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Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

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Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#291

Post by denton-scratch »

cranberryturkey wrote: post #275
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…

I don't know about that. I feel like oAuth and other forms of authentication are overly complex to implement. If they build a super simple implementation API then I could see it taking off.

I had a go at writing oAuth from scratch, to understand it. I made a working solution.

But I don't use oAuth; while I was writing the code, I understood it, but I don't any more. An auth system needs to be understandable and transparent to a normal user, and oAuth is not such a system. Like, I couldn't explain it to my non-tech relatives, even if I swotted up on it first.

Explaining blockchain-based auth to a non-tech user is a problem of a much greater magnitude.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#292

Post by fragmede »

tshaddox wrote: post #193
mattlondon wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you are not going to go whole-hog and have one true identity for everything, why bother using anything apart from an email address? The argument seems to be that consistency allows you to prove ownership and re-use all of your content etc across the web by tying everything back to one verified identity. If you are having different identities on different sites then that benefit disappears, and I fail to see how…

For one thing, I don’t have to deal with every new website’s crappy signup and email confirmation flows, broken password reset flows, login forms that deliberately break password managers, etc. Obviously Web3 has nothing directly to do with these things, but a consistent auth system becoming ubiquitous could be inherently nice.

Your wallet is your identity, and so can directly be tied to web3. It could be implemented in alternate ways as well, but that's one situation that web3 can already handle. (Sort of. Password (private key) resets aren't a thing, yet.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#293

Post by morelandjs »

I’m open to web3 being a new and exciting phase of the Internet. I’m just wondering when it will come to me. You’d think if it were such a huge revolution it would start appearing organically in my every day web experience, but I don’t own any crypto, and to the best of my knowledge I have not yet organically stumbled into a new experience built on web3 innovations.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#294

Post by ShamelessC »

lmm wrote: post #266
threeseed wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> still forces you to rely on a single central provider as your "root" So what ? I am still struggling to understand what immediate and painful need users have with trusting Apple, Facebook, Google etc with their identity. If people had some issue with this then users would simply not use OAuth and default to creating an account for each service they use.

> I am still struggling to understand what immediate and painful need users have with trusting Apple, Facebook, Google etc with their identity. It's not so immediate until you get banned, but they've all been gradually stepping up their politicised banwaves. And there's always the concern about what happens when one of them goes the way of Yahoo. > If people had some issue with this then users would simply not use OA…

What's to stop e.g. Google from creating a blacklist of these public identities again?

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#295

Post by kobasa »

threeseed wrote: post #239
lmm wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OAuth helps but it still forces you to rely on a single central provider as your "root". So it's not a complete solution.

> still forces you to rely on a single central provider as your "root" So what ? I am still struggling to understand what immediate and painful need users have with trusting Apple, Facebook, Google etc with their identity. If people had some issue with this then users would simply not use OAuth and default to creating an account for each service they use.

>I am still struggling to understand what immediate and painful need users have with trusting Apple, Facebook, Google etc with their identity.

Are you actually serious right now?

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#296

Post by alisonkisk »

jeroenhd wrote: post #94
spinny wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can. It just happens that the easiest way to achieve this is using web3, even if there is no blockchains involved. The article is about login methods, not cryptos or web3

> It just happens that the easiest way to achieve this is using web3 Is it? U2F is actually rolling out to more and more websites but I've never seen any website offer to log in with a dropdown for cryptocurrencies

No post body was provided.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#297

Post by ladyattis »

I still don't see how this is solving any problems. What if I just want to consume the content on the open web as is without logging in? It's one of the reasons why I have to use archiving sites to read the news because half the time NYT or WaPo whine about me not being logged in (as if being able to spam me with ads wasn't enough). I think all the noise about fixing identity and the like is just another way to force end users to give up privacy so content creators can just data mine more and sell it all off to ad companies. Like even to pay for something via crypto currency doesn't need much of a fixed identity other than an wallet address to send/receive coins from/to. Outside of that, why do they need to know I am X person rather than just X wallet/address?

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#298

Post by ladyattis »

mattlondon wrote: post #142
lamontcg wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think it is mostly businesses that think this is a huge problem to solve to have identities matched across everything seamlessly. Mostly what I care about is logins and payments which are addressed by password managers and form filling for credit cards. I just want a friction free experience for setting up an account, logging back into it, and maybe purchasing something. And ideally I'd like to self-host, mayb…

> Yeah I think it is mostly businesses that think this is a huge problem to solve to have identities matched across everything seamlessly. Your comment just gave me a thought - just imagine the online advertisers using this for tracking purposes! At the risk of spreading FUD, it would not surprise me to learn that perhaps this web3 thing is being fuelled/funded by the existing crop of online advertising networks or t…

It's much like the Shadowrun SIN system. Anyone who was SIN-less basically didn't exist in the Shadowrun world. It meant you couldn't get housing, reliable work, food, or medicine. Basically, you were a nobody and everyone made sure you knew it. Similarly, mailing addresses have had similar effects in society and now not having a permanent digital presence will become another barrier to block people who found themselves not able to setup such a presence in the past or can't even afford to get online with a cheap phone. All because the corps demand a means to uniformly know who you are beyond your name.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#299

Post by rchaud »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #249
rchaud wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, this is not true. That's why most people on this site are not logging in through Google. Sites will store their own data, and if you trust them to store that data there’s really no reason to just trust them to store a link to your identity. You're missing the point. Yes, we don't need oAuth to log into HN. But HN is a site that is over 15 years old, and reflects the technology of its time. Instead, look at the…

> Reddit is roughly HN's age, and you can see that with the introduction of VC money and profit goals, they've shifted towards discouraging anonymous logins. And what, you think they'll be okay with anonymous users if those users log in with web3?

If they log in with a crypto wallet, that massively reduces the friction of making payments, which is all that investors want.

Reddit wants users to be somewhat identifiable in order to play to advertisers. However if people start buying and selling goods on Reddit itself (e.g. subscriptions to private subreddits), the company wouldn't have to rely as heavily on advertising.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#300

Post by dmitriid »

codehalo wrote: post #221
dmitriid wrote: post #99

Article: web3 solves decentralized auth, and you are now in control! Also article: to use it, you need to trust a centralized entity like Metamask that develops your Chrome extension and some unknown programmers that code some "smart contracts" aka unverifiable code in esoteric programming languages. Also article: look! a solution! it's better!

You don't need to specifically use Metamask to use a blockchain, just like you don't need to use a specific browser to view this site.

It doesn't matter. You end up trusting a centralized entity with your auth.

Unless, of course, you are a programmer yourself and can implement that "decentralized auth smart contract" from scratch

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