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My First Impressions of Web3

moxie.org

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Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#501

Post by hattmall »

Uehreka wrote: post #489
distrill wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think we've seen that fast consolidation in other early tech I actually struggled with this point throughout the article. I'm not sure I see this as a parallel trend toward centralization like we saw with web2 - but rather that this is how software is built today and this is what we're comfortable with. It doesn't seem unnatural or problematic to me that we will start with something that approximates the wo…

But why would it do that though? I’d like to hear a falsifiable theory of how that would happen, because as of right now it’s not happening, and no one seems able to explain what big thing is going to change. If the biggest part of the change (using the blockchain) isn’t causing the dynamic to shift, what future change will?

To me the argument here is because it's easy. Even if the interaction layer is centralized the underlying tech is decentralized so everything can easily be validated and that's the key difference.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#502

Post by justinator »

dang wrote: post #370
justinator wrote: post #74

I was under the impression that crypto currency was thought of as nothing but yet another pyramid scheme.

Please don't HN take threads on generic-indignant tangents. This one has been repeated so often, we definitely don't need it again, regardless of which side anyone's one. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29845594 .

> Please don't HN take threads on generic-indignant tangents

It's an idea and topic that's directly referenced in the actual article. I'm having trouble thinking Moxie was referring to anything but cryptocurrency as pyramid scheme theory or why would they use such language?

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#503

Post by medion »

not2b wrote: post #166
simias wrote: post #29

>When you think about it, OpenSea would actually be much “better” in the immediate sense if all the web3 parts were gone. It would be faster, cheaper for everyone, and easier to use. That sums up the situation for me. Having a marketplace for purely digital goods might be a concept with a future. Having standard ways to interoperate between different platforms and query and update these goods might make sense (althou…

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…

This was insanely surprising to me - I actually always thought the jpeg/art was stored as a kind of ‘blob’ on the blockchain that it was authenticated against the owners wallet/private key.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#504

Post by throw_nbvc1234 »

sv123 wrote: post #452
mritchie712 wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not that hard (or even expensive) to run your own. Here's[0] an example doing it on k8's. I had something similar running on GCP in a couple hours. It's been running for a month with no issues. 0 - https://messari.io/article/running-an-ethereum-node-on-kuber...

But one of the main points of article is that people don't want to run servers, developers included. Even being easy, letting someone else do it will always be easier.

How many (large) companies, governments, etc... run their own email servers? If there's a strong enough need, people will run their own servers even if they'd rather not. "people don't want to run servers" arguably could be rephrased as "people don't have a reason (today) to run their own servers". I'd argue this is a key difference between web1 and cryto centralization and the web2 centralization. If Google announced tomorrow that anyone can buy the gmail contents of any gmail address, you'd bet a lot more individuals would either switch to alternatives or start running their own severs.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#505

Post by bern4444 »

techsin101 wrote: post #499
bern4444 wrote: post #470

I'm a large doubter of Web3 and crypto in general though there is one problem space I can it can do well in: Ownership and transfer of digital assets (though I would imagine this is better and more easily solved by web2 technologies as well by cooperation among platforms). This could take the form of lending a friend a purchased copy of a video game, Ebook, etc. The transfer would take place on the blockchain and cou…

except those files/data has to be stored somewhere, and if server decides you don't own it, then regardless of how many NFTs you own for that data it is gone. Buying NFT is buying a referral to actual product, not even IOU.

I agree but those files are already stored somewhere - your PC, kindle, cloud account etc.

On top of which, purchasing a movie via the Google Play Store or a book via Kindle doesn't mean you actually own that digital asset, just that you have access to it (which can be revoked by the platform).

What I imagine being possible here is to transfer ownership of the pointer to that digital asset from your account to a friend's account and commit that ownership transfer on the blockchain as proof to everyone.

If you want your copy back, either you have to have your friend transfer it back, or purchase a new digital copy.

If we move more in the direction of owning digital assets, this might be a big field for block chain to solve. Though this is certainly shrinking as we move to a subscription service economy for these goods - Spotify, Stadia, etc.

TLDR I think blockchain can lead us back to full and complete ownership of digital assets outside of any platform equivalent to owning a physical copy that I can lend out and get back.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#506

Post by Karrot_Kream »

CameronNemo wrote: post #369
spenczar5 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it mean to leave normal people behind? Surely you need to interact with them. For example, you can run your own mail server, but you will need to play by Google’s rules if you want anyone on Gmail to get your emails. So, it’s hard for me to picture what it means to personally decentralize without caring what the bulk of people do.

Email is inherently centralized due to DNS being centralized. Furthermore there is no rule that says I have to federate with any particular entity. They will take the loss.

Email doesn't require DNS. Modern spam solutions for DNS do. You can most definitely use something like `spiped` to create a mutually authenticated, secure channel over IP, and just send mail over that. Or build a VPN overlay network and send mail to raw IPs. If you're going to cloister yourself with your fellow monks^W nerds then this is simple.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#507

Post by kllrnohj »

hattmall wrote: post #501
Uehreka wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why would it do that though? I’d like to hear a falsifiable theory of how that would happen, because as of right now it’s not happening, and no one seems able to explain what big thing is going to change. If the biggest part of the change (using the blockchain) isn’t causing the dynamic to shift, what future change will?

To me the argument here is because it's easy. Even if the interaction layer is centralized the underlying tech is decentralized so everything can easily be validated and that's the key difference.

But as noted in the article, that's not the case. OpenSea stores data that then isn't on any blockchain, like royalties. That's done as just a regular web2 feature, a database on OpenSea's backend.

So no, it can't be validated, and it can't be migrated.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#508

Post by Karrot_Kream »

walterbell wrote: post #254
CameronNemo wrote: post #32

I like Moxie's work and writings, and this article has some great points, but I can't get behind this: We should accept the premise that people will not run their own servers by designing systems that can distribute trust without having to distribute infrastructure. I'm not ready to give in. I am happy to leave "normal" (tech illiterate and politically apathetic) people behind to reach my decentralization goals. I th…

> Including allowing a "server" to be offline for months at a time, come online for a minute or two, then disappear again. Neo-NNTP!

NNTP with enforced GPG authentication and PoW like spam prevention could work today (in the narrow technical sense, not in the wide product sense.) It wouldn't even be that large of a lift from current NNTP architecture. Create a moderated Usenet group that only accepts posts that complete a PoW challenge and that sign their messages.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#509

Post by sfblah »

betterunix2 wrote: post #497
pshc wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Github relies on a distributed storage architecture (local git repositories on developers' machines) and in theory anyone can take a project from github and duplicate it on gitlab etc. In reality nobody bothers and a project hosted on github will remain exclusively hosted on github and nowhere else, and likewise with other git hosting services. For the most part nobody cares if the data is hosted on a distributed sys…

And, as the article suggests, if there is some new feature that Github can enable (integration of git commits with an issue tracker or CI/CD integration come to mind), that will happen in a vendor-specific way on Github, not in the Git protocol. So, then you immediately move back to the world of platforms.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#510

Post by readams »

dragonwriter wrote: post #473
micromacrofoot wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where it falls apart for me too, people are paying huge sums for artificially scarce links to someone else’s server? I keep feeling like I’m missing something.

No, they are paying huge sums for a digital certificate of ownership of the content on some else’s server; the link is just the description of what they are certified to own, like the address on a deed. (There's all kinds of problems with it, sure, but they aren't paying for the link.)

But they don't even get the ownership of the content. The original creator still owns the copyright, and as a the buyer you don't even get a license to use the work in the NFT. The copyright is the only meaningful way you can own digital art.
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