My First Impressions of Web3 • Hacker News Board

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#411

Post by phire » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 1:04 AM UTC

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #405

miracle2k wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Worse, the blockchain does not, apparently, contain the hash of the data. It very often does, and it is certainly the case for most high-value NFTs. It is indeed not the case if you create your NFT on OpenSea and do not take the additional step of freezing the metadata. Also, there are many artworks that change, so a hash to a single file is not necessarily the right solution.

So if I own an NFT and make sure to store the hash, does that mean I also own all collisions?

You don't even own the hash. You just own a database entry pointing at the hash.

There is no mechanism on the Blockchain preventing someone else creating a new NFT with the exact same hash.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#412

Post by msgilligan » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 1:04 AM UTC

betwixthewires wrote: post #290

msgilligan wrote: post #96

He's focused on Ethereum and NFTs, which is certainly the most popular/obvious place to research. I think his analysis is excellent and the article is worth reading. But he does say: > I have only dipped my toe in the waters of web3 Notably he doesn't even mention IPFS (which uses the pre-image of an JPG to form the URL.) Nor does he mention Bitcoin (which provides a shared state layer as well as a currency and makes…

While I agree that he only touched on NFTs and not really anything beyond that, his core point, "decentralized architecture is slower to iterate on, therefore centralized tools will outpace decentralized ones, therefore the market will trend towards use of centralized services" is hard to disagree with. He is only using the NFT market as an example to demonstrate this point. Even if you don't consider it natural mark…

> "decentralized architecture is slower to iterate on, therefore centralized tools will outpace decentralized ones, therefore the market will trend towards use of centralized services"

This is a good point and something I find very concerning. But remember, the Internet itself is a decentralized tool and it eventually triumphed over the centralized ones. Even with Google, Apple, Amazon, etc. we're still more decentralized than if everyone were still on CompuServe or AOL.

> He is only using the NFT market as an example to demonstrate this point

I don't think so, he pretty clearly issues a disclaimer about the limits of his knowledge. He's extrapolating (with an admittedly insightful proposition) from a limited amount of knowledge and is being honest about that.

> How do you align incentives to ensure a decentralized future in this way?

That's a very good question. Many smart people are working on answers to it. I like to think I'm one of them.

> Seems like a glaring hole in the entire plan

There is no plan -- and ultimately that's a good thing.

> results in centralized services being in wider use

Actually, I fear the result will more likely be failure for these centralized services that results in a backlash that delays the decentralized ones from emerging.

> I'm a big fan of cryptocurrency and these decentralized incentive networks.

Me, too. Obviously.

> UX is low friction

That is an incredibly important point.

> web3 concept as it's sold by the cryptocurrency enthusiasts doesn't appear to be going that direction, and at this point I think moxie is probably right.

*Some* cryptocurrency enthusiasts, but yeah it's a problem and unfortunately Moxie is mostly right.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#413

Post by Swizec » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 1:05 AM UTC

pshc wrote: post #404

pavlov wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's one of Moxie's points: how exactly is web3 supposed to be avoiding the centralization that occurred on the web, when it's already at that point.

It’s not the same as web2. These web3 frontends don’t have moats or lock-in like Facebook or Google, because they don’t actually control the data. The data they serve is all from public ledgers. You can switch off of Infura in a second by changing your RPC url.

The problem is that they control distribution – the only thing that matters. You don't need to own the data if you own the eyeballs/mindshare.

For example: Spotify doesn't own any music copyrights, yet they own 32% of the music streaming market. The second best is Apple at 16% ... which also doesn't own any of the music.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/653926/music-streaming-s...

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#414

Post by Duralias » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 1:05 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #330

not2b wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the article points out, many NFTs are implemented by storing a URL in the blockchain; the digital artwork sits on some server and is reachable by that link. Fine, you can prove that you own the URL. But what that URL points to can change out from under you, so there's no way to make that trustless. If you own the domain and the server that it points to, the registrar can take the domain away from you and give it t…

So, this has a really easy fix. The NFT points to a content hash, and the content is uploaded to the Internet Archive (and they're compensated for the storage) as part of the NFT minting process. Your ownership is now on a distributed ledger, with a cryptographic hash of the content, paired with long term storage of said digital artwork. The Internet Archive's costs are ~$2/GB to store content in perpetuity, which se…

So why hasn't this been deployed yet then?

And why are NFT links so common, because they just seem short sighted to me and borderline dumb considering how volatile everything in the crypto space is?

Nothing about NFT's seems long term viable as they are now.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#415

Post by atweiden » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 1:05 AM UTC

JulianMorrison wrote: post #396

(I deleted my previous comment, because I don't think I said what I meant. So let's try again.) Distributed, peer to peer, is worse. Everything that uses it, as a suite of technologies ranging from torrents to Freenet to bitcoin, only does so because a simpler, cheaper, central alternative is somehow seen as bad. In general, because it would be raided by The Man. Blockchain, is worse. You could do everything it does,…

> Everything that uses it [...] only does so because a simpler, cheaper, central alternative is somehow seen as bad.

