Web3 is centralized • Hacker News Board

Re: Web3 is centralized

#121

Post by root_axis » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 10:09 AM UTC

darawk wrote: post #87

neuroma wrote: post #72

It's fascinating how on hacker news one typically finds detailed, reasoned and thoughtful comments. However on the topic of crypto and web3 the comments reliably degenerate into partisan tit for tat, consisting mainly of poorly researched, unreasoned sound bytes. It's a pity because I'd love to hear quality thought on the space. My personal view is that crypto and Web3 "are a thing" (Mean Girls) and will continue to…

Agree completely. There is a ton to criticize about crypto and "Web3" (I hate the term, tbh). It's rife with scams and unearned wealth. Even the things that aren't outright scams are mostly people selling hype. But this technology does enable something novel. Digital self-custody of scarce assets is a new thing. A thing that nobody could do before this stuff. And if that has utility, then the infrastructure for tradi…

Over the years I've witnessed a lot of heated debates on HN... Is the JS ecosystem actually too complex? Is PHP really a fractal of bad design? Is learning vim worth the effort or is it all hype? Is golang fundamentally broken because it lacks(lacked) generics? Does anyone ever actually need k8s? Is nosql always the wrong choice? Is the linux desktop experience truly productive or should you just use a mac? Types or no types? 100% test coverage or overkill? X or Wayland? Gnome2 or Unity? Android or iPhone etc...

Yet, only in the cryptocurrency debate do defenders have to offer up a disclaimer about all the scams, hype, vaporware, fraud, waste, hacks, speculation, crime and other insanity before proceeding to make an appeal to the nebulous hope of future possibilities, as if cryptocurrency isn't older than instagram....

Re: Web3 is centralized

#122

Post by Lordarminius » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 10:09 AM UTC

everfree wrote: post #110

vmception wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also Secret Network, which hides smart contract variables, which therefore includes token and wrapped token amounts, along with the current owner. Monero has a trustless-enough bridge over to there.

And also Aztec Network, and Tornado Cash, and Zcash, and soon Starkware, and... I'm surprised so many people on Hacker News apparently still believe that you can "see all transactions" on every blockchain. It really only takes some surface level research to find working, production blockchains/cryptocurrencies that use one of several types of cryptography to hide that data, plus if you're using a pseudonymous blockch…

> I'm surprised so many people on Hacker News apparently still believe that you can "see all transactions" on every blockchain.

Most have no knowledge of the state of the industry. Their opposition is based on knee jerk reactions.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#123

Post by lpcvoid » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 10:11 AM UTC

Findeton wrote: post #113

pcthrowaway wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh the blockchain created by the fraudster claiming to be Satoshi.

Sure but have you looked into the technology?

There is absolutely nothing worth looking at with regards to cryptocurrency/blockchain junk.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#124

Post by spiddy » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 10:12 AM UTC

neuroma wrote: post #72

It's fascinating how on hacker news one typically finds detailed, reasoned and thoughtful comments. However on the topic of crypto and web3 the comments reliably degenerate into partisan tit for tat, consisting mainly of poorly researched, unreasoned sound bytes. It's a pity because I'd love to hear quality thought on the space. My personal view is that crypto and Web3 "are a thing" (Mean Girls) and will continue to…

I tend to look closely into projects that are outside of the echo chamber that can provide real world value and better economic models than web2 solutions.

My two favorites are:

helium where they build IoT global network, I use a helium GPS-alternative tracker for my moto which costs 10 times less than GPS tracker.

scPrime (although there are other storage alternatives) which build global S3-compatible storage using available disk space on HDs. There is a lot of real estate that is sitting right now that can be harvested for money easily with networks like this.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#125

Post by SoldShort22 » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 10:12 AM UTC

darawk wrote: post #87

neuroma wrote: post #72

It's fascinating how on hacker news one typically finds detailed, reasoned and thoughtful comments. However on the topic of crypto and web3 the comments reliably degenerate into partisan tit for tat, consisting mainly of poorly researched, unreasoned sound bytes. It's a pity because I'd love to hear quality thought on the space. My personal view is that crypto and Web3 "are a thing" (Mean Girls) and will continue to…

Agree completely. There is a ton to criticize about crypto and "Web3" (I hate the term, tbh). It's rife with scams and unearned wealth. Even the things that aren't outright scams are mostly people selling hype. But this technology does enable something novel. Digital self-custody of scarce assets is a new thing. A thing that nobody could do before this stuff. And if that has utility, then the infrastructure for tradi…

> Digital self-custody of scarce assets is a new thing

But what really are the "scarce assets" that Web3 is enabling self-custody for? A token on a blockchain that has metadata pointing to a digital file that anyone can view and reproduce? By definition, every NFT is scarce in that each one is non-fungible. But this scarcity doesn't mean there's any meaningful value. An NFT alone doesn't inherently give you ownership of or rights to anything except the token itself.

The minute you want to attach some meaningful rights to an NFT, like legal ownership of the digital or physical asset the NFT points to, or the rights to an income stream produced by such, you have to enter the world of our traditional legal and financial systems.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#126

Post by ur-whale » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 10:13 AM UTC

r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #9

The main issue with "Web3" is that it moves records of transactions from many private places to one public place. Sure this one place may not be controlled by a single entity, but it facilitates tracking at an unprecedented level. Cryptocurrencies are the ultimate example of this and are an absolute boon to tax collectors, forensic accountants and fraudsters. In our current economy financial transactions are recorded…

> it moves records of transactions from many private places to one public place

True for some of its current incarnations, but it is absolutely not a built-in limitation and therefore not a valid criticism of the entire space.

