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Why Web3?

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Re: Why Web3?

#551

Post by Karrot_Kream »

mch82 wrote: post #526
root_axis wrote: post #68

I'm not convinced. People talk grand about "permissionless data" but I fail to see any practical applications. NFTs are a scam and are retroactively obsoleted by digital signatures. All of the ideas about logistics tracking, deed tracking, etc etc are all rendered pointless by the oracle problem, you can get identical guarantees with digital signatures minus the blockchain. DeFi is DOA. Gas fees are insane, "layer 2"…

> None of this is about giving power back to individuals Artificial scarcity is the aspect of web3 that bothers me most. The web is all about abundance; reducing the marginal cost of software and information to zero so as many people as possible can have access. It seems like web3 advocates seek to do the opposite and lock software and information inside the digital equivalent of diamond mines.

I've asked for this many times (though not here) and still haven't received a satisfactory answer, so I'm curious: who said any of this? Is there a single influential architect of the net or the web who believed this or is this something that was and is a politically aspirational goal by special interest groups like the GNU folks?

Re: Why Web3?

#552

Post by galaxyLogic »

miracle2k wrote: post #536
galaxyLogic wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems as if the only thing I get when I buy an NFT is the ability to prove that I did pay money for that NFT for a specific seller. But because anybody else can sell anybody else very similar NFTs it looks like the supply is infinite. The only differentiator then is who is the seller, right? But how can the value of a thing be different based on who sells it?

> But because anybody else can sell anybody else very similar NFTs it looks like the supply is infinite. People only want to pay for the NFT, because it is supposed to represent a desirable piece of art. The only person who has the moral authority to sell it is the artist. Anyone can create an NFT that "links" to some piece of art they found online, but if I am not the artist, why would anyone pay me for it? Addition…

I can see a way it could make sense. The NFT contains text that declares what the buyer of it gets. For instance they get the right to use the digital art on their website. And maybe a right to sell that right to someone else if they stop using it on their website.

If I tried to create such an NFT from someone else's art that would be fraud if I don't own the copyright to that art.

Is that how it works in practice? Do NFTs (typically) include immutable text which clearly spells out what rights are transferred to the buyer of the NFT? And because the text of the NFT is in the blockchain which can not easily be forged, courts will accept that fact as evidence of a binding contract?

Re: Why Web3?

#553

Post by Kiro »

shagie wrote: post #410
Kiro wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly meant the app you're using to access the data doing the moderation for you. I don't think we would be back to square 1. We would still have the possibility to create new clients and build whatever applications we want without being under the mercy of Big Tech holding the data hostage. Sure, maybe one such app talking to the open platform would become dominant and the de facto operator but at least it wouldn'…

> We would still have the possibility to create new clients and build whatever applications we want without being under the mercy of Big Tech holding the data hostage. How does this improve on a self hosted blog with RSS feeds and associated aggregators?

How does what improve? I haven't said anything about implementation.

Re: Why Web3?

#554

Post by mattwilsonn888 »

jshen wrote: post #529
mattwilsonn888 wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The narrative driving Web3 is that people don't want to be treated like cattle. Or in your parlance, "the average user." Just because people are slow to wake with the contracts they made with centralized platforms doesn't mean they are so dull as to not care when they finally figure it out.

People want things to be cheap and convenient. Convincing yourself otherwise is a mistake.

False dichotomy. Convincing yourself that all blockchain will ever be is data posted in Bitcoin PKscripts is embarrassing.

Re: Why Web3?

#555

Post by FireInsight »

mch82 wrote: post #526
root_axis wrote: post #68

I'm not convinced. People talk grand about "permissionless data" but I fail to see any practical applications. NFTs are a scam and are retroactively obsoleted by digital signatures. All of the ideas about logistics tracking, deed tracking, etc etc are all rendered pointless by the oracle problem, you can get identical guarantees with digital signatures minus the blockchain. DeFi is DOA. Gas fees are insane, "layer 2"…

> None of this is about giving power back to individuals Artificial scarcity is the aspect of web3 that bothers me most. The web is all about abundance; reducing the marginal cost of software and information to zero so as many people as possible can have access. It seems like web3 advocates seek to do the opposite and lock software and information inside the digital equivalent of diamond mines.

Web3 has grown synonymous with blockchain. The things I really value in web3 are non-blockchain distributed systems. IPFS, Gun.js, heck, even BitTorrent could be considered web3. Most problems shouldn't be solved with blockchains. Crypto is what makes web3 artificially scarce.

Re: Why Web3?

