My First Impressions of Web3 • Hacker News Board

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#541

Post by czhu12 » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 3:15 AM UTC

This post really resonates with me, I've been building https://raremints.club as a way for indie, non technical artists to create NFT's, and have really had to wrestle with all things "web3" that would've been trivial in "web2".

I tried to document some of the challenges here:

https://chriszhu12.medium.com/the-challenges-of-building-on-...

But basically: I built an app that relied on mostly stable gas fees. A single app on polygon spiked the fees over 10x in the past few days, and so large swaths of it have to be rebuilt.

The promise of web3 was software that was not controlled by any centralized company. But it seems like any new project sharing a chain can effectively DDoS what you've built.

This is effectively an anti-network effect. Inevitably, you'd have to start centralizing part of your application to avoid gas fees altogether to hedge this risk.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#542

Post by jonnydubowsky » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 3:15 AM UTC

bko wrote: post #385

devadvance wrote: post #17

This is a really well-thought-out, nuanced take. I really appreciate mixture of "but there are still servers", not being able to stop a gold rush, and (refreshingly) the technical take on the implementation details. It stands in such stark contrast to other content. For example, a web3 chat app announcement I saw yesterday [1]. I even joined the Discord to learn more and just found...hype. I found this parenthetical…

The centralization of apis (infura, opensea and ethscan used by metamask) is the biggest problem. I could be wrong, but I don't think we've seen that fast consolidation in other early tech. I remember in the late 90s there were a number of search engines but no one really owned the space. Only 20 years later did Google emerge as the winner and is (IMO) by far the best in terms of relevant results. But that didn't hap…

Tally is a community-owned, open-source fork of MetaMask. From first impressions it looks like it will also solve some of the issues brought up in Moxie's (excellent) blog post, i.e decentralizing the node-> NFT->wallet Metadata routes.

Regarding the immutability of NFT image pointers:

Some emerging solutions to this issue are:

Use ERC2477 (DRAFT). This allows you to have some control over the metadata to ensure the name is as you want it. Note that this will require you to implement a zero-knowledge proof or a JSON parser on-chain which validates the new metadata.

Use 0xcert Framework. The 0xcert framework is specifically designed to provide metadata integrity for ERC-721 tokens, it uses a different hashing technique (Merkle tree). But it requires you to use the same schema across metadata versions. Ceramic Network is doing some interesting work on schema coordination amongst other things.

https://ceramic.network/

https://tally.cash/community-edition/

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#543

Post by preseinger » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 3:15 AM UTC

beoberha wrote: post #421

epolanski wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy the early part. 3 years into the internet we already had emails and tcp. 13 years into blockchains we have nothing.

It’s extremely disingenuous to say we have “nothing”. The EVM and smart contracts really are amazing technology that I hope any technical person could appreciate, even if they don’t see a practical application.

They are inefficient solutions to problems that nobody actually has (shrug)

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#544

Post by mewse » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 3:17 AM UTC

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…

> Though this would require agreement by these platforms who operate these services.

If it requires agreement by the platforms, then how do Web3 or cryptocurrencies help the situation at all?

Isn’t this something that the companies could do on their own using their own databases at a lower cost and lower complexity, if they wanted to do it?

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#545

Post by AlexandrB » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 3:20 AM UTC

baby wrote: post #495

tompccs wrote: post #363

"With the shift to mobile, we now live firmly in a world of clients and servers – with the former completely unable to act as the latter – and those questions seem more important to me than ever. Meanwhile, ethereum actually refers to servers as “clients,” so there’s not even a word for an actual untrusted client/server interface that will have to exist somewhere, and no acknowledgement that if successful there will…

This is not a problem with crypto, because there are solutions to this, it's a problem with how people use it. The real danger is that people get too comfortable with this way of doing things and we never switch to more secure solutions.

The same thing can be said of the web in general. The linked article even makes this point! If in the early web users all wanted to run their own servers the centralization of web 2.0 would not have happened. Is there any reason to think that history won't repeat itself and users will choose to use web3 technologies the "right" way?