Walled garden ecosystems have a fairly obvious downside — ultimately someone has to get disproportionately enriched and empowered. By using the word “somehow”, you insinuate it’s actually hard to see this.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#416

Post by root_axis » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 1:06 AM UTC

simias wrote: post #253

dsanchez97 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely agree that most people/projects/etc gloss over that fact that there still needs be a 'start of authority' to be trusted with NFTS. I think a major upside of doing the digital transactions on a Blockchain (as opposed to the system you described) is that the start authority does not need to be present or keep track of any future transactions. In your Rolex example, I believe that there would be no way of p…

But see, this is where I get lost in this concept. Should Jagex fold and the game become unplayable, what do you own? An entry in a database that says that you once had this item but you can't do anything with it? Why is that valuable? I can sort of see the argument if other game developers allow for these items to be reused in other environments, and that's something pushed by NFT enthusiasts, but I don't see how th…

Indeed. What's more, even if publishers wanted this, it's all possible without a blockchain. If game publishers decided to coordinate on respecting shared digital assets they could just agree on a common "digital item" spec where a connected client could prove item ownership using public key cryptography and digital signatures, similar to how JWTs let a client prove claims about another system. The same spec could allow users to trade digital assets in a peer to peer manner by signing a record of transfer to another user's public key - it'd then be up to the buyer (i.e. the software they use to verify the signing) to register the updated signature chain with the relevant game vendors.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#417

Post by lekevicius » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 1:07 AM UTC

luhn wrote: post #388

lekevicius wrote: post #52

While it's refreshing to hear critique from someone who actually built something on web3, there are a couple of points where I'd dare to disagree, somewhat. Particularly, regarding "early days". It really is, still, early days, because there is a lot of complexity in getting all the pieces built. It took years to get overall blockchain going. Then, to understand the need of programmability (smart contracts). Other pi…

Re "early days," servers as clients, etc: There are a lot of very real problems with crypto, and the solution always lies in new technologies. Slow settlement and high gas fees? L2 networks. Limited global TPS? More L2 networks or alternative L1 chains. Wasteful energy use? Proof-of-stake. No connection to real world data? Oracles. Relying on centralized APIs? Light clients are in the works. Can't trust that you'll g…

I'm sorry, it's difficult for me to find a truly charitable interpretation of this response. But I'll do my best.

Blockchains started very simply. Famously, Bitcoin's whitepaper is just a couple of pages long. Simple systems are nice, but they can't solve every problem. As problems were discovered, solutions were proposed. Most solutions were themselves the simplest solutions to a given problem, so naturally, as new problems are found, new solutions almost always introduce complexity. This is not unique to crypto - see, for example, HTTP, or HDMI…

I can't see a world where this wouldn't happen. Ideas usually start small and simple. Additional capabilities introduce complexity. That is not a bad thing.

Also not a bad thing: people taking different approaches to identified problems. Ethereum saw congested L1 and didn't want to sacrifice decentralization, so they focused their effort on L2. Other developers thought differently, and adopted faster, less decentralized L1s. Great!

> you literally can't make a practical, truly distributed app at the moment

Another issue is that the goalpost is ever-shifting. We have truly distributed apps. Because they were successful, they got used, and on one particular L1 that meant expensive competition for block space. Does that make the achievement invalid? Or does the fact that most popular browsers currently don't have built-in integration with ENS and IPFS, allowing for decentralized frontends, also make the effort invalid?

Again, I struggle with truly charitable interpretation of your argument.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#418

Post by beoberha » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 1:07 AM UTC

darcys22 wrote: post #341

password1 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point me to where this insightful discussion happens? And where can I educate myself? 99,99% of content and forums I find online about crypto only care about promoting coins, nfts or services basing only on futuristic visionary promises, hyping up the users and attempts at FOMO. It's almost literal spam. This is the first time I read something that just explains how thing works from a technical standpoint and…

Its almost entirely done on crypto twitter. You follow the builders and they talk about this stuff. Tweet threads are terrible but that is where the good information is. Twitter is frustrating in that the good content is buried and if you follow the wrong people they just spam your feed. Its a constant battle to keep the signal to noise ratio of your feed high and the right people to follow constantly changes.

I got into web3/crypto (hate both those terms) Twitter a few months ago and it took a very significant amount of time to find the signal among the noise if you will. Twitter’s algorithms heavily favor engagement which in turn favors “influencers” who lack a lot of technical knowledge and peddle hype. I can see why curious skeptics are so quickly turned off, but there really is a gold mine of good discussion out there.

@das_connor is an awesome follow. He works for Avalanche (which I believe will be a massive player in enterprise blockchain adoption).

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#419

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 1:11 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#420

Post by trompetenaccoun » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 1:12 AM UTC

codehalo wrote: post #274

clarle wrote: post #25

As an engineer, I feel like this single post helped me better understand Web3 and how it worked under the hood better than any of the heavily hyped Discord and Twitter announcements of new projects over the past year. It's interesting how tightly coupled Metamask is to all of the other big crypto / NFT marketplaces. Feels like the "distributed web" portion of it has just been an over-exaggeration all along.

Seems like you (and a vast majority of HN including Moxie) is tying web3 to several centralized front ends (Metamask/OpenSea). I saw this back in the 90's when a lot of people thought the internet was "Internet Explorer".

It's a step up from the "crypto isn't crypto" mantra that many used to repeat, refusing to even look at how it works. Not sure why it took something as silly as art NFTs, but it does seem that now even those who previously tried avoiding cryptocurrencies at all cost have at least started looking at them critically.

He does point out some real problems. Yes, all this has been discussed in the Ethereum community already and many in the community have voiced the same criticisms as well. But a lot of the issues are still unsolved for regular mainstream users, who rely on a lot of centralized services and are often herded into solutions that may bring more convenience but are also less secure. It's good we're having discussions about this, and the more people that point out flaws the better. After all the entire point of a blockchain is to be public and robust. If this is our future money or notary service, the more probing the better.