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Web3 is centralized

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Re: Web3 is centralized

#201

Post by angio »

bpfrh wrote: post #58
yrral wrote: post #33

Web3 is less centralized in that the user data is exposed and freely available to be composed upon. For example, when someone makes a deposit (say of ERC20 USDC to earn interest, around 3.0% currently) on https://compound.finance , that data is freely available and the "receipt" becomes another token (the ERC20 USDC cToken). [1] This token can now be used for other things, on any other protocol, without the involveme…

That is not exclusiv to web3 and is not new. If I buy a house, I can take a credit on that house. If I bought some stock, banks will let me take a loan on them afaik. I can also borrow some money and choose something expensive that I own for a collateral. Maybe crypto makes the last one easier, but then it will lead to a lot of fraud, because veryifing that the item I set as collateral is the difficult and expensive…

Look at it from the developer side, you (as a dev) cannot offer anything of you what you mentioned without government approval, but you can deploy a new yearn strategy to offer what GP mentioned. We can argue if that's good or bad, but for sure the latter is more decentralized since it doesn't require approval from a gatekeeper.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#202

Post by lottin »

Ambolia wrote: post #158
tehbeard wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But this technology does enable something novel. Digital self-custody of scarce assets is a new thing. ... It gives you a receipt. A digital receipt. That points to a URL that may or may not exist in 10 years?

That sounds terrible, from hearing about NFTs I expected they would be a hash of the file, not a link to a file. Not like a hash would be much better, as changing one pixel would give you a different hash, but at least it would represent a specific version of an image, a URL could change to anything tomorrow.

It doesn't make any difference. The so-called "asset" is just a piece of digital information, e.g. a picture, which can be copied by anyone for free. As a result, owning such an asset on a blockchain doesn't confer any advantage to the owner. The owner has the same rights over the asset as the people who don't own it.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#203

Post by logifail »

prox wrote: post #154
Freskis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most people, crypto is about money, not tech. Easy money, quick money. Therefore the spam level of any crypto discussion is so huge that the opinion gets drowned out by the propaganda.

It smells like the .com boom/bust all over again. Like you say, money drives the discussion, not tech. Which is indeed unfortunate.

> It smells like the .com boom/bust all over again [..]

Question: does being old enough to have lost money* - and having done so** - back in the .com bubble correlate with whether you're positive or negative about Web3 ?

"This Time Is Different" has been said by sales types since at least the year 1637

* Full disclosure: yes, I am

** Full disclosure: yes, I did .. not enough to have mattered, but enough to [still] remember

Re: Web3 is centralized

#204

Post by numtel »

xondono wrote: post #191
numtel wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few issues with this: 1. Not all crypto currencies are public. See monero, haven, secret network. Although that last one depends on some specific features of some Intel processors... I'm of the opinion that the pseudonymous nature of public blockchains is very beneficial to society. I would love it if I could see what companies, governments, and people near me were spending their money on. It would enable me to mak…

> I'm of the opinion that the pseudonymous nature of public blockchains is very beneficial to society. Have you tried to “steelman” this? Because I don’t think it will pass basic scrutiny. The same companies and governments you want track have more incentives and resources to hide their transactions than any individual, so, either all transactions are public or they’ll be able to hide while most individuals won’t.

Well, except for ransom attacks, nobody is forced to use a public cryptocurrency.

For it to be common and being proud of one's economic transaction history would be awesome.

In the 90s, experiments in publicity like reality TV and the Truman Show movie gave way to social media in the next decade. We are constantly finding new ways to publicize our lives because there is value in publicity.

Privacy shouldn't disappear absolutely but we've got a long ways to go towards greater publicity before reaching the limit of usefulness.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#205

Post by jakupovic »

The author is arguing if he were to use a different implementation of tcp/ip with the current web it would be the same as having his own chain, which is possible today, but completely meaningless as none would/could connect. Pretty pointless argument, the reasoning is just sad really.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#206

Post by lottin »

i_hate_pigeons wrote: post #129
darawk wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Ownership of "content" requires intellectual property laws, which are enforced by courts of justice, and we already have these. A blockchain cannot enforce intellectual property rights because it lacks coercive power. If your goal is to "retain ownership" of the content that you produce, a blockchain is not going to help you AT ALL with that.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#207

Post by inter_netuser »

cryptica wrote: post #109
Freskis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most people, crypto is about money, not tech. Easy money, quick money. Therefore the spam level of any crypto discussion is so huge that the opinion gets drowned out by the propaganda.

I've worked in the crypto space for several years as a software developer and I can confirm that this is true. Most projects have no interest in developing the technology. Some communities will actively go out of their way to suppress innovation. There is a lot of 'busy work' going on with many projects going in circles.

can give an example of innovation suppression?

very curious.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#208

Post by denton-scratch »

rambambram wrote: post #140
ur-whale wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just find it strange that stuff that already has a name This is called marketing. Entire industries depend on it or even simply exist because of it. For a closer to home example, see Free Software (which scared businesses away because it had the word "free" in it) vs. Open Source (which made folks understand they could escape things like vendor lock-in)

No, it's not. With marketing it's more clear where the message is coming from. With marketing it's more clear what the message itself even is. This is way more sinister, it's wordplay on a bigger level. Maybe call it public relations. Your examples miss my point. Your examples are clear enough and have an understandable meaning (once you know what it is). I stick with my comparison of 'the cloud' and 'web3', because…

Before the web, we used the word "cloud" when discussing networking. It's been hijacked. We used to draw cloud-shaped bubbles in network diagrams, with the label "X25".

Re: Web3 is centralized

#209

Post by po1nt »

I don't get the argument. We all follow standards like HTTP, IP, ECMAScript and others that are developed by single entity. That doesn't mean it's centralized. It's like saying open source doesn't exist because most of the open source projects are hosted on github owned by microsoft.
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