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#546

Post by derangedHorse » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 3:21 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…

>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?

Sometimes just ownership of something is valuable in itself. That's the whole idea of collectibles, it's not always tied to its original utility. Think having an original SNES versus an emulator on a computer or an original Picasso vs a digital jpeg copy.

>For one thing that puts a lot of work on the table of other game developers. If every NFT of every game needs to be usable in other games, can you imagine the headache? It's a combinatorial nightmare.

Every NFT of every game doesn't have to be usable in other games, but the option to easily access the in-game ownership records of another game can allow for some asset sharing.

>And then we haven't even touched on IP issues. If you have an NFT of Lara Croft, can the devs of another game just clone the model in order to let you import her?

No but maybe I can give a Croft-esque outfit to an in-game character if the player has the Lara Croft NFT. It could be a selling point to some players to be able to play with assets inspired by another game they love. It could also add some unrelated mechanic to a game in which case the NFT is just used as a marketing ploy to advertise to a certain demographic. Re-using NFTs could also be completely unrelated to 3rd parties and can allow developers to allow easy migration of old assets from old games to new ones without having to maintain teh records themselves.

>I feel like all of these issues by far dwarf whatever convenience NFTs bring to the table. The problems I outline above are the ones that need solving, and if you find a way around those you could very easily achieve what you want without "web3" tech (see Steam trading cards and Nintendo's Amiibos for instance).

Again, the idea is to have a digital asset that can be traded (in terms of ownership) like a physical asset would -- without the need for a centralized mediator. Just because certain applications typically act as centralized gateways doesn't mean the blockchain itself is centralized. The hope is for the blockchain to be used as a reliable source of information for decades to come with the ability for anyone to participate if given the very accessible minimum resource requirements.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#547

Post by yed » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 3:21 AM UTC

lekevicius wrote: post #417

luhn wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> This is not unique to crypto - see, for example, HTTP, or HDMI…

HTTP and HDMI provided actually useful things to regular people despite their shortcomings. Crypto has been solving technical problem after technical problem for over a decade but has yet to offer anything useful to a non-enthusiast.

> Another issue is that the goalpost is ever-shifting. We have truly distributed apps.

And the only thing they are useful for is moving crypto around between enthusiasts. "Make something useful for regular people" should not be difficult goalpost for something that claims to be world changing.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#548

Post by preseinger » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 3:22 AM UTC

baby wrote: post #495

tompccs wrote: post #363

"With the shift to mobile, we now live firmly in a world of clients and servers – with the former completely unable to act as the latter – and those questions seem more important to me than ever. Meanwhile, ethereum actually refers to servers as “clients,” so there’s not even a word for an actual untrusted client/server interface that will have to exist somewhere, and no acknowledgement that if successful there will…

This is not a problem with crypto, because there are solutions to this, it's a problem with how people use it. The real danger is that people get too comfortable with this way of doing things and we never switch to more secure solutions.

If one person uses your tool incorrectly, it's a problem with that person.

If nearly everyone uses your tool incorrectly, it's a problem with your tool.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#549

Post by Zetaphor » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 3:22 AM UTC

tarkin2 wrote: post #536

The "a website for buying and selling JPEGS with your debit card" part simultaneously made me realise how ridiculous NFTs are and, nevertheless, how popular they are, and how that popularity fuels the value of bitcoin. Essentially paper money gets its value because you need it to pay taxes; that is, there is a demand. Bitcoin gets it value because you can do interesting and popular things with it; that is, there is a…

You're confusing Bitcoin and Ethereum. Ethereum is the platform that supports smart contracts. Bitcoins intent is to be a simple ossified protocol used as a store of value, akin to digital gold.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#550

Post by spyder » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 3:24 AM UTC

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.)

"the link is just the description of what they are certified to own"

No a link isn't a description of its content, just like the article demonstrated the content can change to anything, anytime, in many ways. Even if the URL contains the hash of the content like with IPFS URLs it's not a description of the content but one step better because you can check if it's pointing to the content it supposed to be.