crypto? Many people will be selling at the same time, and suddenly the subjective value for everyone will be lower because it will be easier and easier to buy it. My sense is that there is a cap on the demand for purchasing crypto, but the supply is very low because mining decreases over time, and generally people holding lots of crypto are younger…

The value of whatever coin you have may go down. Planning a retirement around a lottery ticket is fun but you still stuff your retirement fund.

Bitcoin slows down ensuring it's value continues to increase with fewer buyers.

Proper retirement planning means moving from 100% risky in your 20s to 50/50 in your 40s to 10/90 in your 60s.

Re: Web3 is going just great

#216

Post by da-x »

danlugo92 wrote: post #51
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ask yourself, who is the most affected by these 2 technologies existing? Speculators? Seriously though, can you tell us which Web3 technologies, specifically, are disrupting existing technologies in a way that really benefits the end users instead of speculators? > I hear you about the electricity usage, but Bitcoin Lightning will drive down the usage so much that it will become a moot point anyways. That's not how…

> Seriously though, can you tell us which Web3 technologies, specifically, are disrupting existing technologies in a way that really benefits the end users instead of speculators? Distributed systems where you own the data and there's no single point of failure. > That's not how mining works. Layer 2 networks don't reduce the energy consumption of the Layer 1 network. They still produce 1 block every 10 minutes, and…

> Distributed systems where you own the data and there's no single point of failure.

If I encrypt my 1TB of the data I have at home and put the copies on AWS, GCP, and Azure, there's also no single point of failure and I own the data. Still, blockchain is a solution looking for a problem. I can own data without relying on a worldwide self-settling ledger.

There's the "shutdown test" for the actual immediate utility value of anything worldwide. If we hypothetically manage to shutdown Bitcoin and all the other blockchains, what would be the overall effect to the world? Some big and small speculators losing assets and no actual loss of value (but less carbon emissions, so maybe increase of value?). On the other hand, shutdown stock exchanges, SWIFT systems, electricity, internet in general - big turmoil.

Re: Web3 is going just great

#217

Post by fab1an »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #130
fab1an wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this kind of culture absolutely exists, but tbh I'd compare it to Reddit in that regard (hear me out): I don't particularly enjoy most of Reddit, and there are some vile subreddits I'd avoid at all costs, BUT there are many communities and subreddits that I immensely enjoy hanging out in. That said, my entire "consumption" of web2 communities like Reddit (AND HN!) has honestly been replaced with the amazing and…

> That said, my entire "consumption" of web2 communities like Reddit (AND HN!) has honestly been replaced with the amazing and kind communities I met "on" web3 (a misnomer in that context, as the entire comms stack is Twitter and Discord). So your "web3" consumption happens entirely on web 2.0? And its existence doesn't actually require anything web3 related? What makes it web3, other than the fact that maybe someone…

A bunch of things, which also define what web3 means to me:

- Yes, NFTs: just like most websites are crap, so are most NFTs, and the tulip bubble that has formed around them will eventually bust (but return in different ways...). What will IMO almost certainly remain is the significant paradigm shift on two aspects: 1. indisputable ownership of digital goods that unlock other things: logins to apps, usage of software, access to certain communities / social clubs. 2. A dramatic unbundling of the way software is designed and used. Entire game universes will be build in the NFT space that are permissionlessly composable. A game designer may take an character NFT and build a game around them. Take a look at Loot Project, the first of this kind. Corruption(s*) by Dom is my favorite here: https://twitter.com/fabianstelzer/status/1470525607104684032

- DAOs will profoundly change the way in which we work. Wrote an article here: https://www.daos.fm/blog/daos-and-the-civstack Most NFT communities eventually become minimal DAOs as they often at some point pool a bunch of NFTs into a community wallet that they govern together. Sometimes for lols, sometimes to fund public goods

- Permissionlessness may sound like a buzzword, but it's huge. I think the NFT space will move toward a CC0 model in many parts, which means that anyone can build on top of existing things and expand on a successful model with an existing community.

