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Web3 is centralized

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Re: Web3 is centralized

#221

Post by lukeramsden »

bpfrh wrote: post #94
yrral wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but that information today is gatekept quite well and impossible for you or me to pull or integrate without partnerships or paying up heavily. For example, plaid is a company worth 13.4b where largely all they do is log in to your financial accounts on behalf of another (usually financial) institution to scrape your account data. If you try doing that yourself, you will be blocked by the risk systems of the var…

No they don't gatekeep the information, your information is always available to you. Maybe they don't offer the information in the specific way that you want, but that can also happen in web3(Propertery API, OAUTH2 which means you have to have static ip server for authentification,etc.). You pay for the convenience of having your data aggregated in the specified format. That aside, banks in the EU are forced to offer…

> I just don't see how doing everything in a web3 solves anything better than regulations.

Maybe - but then, good luck getting every single country in the world, to agree on identical, completely open regulations way, way more advanced than PSD2. This is what ""web3"" (or more accurately, open and composable finance primitives such as Ethereum/alt-L1s and the surrounding ecosystem) achieves.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#222

Post by agloeregrets »

mmcnl wrote: post #156
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…

Apparently it's unfathomable that detailed, reasoned and thoughtful comments are actually critical of web 3. Here's a thought: could it be that web 3 actually deserves some legitimate criticism? Maybe HN is right and you're wrong?

This. There isn't a Web 3, at least right now. No concept in the Web 3 craze would currently be possible or practical and if it was you can be very sure that the existing powers that be would shut it down to defend their position. Also valuing digital scarcity is sad and just a way the "haves" distinguish themselves from the "have-nots". The fact that anything can be copied freely and shared is the best part of the internet.

Plus all NFTs are a hilarious game of what marketplace it is published on. Give it 6 months, there will be massive fragmentation of the marketplaces and you'll see "NFT Artists" listing the "Original" on 50 marketplaces at the same time.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#223

Post by lottin »

koonsolo wrote: post #165
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.

You are on a forum that is literally owned by an investment firm. Do you think they invest because of the good of their hearts, or as some kind of charity, or because of "the technology"? Investments happen because people want to make money, end of story. Not to help other people, because that is called charity. BUT, that doesn't mean that investing is all about scamming people. It is clear at this point that the bes…

What is new, though, with web3, is that now they're trying to turn every single interaction that you have on-line into an economic transaction.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#224

Post by aflag »

chrisco255 wrote: post #16
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…

> are an absolute boon to tax collectors, forensic accountants and fraudsters Weird that it would be a boon for both forensic accountants and fraudsters. How do you reconcile that sentence? The fact that something is done in public does not mean that it is centralized. There is public and decentralized, public and centralized, private and centralized, and private and decentralized. Decentralization itself, is a spect…

I think the point regarding centralization is that with the blockchain the ledger is central (assuming a single coin ends up winning) whereas right now we have many different ledgers that may not entirely agree. Including single individuals having their own ledgers.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#225

Post by aflag »

meltedcapacitor wrote: post #219
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…

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).

That wouldn't track informal trades made with cash. With a common ledger there would be no way to circumvent the system.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#226

Post by gitfan86 »

mmcnl wrote: post #156
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…

Apparently it's unfathomable that detailed, reasoned and thoughtful comments are actually critical of web 3. Here's a thought: could it be that web 3 actually deserves some legitimate criticism? Maybe HN is right and you're wrong?

HN isn't being criticized for being wrong, but for being too critical and too partisan.

That kind of proves that there is no substance behind Web3, other than a hype train, saying that the technology will be useful someday. "get in now before it is too late."

Re: Web3 is centralized

#227

Post by jakupovic »

hooande wrote: post #167
vpilcx wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't specific to web3 but more crypto but the idea of having an integrated method of collecting royalties on resale of an item indefinitely is pretty exciting. That said, the hype seems a little bit overblown. When people are so focused on "overthrowing Big Tech" as to why web3 will be the next wave, it just seems like hype over substance. I forgot what the name of it was, but I tried to sign up to some web3 so…

The concept of "collecting royalties" requires a legal infrastructure backed by a state's monopoly on force. Nothing about web3, as I understand it, will require someone to pay me in money that I can spend. People can still copy and redistribute my content (ie this post) and profit from it in various ways. The concept of a blockchain does nothing to prevent this.

But those platforms that let you use the scarce digital assets will. OT allow you to pull unlicensed copies from anywhere but from known endpoints, thus your digital copies are useless as none point to them. Similar to how you hosting www.google.com on your web server doesn't get any of the real Google traffic as none point to you.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#228

Post by aiisahik »

So many people complaining about web3 being:

- more centralized

- more controlled by VCs

- less performant / reliable / secure than web2

These are probably all true for now.

They failed to see the key features web3:

1. the possibility (but not guarantee) to operate in a hostile government / regulatory environment

2. the possibility (but not guarantee) to operate without a legal entity without shareholders / boards

Web3 is not a guarantee of decentralization or security or anything else that people often mistakenly attribute to it. Web3 has one superpower in that it can say a huge FU to gov and FU to big tech. Web2 can't.

That's it.

It's ok to be disappointed by this superpower. But after reading "the Sovereign Individual", I am a believer in this superpower as being incredibly meaningful and impactful in the longer span of human civilization.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#229

Post by meltedcapacitor »

tough wrote: post #194
senthilnayagam wrote: post #18

web3 is not there yet but people are putting sincere efforts to get there. web3 is more open source than current centralised web, all contracts on blockchain can be read and forked, all coins are open source. forking coins, contracts, communities are all happening, new leaders emerge and consensus build, but new use case emerge where people and their motivations differs, the cycle of forking starts again. NFT content…

There's also Filecoin too from the IPFS Protocol Labs. Also arweave is looking interesting.

From a cursory look Arweave is not looking interesting: it start with lies that it is censorship proof, but with a way to remove child porn and spam because lawyers, and then lies that a one time payment buys storage for eternity, of course not. I stopped looking for other lies from there.

Really don't know why I bothered when there is the Andeersen Horowitz logo at the bottom of the page which tells you all you need to know, these guys would never fund anything that does not involve thinly disguised theft.

Re: Web3 is centralized

#230

Post by FabHK »

Findeton wrote: post #15
Anon1096 wrote: post #6

I think this is a pretty weak article regarding web3. The author wants to claim Ethereum or Bitcoin are more centralized than HTTP, but that isn't a valid comparison. Anyone can spin up their own blockchain exactly in the same fashion of spinning up their own webserver. It's more comparable to something like AWS or Discord or Twitter. Now, I would still say the majority of all things developed on the blockchain are v…

Also you can use BSV (Bitcoin Satoshi Vision) to store the whole images on-chain, literally for cents on the dollar. And yes, BSV also has smart contracts, just like the original Bitcoin did. 53% of all transactions happen in BSV, more than Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP together: https://bitinfocharts.com/cryptocurrency-charts.html

Fwiw, cents on the dollar = a few percent = very expensive for financial transactions (that’s a PayPal level ripoff).
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