Why Web3? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Web3?

#601

Post by capableweb » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 10:14 AM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #284

capableweb wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Think for example if the Bitcoin creator would get 10 cent every time someone mentioned Bitcoin Eh, how would that work exactly? > Or the easiest business model of them all, sell ads on your org site That's great, but I can ensure you: none of us in the cryptocurrency ecosystem wants anything to do with ads. Also, can't really build a big business by having ads on your website.

There are casual games that are mostly funded by merchandise (Angry Birds). The game makes the brand popular, then they sell kid toys and clothing. I don't know exactly how you would get paid by just someone mentioning your trademark, but it might be your business innovation - as in order to reach unicorn status you either need to innovate in the business area, or innovate in the product area - you do not need to inn…

> I don't know exactly how you would get paid by just someone mentioning your trademark, but it might be your business innovation

If we're just making up "business innovations" willy nilly, why not just create a company that prints money from used t-shirts instead, I guess that would make a lot of money for the business.

Re: Why Web3?

#602

Post by capableweb » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 10:15 AM UTC

ninkendo wrote: post #245

capableweb wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is such a small slice of the "tech community", if we see the definition the same way (people who work in "tech"). I don't think you should take anything you read here as "majority of people in tech thinks like this", because the size is so small.

What other online tech communities are there out there that I can check out? If you say this is such a tiny one, I’d love to see the “bigger than HN” community you must be referring to.

Reddit, Twitter, other social media.

But then there are (believe it or not) communities outside of the internet as well. Actual people working actual jobs in real life.

Re: Why Web3?

#603

Post by arcticbull » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 10:17 AM UTC

CryptoPunk wrote: post #598

arcticbull wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the same economy that was once seen in Warcraft gold farming, but allowed to globalize and become streamlined, so that more gamer whales can connect to more people willing to work for them. You say that like its even close to a good thing. It's unproductive, a waste of time, resources, human capital. It's also a Ponzi scheme because all payouts are made from new investors minus operational costs. Gains are ill…

It's a transfer of wealth from those with surplus capital, who are looking to expend that capital on entertainment, to those on the brink of starvation, so yes it's a good thing. And no, if the transfer is done for entertainment purposes, as many game asset purchases are, it's not a "ponzi" scheme. >>Gains are illusory in aggregate. Gains might not be illusionary, given they are giving rise to new stores of wealth wh…

> It's a transfer of wealth from those with surplus capital, who are looking to expend that capital on entertainment, to those on the brink of starvation, so yes it's a good thing.

I mean, you can make the same exact argument about any exploitation of poor people for entertainment purposes. Your description maps perfectly to Bumfights. I think most would agree that your description alone does not make an intrinsically good system, let alone a moral one.

> And no, if the transfer is done for entertainment purposes, as many game asset purchases are, it's not a "ponzi" scheme.

The rich folks are buying in to make a gain, not entertain themselves. They are 100% of liquidity. The system is unproductive and yields nothing of external economic value but purports an increased value over time via 'number go up' all while operators slowly bleed capital out of the system. This is a Ponzi scheme. Ask yourself, would it work if money weren't involved in any way?

> Gains might not be illusionary, given they are giving rise to new stores of wealth which can have economic utility.

Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff were just ahead of their time, apparently. Given sufficient mental gymnastics, they too could have been captains of industry. Bernie after all gave rise to a new store of value! Shares of Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC with meaningful economic utility! You could even lend them to others to earn a yield via a brokerage, I suspect! Alas, time makes fools of us all.

Re: Why Web3?

#604

Post by boomlinde » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 10:20 AM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #386

boomlinde wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copies of music recordings aren't typically sold under the pretense that they're unique. If your favorite artist produced a record and sold you a copy, guaranteeing that it the only copy that'll ever be made, you might be inclined to pay more for it. Let's say you buy it, because you believe this might be the only opportunity to own this music. If your favorite artist then proceeded to sell other records with the sam…

> Copies of music recordings aren't typically sold under the pretense that they're unique. My point is that if you buy a new record from an artist you generally expect it to be original music that’s the product of creativity. But a lot of artists release things that are perceived by many to be very derivative, unoriginal, and not creative.

> My point is that if you buy a new record from an artist you generally expect it to be original music that’s the product of creativity.

No, you expect it to be one of hundreds to hundreds of thousands of exact copies that anyone else could buy regardless of whether you own a copy or not, and that will usually be repressed if the supply runs dry. It's the product of a record pressing/CD replication machine more than anything else; no creative or original work goes into producing copy 67,904 out of 100,000. There is no expectation that you are paying for original work. The money you spend might go into funding original work, indirectly, but what you're paying for is a copy, and that's also what you generally expect it to be.