- Most importantly, community, and this isn't fluff: consider this - most on chain tech is by definition open source and easily forkable - it's on a public chain! The differentiating factor for a project then is solely how well the community works, and how well its community is rewarded for helping the project out. Take the ENS (Ethereum Naming Service), which let's you shorten your ETH public key to a "domain.eth" one. They incorporated as a DAO and as a token of gratitude to their early adopters airdropped ENS tokens into every early users wallet. These tokens were immediately worth around 15k USD and instantly tradeable. Many didn't trade them but instead used them to vote for a delegate to represent them in the ENS DAO.

It's mindblowing how fast the space moves.

Re: Web3 is going just great

#218

Post by ShamelessC »

ThalesX wrote: post #178

I think web3 is still a fuzzy concept, but if it's less divisive maybe it would be better to call it a possible evolution of how we share cat pictures. The boom of cryptocurrencies, and NFTs, and all the jazz, sparked a need for thinking about data differently. We already had much in terms of traditional protocols, and there was already work in the space in terms of IPFS, so we already had some tools for reasoning ab…

If you remove every occurence of the notion of payments and/or currency and instead focus on the good parts like IPFS and BitTorrent, maybe it stands a chance.

Like it or not, people will always have love hate relationships with money.

Re: Web3 is going just great

#219

Post by acdha »

dvt wrote: post #174
acdha wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of disingenuous, since when is log4j “web 2.0”? > The claim that Web3 is rife with hacks, when you have daily hacks of Web2 (are we just ignoring Log4j, which is a huge deal and happened 2 days ago) That’s also worth thinking less shallowly about for a second reason: if a cryptocurrency service, wallet, etc. you used was hacked due to log4j, you’d lose everything without recourse. This is not true of the mat…

> Speaking of disingenuous, since when is log4j “web 2.0”? Let's assume Web 2.0 is 2008 to the present day. Every single big corp I worked at during that time was a Java shop (serving via Tomcat/Jetty), and log4j is ubiquitous in every Java shop. Minecraft (a gaming epitome of Web 2.0), basically blew up because of Log4j.

So your definition of “web 2.0” includes every programming language and library used to build web 1 or 2 apps, along with all kinds of other things? That’s quite the stretch — and it’s telling that you’re only using that as a negative to attack things which you don’t have a personal financial stake in. I don’t imagine you’d like it if every vulnerability in some library used by a blockchain-related project was billed as a cryptocurrency problem.

Re: Web3 is going just great

#220

Post by xtracto »

jjordan wrote: post #167
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm flabberghasted at the amount of hate this space is getting from parts of the dev community and in particular HN. Web3 has its fair share of issues, but there's community and energy in the space that I haven't seen online since the early days of the world wide web. If you're familiar with the space, you have to at least admit that it's filled to the brim with grifters and people looking to acquire life-changing…

I've worked on and off in the crypto space for 4 years, and I've often said that crypto attracts some of the best and the absolute worst of humanity. The key, I think, is to realize that it's still very much a "wild west" industry, and there will be heartache to endure. We continue on because we believe in the unrealized potential of decentralization.

People are quick to forget the cesspool that 90s internet was with the spam, fraud and abuse that happened in that new technology during those times.

Shit, I remember I received snail mail spam of penis enlargement crap in my town here in Mexico . They forget what brought the US legislators to the CAN SPAM act, and being 100% legal, also to the DMCA and all new legislation to prevent rampant copyright infringement (now... I dont agree with copyright law, but it's still the law).

We are at the same stage in the crypto space. Theres really interesting new tech and ideas (the Yahoos, Amazons, Googles, CD-Nows, MySpaces of the 90s), and theres also plenty of shady and blatantly illegal stuff (the Napsters, emules, Edward Davidsons of the 90s') .

That doesn't decrease the value of the technology.

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