Live data from Hacker News

The Web3 Fraud

usenix.org

191–200 of 377 posts

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#191
post #13

Many criticisms of blockchain apps, comparing their use cases to conventional technologies (databases, conventional separation of services such as that described in the article, etc) all seem to miss a major point: Dapps running on the blockchain are immutable and highly resistant to being shutdown. Immutability is important because it's guaranteed that no matter how many times you interact with a contract address, y…

If, as with Ethereum, your users pay me $100 per transaction to execute a few trivial lines of code, I and my future children will happily keep a server running immutably for you forever.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#192
post #13

Many criticisms of blockchain apps, comparing their use cases to conventional technologies (databases, conventional separation of services such as that described in the article, etc) all seem to miss a major point: Dapps running on the blockchain are immutable and highly resistant to being shutdown. Immutability is important because it's guaranteed that no matter how many times you interact with a contract address, y…

When I die, will my Dapps still run forever as long as people access them? User pays? This is the only great use case I can think of.

Yes, this is the case. Quoting myself from another comment:

> On a blockchain, once I've deployed my app, I can walk away and never think about the app again. I only have to pay for the initial deployment of the contract without any further ongoing cost. The app will always be there ready to be used by an end user who's willing to pay to interact with it.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#193
post #162

I do really dislike this general attitude that blockchain/web3/crypto is some elaborate scam with no benefits. Everyone focuses on the same negatives but never look at the interesting elements like solving the double spend problem, safely transferring digital assets in a trustless environment, having a working global computing system with inbuilt incentives, etc.. Yes there are crap uses at the moment. NFTs are a bub…

The problem is that I have been hearing about all these amazing use cases for crypto/blockchain for over a decade now, and not a single one has materialized that is useful for me or any other common user who is not involved in the community. The entire ecosystem is circular. All web3 apps are about web3. And what point does it start adding value outside of pushing itself?

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#194
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're pretty off, yes. Censorship-resistance is one of the core selling points of Ethereum. :) > but will make it so the address the item is stored at returns nothing There's no way for the blockchain to do that. The only way this is possible on ethereum is if the smart contract includes a self-destruct function, and the owner of the smart contract decides to call it (either because their private keys were c…

It's not always about censorship resistance. What if someone uploads child pornography on IPFS? Do we all just go "ah well, it's immutable" and live with it?

Yes.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#195
post #13

Many criticisms of blockchain apps, comparing their use cases to conventional technologies (databases, conventional separation of services such as that described in the article, etc) all seem to miss a major point: Dapps running on the blockchain are immutable and highly resistant to being shutdown. Immutability is important because it's guaranteed that no matter how many times you interact with a contract address, y…

If, as with Ethereum, your users pay me $100 per transaction to execute a few trivial lines of code, I and my future children will happily keep a server running immutably for you forever.

I appreciate the offer, but I have a stronger belief that the Ethereum blockchain will persist into the future compared to your proposed family server trust :)

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#196
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully, the number of people you are talking about is fairly small, or maybe I'm just out of touch with the rise of crime and corruption on the dark web - but I wouldn't lose any sleep if they got shut down. I'm fairly libertarian about drug use, but there's a lot of other terrible stuff that is enabled along with drugs in this system.

Well, you don't have to like the criminals of today, but lets also not forget that good people are deemed criminals under repressive regimes, for crimes such as "watching K-Pop." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/15/world/asia/north-korea-kp...

Even today, many in more liberal US states will find it unconscionable that someone could still have their life ruined over a little bit of weed in the more conservative states.

Again, not saying this way is the right way. Just saying, there's a lot of value in such tech -- for better or for worse.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hot take: The proponents of decentralized systems feel disenfranchised by those who own and govern centralized systems, therefore decentralized systems are their way around what they consider injustice. It is a grasp for control and power where they feel they have none. They don’t feel they have a seat at the table, so they argue for building their own table, which is, naturally, “superior” to the existing table (why…

Nah, it's about censorship-free finance vs censorable finance. If not for AML, KYC and basically the fact you just can't really use cash any more in significant sums for anything we wouldn't have had to bother. I have 200,000 bitcoin, or maybe I have 0.2, no-one knows other than me. Good.

How is it censorship free? The government could decide to make Bitcoin illegal. Sure, you could move it to another country without these laws or do things illegally, but that's no different for cash and the issues you mention.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#198
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The smart contract is. It's like https://xkcd.com/932/ . The static JS being served by the site is just a poster that could be hung up anywhere else. Even if that URL is taken down, your money is still safe and sound on the blockchain. You can still sign transactions and interact with the smart contracts, get your liquidity out, etc., so long as you have access to any part of the Ethereum network.

There is no money or smart contracts involved in my scenario. I just want to host a random site. Put another way – is there a use case for Web3 which doesn't involve touting Web3? What is the "killer app" for the average user who isn't obsessed with crypto/blockchain?

> I just want to host a random site.

Then just do that. You're neither the kind of user nor the kind of developer who would want to use web3.

> What is the "killer app" for the average user who isn't obsessed with crypto/blockchain?

What's the "killer app" of Tor for the average user who isn't obsessed with privacy? Nothing. The whole point is privacy. If you're okay with clearnet tracking, then just use the clearnet.

What I don't understand is this refusal to understand that there's actual value in blockchain technology for some people. I get that you don't need or want it. Why is it so hard for you to understand that others do need or want it?

If you're actually curious, and not just looking to status signal, I listed the apps that I've found to be most groundbreaking here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29588151 .

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#199
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The smart contract is. It's like https://xkcd.com/932/ . The static JS being served by the site is just a poster that could be hung up anywhere else. Even if that URL is taken down, your money is still safe and sound on the blockchain. You can still sign transactions and interact with the smart contracts, get your liquidity out, etc., so long as you have access to any part of the Ethereum network.

There is no money or smart contracts involved in my scenario. I just want to host a random site. Put another way – is there a use case for Web3 which doesn't involve touting Web3? What is the "killer app" for the average user who isn't obsessed with crypto/blockchain?

You can have your dapp just return HTML so in this case your simple static website is hosted on the blockchain.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My self hosted apps run on immutable infrastructure and are replicated and load balanced What? Assuming you live in the US, the government can swoop in at any time (provided they have a legal reason to do so) and demand that AWS or whoever's hosting your servers shuts them down. If you're hosting them yourself, they can raid the physical locations where you host them. If you're not in the US, I'm sure your country…

> Good luck raiding every single Ethereum node I’m just waiting for the day when governments decide that all this crypto is hurting the environment more than necessary for no real gain and forces ISPs to block this traffic. Similar to how many ISPs block serving DNS or SMTP from residential IPs.

Then that'll be the day proof of stake cryptos rise to the occasion.

Also, just use a friggin VPN.

Post reply on HN