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The Web3 Fraud

usenix.org

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Re: The Web3 Fraud

#231

Post by chizhik-pyzhik »

sb057 wrote: post #92

Something that I think a lot of Web3 (and metaverse, et al) proponent types don't understand is that you can't plan out a revolutionary technology. By definition, any wide-reaching society-wide overturning of the current order will behave in ways you can't anticipate. For example, HTTP code 402 "Payment Required" was standardized in 1999 when the W3C anticipated that people would be paying for things over the web, bu…

There's not much central planning going on. For example, the smart contract standards for NFTs came out of existing smart contracts; they standardized a lot of already-existing practices like creating a `transferFrom` function. Emergent standards like that exist to tamp down on contracts creating functions with slightly different function names, behaviors, etc.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#232

Post by rvz »

riffic wrote: post #187
3np wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same argument could have been made against TLSv1.3, IPv6 or HTTP 2/3. See how much of the web you can access on an old IE6 installation. I don’t think anything behind a LetsEncrypt certificate will, for example.

Companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, et al, are absolutely never going to put this sort of hopeware alternative root into their operating systems.

Why are you still using Internet Explorer® 6 and Safari?

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#233

Post by uncomputation »

selestify wrote: post #205
uncomputation wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> code immutability guarantees Phrased another way, “bug immortality guarantees.” What is the use case for completely immutable software? Even Ethereum smart contracts do not actually guarantee the compiled byte code matches the supposed source of the contract, so while it might be immutable, it is not free. I think the bigger concern is not that the code will update - updates are good, especially ones for bug fixes…

> Even Ethereum smart contracts do not actually guarantee the compiled byte code matches the supposed source of the contract What? You don't have to publish your smart contract code for the public to verify, but you absolutely can. And once you do, the public can absolutely verify that the smart contract code you provided does in fact compile to the byte code deployed to the blockchain. > and then we’re right back wh…

Given that you can deploy smart contracts as binaries (without source) and you can design the contracts to be upgradeable if needed, I don’t see any advantages of this system. Sure, the contract can be immutable but the only advantage is for the archivist who now has a permanent record of the software history. Other than a public change log, this doesn’t have much utility.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#234

Post by landemva »

miracle2k wrote: post #215
withinboredom wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think multiplayer games are running a blockchain and they agree on shared state. Humans being humans tend to reject cheaters who manipulate the state in their favor. But you don’t need a blockchain for any of this, and in fact, it’s too slow to have shared state /in real time/.

Not really; it is the server that tells all clients what the state is. I know "there is nothing new that blockchain does" has become a meme among sceptics, but with respect, I am getting a bit tired of it. It's just not accurate. You can argue that what the way blockchain allows for shared state is useless all they long, or that the financial use cases are undesirable, and that's all fine. But you simple cannot run t…

Looks like you are describing the value of the distributed non-permissioned consensus mechanism, without using those words.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#235

Post by RichardHeart »

I did an debate with the author 6/4/2018. He lost. https://youtu.be/I9Pxv1i9W7M?list=PLN0RF11rNdP0kkklAiif2pBLv... By the way Bitcoin was at $2530. Ethereum was at $590. Bitcoin went up $69,000 since then. Ethereum went to $5000. But pundits and critics seem to be immune to educate from years of progress, and now history.

Quote from his article: "So why this hype? Because the cryptocurrency space, at heart, is simply a giant ponzi scheme where the only way early participants make money is if there are further suckers entering the space. The only “utility” for a cryptocurrency (outside criminal transactions and financial frauds) is what someone else will pay for it and anything to pretend a possible real-word utility exists to help find new suckers."

The gentlemen that invented and host this forum don't believe that. Disclaimer: I've founded a few cryptocurrencies.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#236

Post by smoldesu »

selestify wrote: post #213
smoldesu wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've reduced your argument to "people shouldn't use it if they don't know what it is", have you considered that you might not be talking about the future of software? Nobody sold iPhones because it "exists for those who actually find a use for it".

I never claimed it's the be-all future of software. It's got its uses and its uses are here to stay, that I'm sure of.

So... is Web3 not a successor to Web2 then?

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#237

Post by withinboredom »

miracle2k wrote: post #215
withinboredom wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think multiplayer games are running a blockchain and they agree on shared state. Humans being humans tend to reject cheaters who manipulate the state in their favor. But you don’t need a blockchain for any of this, and in fact, it’s too slow to have shared state /in real time/.

Not really; it is the server that tells all clients what the state is. I know "there is nothing new that blockchain does" has become a meme among sceptics, but with respect, I am getting a bit tired of it. It's just not accurate. You can argue that what the way blockchain allows for shared state is useless all they long, or that the financial use cases are undesirable, and that's all fine. But you simple cannot run t…

I’m not arguing that the blockchain isn’t valuable. I think it does unlock new and interesting things. I think we are still learning what those things are, outside of crypto transactions. And like anything else, there’ll be times to apply it and times not.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#238

Post by rank0 »

miracle2k wrote: post #147
jjnoakes wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that true though? If two people run self hosted apps that can communicate, all you have to verify is the data passing between. What assurances are you missing?

They can communicate, but if they want to agree on shared state between them, they have to solve the same problem that blockchains seek to solve, and the options available to you there are essentially on a spectrum of how many people are going to participate and to what extend you can vet them.

Dude the internet is made of protocols that accomplish “shared state”

Ever heard of dns or IP addresses?

What about bittorrent, tor, i2p, ipfs?

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#239

Post by brazzy »

brandonmenc wrote: post #80
v64 wrote: 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…

> Dapps running on the blockchain are immutable I can think of very few systems I'd want to use where nothing can be deleted. I don't understand why this is seemingly considered a feature for all use cases.

Because it's the only truly unique selling point of blockchain apps. So it has to be important to justify cryptocurrencies being valuable.

Re: The Web3 Fraud

#240

Post by zer01 »

paxys wrote: post #169
selestify wrote: post #167

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?

If you just want to store and host files like a website, there's a few projects in that vein that I know of - Arweave (https://www.arweave.org/), IPFS (https://ipfs.io/), and Filecoin (https://filecoin.io/).

IMO these projects are aiming at a new form of sovereignty on the internet that doesn't/can't exist currently - the ability to have your data be permanently stored and accessible on the web. Google can decide to kill Google Photos, and every email provider on the planet can delete everyone's old emails if they so choose. It's unlikely, yes, but the ability to put something on the internet permanently surely has some novel value to it, even if just as an open building block to something bigger than the sum of its parts.

A massive part of what's going on right now in the crypto space is people experimenting with these new protocols and tools like smart contracts and DAOs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organ...) and attempting to figure out new and novel things to do with them. Web3 is a moniker du-jour to try to encompass these experiments in finance, governance, art, and collaboration.

When the internet was early, people were doing the same, and it gave rise to new forms of art, online gaming, radically different access to banking, ecommerce, and low latency, (basically) free, video calling anywhere in the world. Imagine trying to explain Twitch.tv or Facebook to someone in the early 90s when people were paying for long distance calls and stamps. The groundwork for these things was being created as people were inventing DNS, HTTP, etc etc, but in the same way that NeoPets was not the ultimate expression of online gaming (but had influence on it nonetheless), the things we're seeing today are not the ultimate expression of what "web3" will eventually be but instead a bunch of passionate people trying to figure out what revolutionary things can be built with these new unique tools.

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