As a matter of fact, a number of existing blockchains are already entirely opaque to analysis (zcash, monero, grin, beam, etc...), and in these, the effort required to actually connect participants and transactions is typically orders of magnitude larger than the economic rewards you'd derive from the answer.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#127

Post by cunidev » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 10:14 AM UTC

neuroma wrote: post #72

It's fascinating how on hacker news one typically finds detailed, reasoned and thoughtful comments. However on the topic of crypto and web3 the comments reliably degenerate into partisan tit for tat, consisting mainly of poorly researched, unreasoned sound bytes. It's a pity because I'd love to hear quality thought on the space. My personal view is that crypto and Web3 "are a thing" (Mean Girls) and will continue to…

I am sorry, but that is like expecting a medical community built for the most parts by experts to be "positive" and have every day in-depth discussion on astrology or homeopathy. We have just seen so much of this lately, and can spot the obvious flaws in the technical basis of this "concept" that is, let us be honest, nothing more than a contradictory "brand" that is being pushed to all media in the name of freedom and decentralization, neither of which it actually provides.

When there is just so much on a flawed concept, you cannot expect discussion to keep rehearsing the same old "Web3 is a scam" talk, and seeing its promoters discourages further from any healthy discussion.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#128

Post by deivid » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 10:14 AM UTC

darawk wrote: post #87

neuroma wrote: post #72

It's fascinating how on hacker news one typically finds detailed, reasoned and thoughtful comments. However on the topic of crypto and web3 the comments reliably degenerate into partisan tit for tat, consisting mainly of poorly researched, unreasoned sound bytes. It's a pity because I'd love to hear quality thought on the space. My personal view is that crypto and Web3 "are a thing" (Mean Girls) and will continue to…

Agree completely. There is a ton to criticize about crypto and "Web3" (I hate the term, tbh). It's rife with scams and unearned wealth. Even the things that aren't outright scams are mostly people selling hype. But this technology does enable something novel. Digital self-custody of scarce assets is a new thing. A thing that nobody could do before this stuff. And if that has utility, then the infrastructure for tradi…

At least my problem with this entire ecosystem is that it enables artificial scarcity on digital goods, which wasn't really feasible before.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#129

Post by i_hate_pigeons » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 10:15 AM UTC

darawk wrote: post #87

neuroma wrote: post #72

It's fascinating how on hacker news one typically finds detailed, reasoned and thoughtful comments. However on the topic of crypto and web3 the comments reliably degenerate into partisan tit for tat, consisting mainly of poorly researched, unreasoned sound bytes. It's a pity because I'd love to hear quality thought on the space. My personal view is that crypto and Web3 "are a thing" (Mean Girls) and will continue to…

Agree completely. There is a ton to criticize about crypto and "Web3" (I hate the term, tbh). It's rife with scams and unearned wealth. Even the things that aren't outright scams are mostly people selling hype. But this technology does enable something novel. Digital self-custody of scarce assets is a new thing. A thing that nobody could do before this stuff. And if that has utility, then the infrastructure for tradi…

I don't think web3 is just competing with traditional finance, or at least not in the restricted sense of investing/especulation. Also web3 is not replacing anything that already exists, just like "web2" didn't (and to be frank web2 was as much as hyped term than anything else)

I see it more as retaining ownership some of the content we produce and happily give to twitter, youtube, facebook etc to monetise and have some more control over it

Things as being able to:

* remove access to site to display my content but still be published somewhere else if I wish to do so

* be able to serve my content to people that prefer to use another tools without relying on twitter to have a public API as long as I granted them access

* get the person getting hits and making money of ads to share some of that with me, or maybe pay my gas fees

* not be shut down because a given site or state decides my content is not worthy of it, they are still allowed to do this, but I could still continue via another "frontend" and people can choose

There are more use cases around this, and there are many gaps yet around the economics of it to make it accessible/free, make it desirable, legality, liability etc which I believe remain to be solved

Re: Web3 is centralized

#130

Post by input_sh » Sun, Jan 02, 2022, 10:17 AM UTC

everfree wrote: post #110

vmception wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also Secret Network, which hides smart contract variables, which therefore includes token and wrapped token amounts, along with the current owner. Monero has a trustless-enough bridge over to there.

And also Aztec Network, and Tornado Cash, and Zcash, and soon Starkware, and... I'm surprised so many people on Hacker News apparently still believe that you can "see all transactions" on every blockchain. It really only takes some surface level research to find working, production blockchains/cryptocurrencies that use one of several types of cryptography to hide that data, plus if you're using a pseudonymous blockch…

Okay but like who cares?

Are any of those even in the top 30 cryptocurrencies by market cap? Is anyone speaking about them in the context of Web3 or is it all ETH, XRP and maybe two more?

From my blissfully uninformed mind, the only time these cryptocurrencies pop up is precisely this: as a counterargument to the popular ones, where you can see all the transactions. They're fringes even among the fringe that is cryptocurrencies.