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Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

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Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#11

Post by jdlshore »

Several years ago, Mozilla/Firefox created "Persona," which was an open-source federated identity system that provided all the benefits described here. The idea was that it would eventually be built into browsers. I used it on a commercial site myself for many years.

It failed to gain traction, and Mozilla eventually pulled the plug.

Persona had many advantages over the Web3 vision described in this article. It was painless for a new user to create an account, because Mozilla provided a default identity server. It was easy for a website owner to set up, because Mozilla provided a JavaScript shim that worked on any browser. And it didn't rely on a wasteful and slow distributed ledger.

Despite these advantages, Persona failed. I don't see how a blockchain-based approach, with so many disadvantages compared to Persona, could possibly succeed outside of the blockchain enthusiast community. And, on a technical level, a federated approach seems innumerably simpler and less wasteful than a blockchain-based approach.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#13

Post by armchairhacker »

tldr; this article describes one problem that a blockchain solves better than existing non-blockchain solutions (identity).

My issue with the article is that it uses a lot of words to try to explain why web3 and blockchain may be the future. But for what point? If an important technology comes around which happens to use web3 or blockchain, i’ll see it’s important from its description and i’ll adopt it. I don’t need to support “web3” as a concept, because web3 basically means nothing. And i don’t think that web3 or blockchain is intrinsically bad, i just haven’t seen anything particularly useful with those technologies yet.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#14

Post by KarlKemp »

evrydayhustling wrote: post #4

I like the starting focus on identity. Imagine if emails to you were authenticated by a token that you authorized by logging in, and could revoke at any time. In a Web2 world, features like this get created by Google, Apple or whomever inventing a permissions system that works on their platform -- and serves their product goals. In a Web3 world where you issue identity tokens, you can revoke them arbitrarily, so if y…

...and in a Web 1 beta II world this was already done by PGP in 1991. Granted, it never achieved mainstream adoption because it's somewhat cumbersome and solves a problem people do not actually experience. Sort-of like everything blockchain, one might say.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#15

Post by w-j-w »

jdlshore wrote: post #11

Several years ago, Mozilla/Firefox created "Persona," which was an open-source federated identity system that provided all the benefits described here. The idea was that it would eventually be built into browsers. I used it on a commercial site myself for many years. It failed to gain traction, and Mozilla eventually pulled the plug. Persona had many advantages over the Web3 vision described in this article. It was p…

No post body was provided.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#18

Post by itsdrewmiller »

jdlshore wrote: post #11

Several years ago, Mozilla/Firefox created "Persona," which was an open-source federated identity system that provided all the benefits described here. The idea was that it would eventually be built into browsers. I used it on a commercial site myself for many years. It failed to gain traction, and Mozilla eventually pulled the plug. Persona had many advantages over the Web3 vision described in this article. It was p…

One possible advantage web3 has over Persona is that it is not under the control of Mozilla or whatever foundation Mozilla set up to address those very predictable concerns. Being distributed might help it gain early adopter mindshare which could lead to future UX improvements. (Not saying I believe this will definitely happen, just that Persona failing isn't a guarantee of failure here.)

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#19

Post by jdlshore »

itsdrewmiller wrote: post #18
jdlshore wrote: post #11

Several years ago, Mozilla/Firefox created "Persona," which was an open-source federated identity system that provided all the benefits described here. The idea was that it would eventually be built into browsers. I used it on a commercial site myself for many years. It failed to gain traction, and Mozilla eventually pulled the plug. Persona had many advantages over the Web3 vision described in this article. It was p…

One possible advantage web3 has over Persona is that it is not under the control of Mozilla or whatever foundation Mozilla set up to address those very predictable concerns. Being distributed might help it gain early adopter mindshare which could lead to future UX improvements. (Not saying I believe this will definitely happen, just that Persona failing isn't a guarantee of failure here.)

Persona wasn't under the control of Mozilla, either. You could still use it today, if you were willing to set up your own identity server, and if you could find any websites that supported it.
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