#556

Post by Kiro »

jshen wrote: post #313
Kiro wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gate keepers are preventing me from building the kind of apps I want. Just the other day people here reminisced about the days when Twitter used to have an open API and how bad it is that they shut it down. I want to build apps without having to worry about ever being restricted, limited or shut down.

This isn't what users want in general, and you don't need crypto to get it. What you're asking for exists with things like mastodon. No one advocating how/why they think crypto will succeed when things like mastodon failed. Hell, RSS failed. The average user wants easy to use, easy to connect, free, and fast services. Crypto fails at all of these.

I never said anything about crypto. I said that you should _not_ conflate decentralization with blockchain and yet people attack me as if I was advocating for crypto. This just proves my original point that people hate crypto so much that they automatically attack decentralization in general.

Re: Why Web3?

#557

Post by Kiro »

shagie wrote: post #409
Kiro wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gate keepers are preventing me from building the kind of apps I want. Just the other day people here reminisced about the days when Twitter used to have an open API and how bad it is that they shut it down. I want to build apps without having to worry about ever being restricted, limited or shut down.

> I want to build apps without having to worry about ever being restricted, limited or shut down. I'm still not clear how this would work. In a web 3 twitter clone that prevents one from ever being "restricted, limited or shut down", where does the crypto-tweet live? Where is it stored? How well does this scale? What does it take to crypto-tweet (do you have to pay some crypto currency to have it be out there)? What…

I never said anything about crypto so I don't feel qualified to answer your questions. I'm talking about decentralization in general and what I want to see. Blockchain is probably not the tool for that, which was also my original point (don't conflate decentralization with blockchain).

Re: Why Web3?

#558

Post by FireInsight »

tshaddox wrote: post #348
root_axis wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do the same thing with blockchain NFTs, just mint another blockchain NFT with the same content. You can say "well, the NFT that was minted first is the true original" but the same is true of the "double sent" digital signature NFT, one will be dated more recently than the other, which affords one identical guarantees of authenticity to the blockchain NFT.

Well, no, only the minter can do the first step: > "$doomrobo_public_key owns $k as of $date" signed with the minter's private key If you mean the minter could sign multiple owners of $k, of course that’s true, but that’s like saying that a painter could paint the same thing twice or sell printed copies of their paintings. Of course they can, and if they claim that each one is unique they’re likely to find that peopl…

It's not the same as selling printed copies or painting multiple painting. It's verifying that two different people 'own' the same painting but neither of them has guaranteed rights to it.

Re: Why Web3?

#559

Post by arcticbull »

> It all comes down to the database that sits behind an application. If that database is controlled by a single entity (think company, think big tech), then enormous market power accrues to the owner/administrator of that database.

This is entirely a false premise. Market power accrues to the popular, no matter how structured.

Re: Why Web3?

#560

Post by arcticbull »

hestefisk wrote: post #498
root_axis wrote: post #68

I'm not convinced. People talk grand about "permissionless data" but I fail to see any practical applications. NFTs are a scam and are retroactively obsoleted by digital signatures. All of the ideas about logistics tracking, deed tracking, etc etc are all rendered pointless by the oracle problem, you can get identical guarantees with digital signatures minus the blockchain. DeFi is DOA. Gas fees are insane, "layer 2"…

Largely agree with this. The big promise of defi was to “bank the unbanked”, but Eth is - slow (15 txn/sec, 22-23 with the move to proof of stake) - expensive (I read somewhere that globally Eth users spend more on 30M USD in fees per day!) - too volatile to be reliable for everyday banking use cases - bad for the environment Blockchain technology is interesting and very powerful, but VCs and founders have all too of…

> Largely agree with this. The big promise of defi was to “bank the unbanked”

The un-banked aren't un-banked because there are no banks, or even because banks are inaccessible. They are un-banked because they do not have money. This is a social problem characterized by folks falling through the cracks. It's a lack of social safety net, a lack of unionization, a lack of inflation-adjusted minimum wage, a lack of healthcare. Broadly, a lack of of social programs.

I've never met a single person who had money but couldn't get a bank account* - have you? What good is a bank account to someone with no money anyways? What are they going to put into it? Just opening a bank account doesn't make you magically any less poor. You can grab one at ally.com free of charge right now with no minimum deposit. They'll even pay interest on your checking accounts which of course stablecoins will not unless you put them at massive risk.

Not to mention for the poor, a massively volatile speculative asset with astronomical fees is literally the worst thing they could put all their money into.

* outside people on the OFAC list, which, I would argue, is a good thing.

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