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Web3 is centralized

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Re: Web3 is centralized

#211

Post by xchaotic »

theK wrote: post #90
phoe-krk wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's centralization, just replicated for redundancy.

Not completely. The main difference between blockchain and classical banking is that the protocol defines what transaction can be done and the network of block producing nodes manages the evolution of its state. In classical banking you have multiple routes that go around the protocol (law in this case) and you also live in a federated feudal system where your bank reigns supreme in what you own.

I call bs on this argument. Protocol on the blockchain still has to abide by the rule of law. And the idea that certain things are not allowed on the blockchain is false - someone will create a new fork, chain or there will be a more elaborate workaround. It’s just a very complicated way to deliver anything.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#212

Post by simonw »

didroe wrote: post #199
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…

> But this technology does enable something novel. Digital self-custody of scarce assets is a new thing. It's unfortunately also pretty much pointless. Digital assets aren't scarce, and physical assets mean leaving the system and losing the properties of it.

Plus self custody, where if you make a mistake like forgetting your password you lose everything permanently, is a bad idea that is incompatible with how human beings actually work.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#213

Post by hbogert »

All the arguments made can be made in the context of the internet as well. It is acknowledged at some places, but is then shoved aside with hand wavery counter arguments.

I also don't understand the jab at gcp for honoring DMCA. You're always reliant on an ISP on some level, there's no real self hosting from the bottom up without having to play nice with other parties, in this example, honor DMCA.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#214

Post by NicoJuicy »

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 disagree.

If crypto is a thing, then I'm really wondering what happened in 2018 - 2020.

When it went from 20 k to 4,5k.

Everyone always seems to be forgetting this.

It took a pandemic to get crypto interest back up.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=...

Ps. With crypto, i just think we are in a loop where the end result is failure. And the news flow/discussions are literally the same as in 2017 but with more buzzwords that even techies don't understand it anymore without spending ( significant) time investigating it. The average population doesn't really care and i need more arguments than "i think it's a thing".

Just like in 2017, one of the main problems is that the people vested in crypto want to convince people that don't care. And because of their money involved, they can't let it go.

Eg. The surreal spectacle of a president 'fixing' his country by shouting: "bought the dip" on Twitter every month.

Also for the web 3, i don't really see a reason for it. They claim decentralization, but if you look at eg. OpenSea, the power is not with the "people" and it's really expensive to "mint".

Re: Web3 is centralized

#215

Post by ThalesX »

RVuRnvbM2e wrote: post #14

I think the author makes the mistake of assuming that web3 is a meaningful, tangible term being used in good faith. In reality, web3 is a marketing buzzword that cryptocurrency boosters have started promoting in an attempt to legitimize their resource intensive and otherwise useless financial speculation.

So if I just stop using web3 as a catch-all for the things I work on (i.e. IPFS, Crypto Wallets, Merkle Trees) and just start naming them one by one everything will be OK and it's not a marketing buzzword anymore? Or should I be aware that I am in fact only building marketing funnels even though I find value in the technology being built?

Re: Web3 is centralized

#216

Post by jakupovic »

SoldShort22 wrote: post #125
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…

> 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…

Do you need someone to repeat what's scarce? The digital anything can be written down in the blockchain notebook with your name/key and it's yours then. Same as when you would get a C from your teacher who would write it into one of those big notebooks with everyone's names. That combination of your name + class + grade is the asset uniquely assigned to you. Now when you asked your teacher to change that C to a B, to maintain your average, that wouldn't be possible as the teacher would have to write a new record and we would all know that you had a C actually. But all those grades are your only and thus scarce by definition.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#217

Post by almost »

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…

Please do write up and/or share more sensible articles of what “web3” is and what it does. I’ve read a few and they’re always the best arguments against it. Sure it might all sound good when all you have to say is vague things about it being interesting and exciting. But as soon as you pin it down to and show what you actually mean when you use the word then things are a little different.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#218

Post by lukeramsden »

discardedrefuse wrote: post #65
sergiomattei wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, completely glossing over the usefulness of digital-native money: instant, verifiable transactions from anywhere in the world, programmable money and low fees. Oh, and how it disrupts the remittances industry, something extremely useful to vulnerable communities with families abroad. I agree that Web3 is mostly a grift, but cryptocurrencies are quite useful already.

It's not instant and the fees aren't always low. I was trying to transfer $10 USD in Bitcoin last May, when the BTC market was going insane, and it was impossible.

Then you can use Bitcoin Lightning, a micropayments network layered on top of Bitcoin, and settled on-chain. There are solutions to these things, it's still just an early market.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#219

Post by meltedcapacitor »

numtel wrote: post #177
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…

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…

Open ledgers could indeed be a good thing, but no need for blockchain for that, the legislature could simply require all banks to dump all tx daily in a standard format (a payment system version of what the SEC's EDGAR does for US public company disclosures).

Re: Web3 is centralized

#220

Post by lewispollard »

chrisco255 wrote: post #198
lewispollard wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your app is such that it relies on user-generated content, it wouldn't be Web3 for you to host it exclusively on your Pi, because the users generating the content would not own it, or have guarantees that the data on the Pi was not being manipulated or misused by you. The key idea of Web3 is user ownership and community ownership. Aren't most NFT assets hosted on cloud platforms? OpenSea on GCP for example

No. OpenSea is a centralized NFT marketplace not unlike how Coinbase is a centralized marketplace for fungible cryptocurrencies. OpenSea uses GCP for hosting. But OpenSea does not own your NFTs nor choose where NFTs are hosted. OpenSea does use GCP as a caching layer for NFTs, since it's not scalable to fetch from thousands of different sources at load time. An NFT is created by deploying a smart contract, and the cr…

Thanks for the clarification.
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