If consumers generally each bought the only copy of the records they own, it might have been more relevant.

Re: Why Web3?

#605

Post by kkjjkgjjgg » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 10:52 AM UTC

lottin wrote: post #589

kkjjkgjjgg wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you understand how public key cryptography works? The artists says "this is my key" to their public key. Then they can use their key to sign things, and people can verify the signature because they can check that it belongs to the public key, which the artist has publicly announced.

That doesn't work, because anyone can falsely claim to be the artist.

Obviously you need a way to identify the real artist. For example if they put their public key on their official web site, it would be a pretty good indicator.

People also used to create chains of trust with public key infrastructure. Maybe you trust Bob, and Bob trusts Alice, and Alice has personally met the artist at Burning Man and verified their key there.

Or you go to the government and let them provide a register of identities. In any case it is a separate problem.

If you can't verify the artist, don't buy the NFT, or only buy it at a discount, accounting for the risk. Forgeries are a problem with physical works of art, too.

Re: Why Web3?

#606

Post by capableweb » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 10:59 AM UTC

pg_bot wrote: post #134

capableweb wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you compare email to snailmail, the same argument could be made. That it's over the internet is just a preference, why care about email when normal mail works perfectly fine? "Without a single 3rd party" is a technical feature, one that allows people to transfer money anywhere, for any reason via any device connected to the internet, without having to open up a bank account. According to the last numbers I've read…

"If you compare email to snailmail, the same argument could be made. That it's over the internet is just a preference, why care about email when normal mail works perfectly fine?" This is nonsense. Email is orders of magnitude cheaper and faster than snail mail. Talk to any business owner who made the switch from physically mailing bills to emailing their clients invoices and ask them how much time and money they sav…

> This is nonsense. Email is orders of magnitude cheaper and faster than snail mail. Talk to any business owner who made the switch from physically mailing bills to emailing their clients invoices and ask them how much time and money they saved. The value proposition for email is obvious.

Sure, now it is obvious, same with the web. But it wasn't always obvious to everyone, although it was obvious to some at that point in time. Email didn't become mainstream as soon as it appeared, and same with multiple "obvious" technologies. Something doesn't become obvious until it is, but at the beginning, there are always people who don't see the value even though many would say it's obvious.

My gradma never understood the value proposition of the internet, even though even her neighbor of similar age did and countless others do understand the value proposition.

Re: Why Web3?

#607

Post by thraxil » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 11:13 AM UTC

FireInsight wrote: post #555

mch82 wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I don't know about the others, but IPFS uses Filecoin, which is blockchain based.

Re: Why Web3?

#608

Post by lawtalkinghuman » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 11:32 AM UTC

nfw2 wrote: post #282

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"…

Do digital signatures really make the blockchain obsolete if they fill the same niche? Even if blockchain are technically equivalent to digital signatures, it seems like it has some real advantages from a business perspective: - it is capturing the market of people who want to buy "official" digital assets and is becoming the de facto way to do so - the market is one that should have strong network effects - gaining…

> it seems like it has some real advantages from a business perspective

Even if homeopathy is just placebo, homeopathy has better marketing.

Re: Why Web3?

#609

Post by ThomPete » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 11:37 AM UTC

maybecrypto wrote: post #341

ThomPete wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you believed it was a bubble you wouldn't leave your current job.

I think the current token prices are a bubble, but I think the space itself is here to stay.

if the space is here to stay so is the token price, in fact we haven't even begun seeing the gains as almost no one is in this field yet.

Re: Why Web3?

#610

Post by ThomPete » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 11:41 AM UTC

unicornmama wrote: post #568

ThomPete wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talent doesn't have problem making money, talent is attracted to interesting problems and id attracting the money. Wonder at what point you will concede that you are wrong about this if 13 years isn't long enough to prove its not a bubble.

> Talent doesn't have problem making money No where else in my career have I seen senior level engineers earn 7 figures. > talent is attracted to interesting problems and id attracting the money First part is fair, top engineers are passionate about solving challenges. Second part not so much. How can you explain that “interesting problems” is an efficient capital allocation strategy? Money is interested in making mo…

If BTC is your idea of a failure, being the catalyst for a +2 trillion dollar industry, then i guess failure isnt bad at all. Again you are just claiming things ignoring everything else. Lifes too short for haters. good luck