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My First Impressions of Web3

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Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#701

Post by Thorrez »

bricemo wrote: post #377
toomuchtodo wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But then it’s just back to trust based web2, you’re trusting internet archive. That’s his point: this isn’t leading to trust less decentralization in practice. To do that, you’d have to store the NFT data on chain, which is prohibitively expensive

You're not fully trusting them. They can't change the content.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#702

Post by Tepix »

Galanwe wrote: post #680
bko wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The centralization of apis (infura > How hard is it to create a competitor to infura? Infura is merely hosting nodes for you and exposing their JSON RPC endpoints. They did not _create_ the API. There's already plenty of competitors in that space. QuickNode and GetBlock for instance, if you want mutualised/managed nodes. You can also host your own node yourself, or use e.g. AWS Blockchain to host it for you, or eve…

> If you are using JSON RPC APIs (which most people do) there is nothing that locks you to Infura or any other provider.

How do you switch to another provider in Metamask?

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#703

Post by Joeri »

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…

The problem with traditional authority models is that the authority may disappear or be subverted. In regions with unstable governments you cannot rely on the government to keep saying that your house is your house.

This is why I think the really valuable and underserved use case of the blockchain is decentralized identity. You can prove you are who you say, you’ve studied where you claim, you’ve worked at the places on your resume, and do this in ways that cannot be subverted or lost. This would be invaluable for refugees who often struggle for months or years with proving they are who they are.

For people that live in stable countries with reliable governments and strong enforcement of contracts this does not provide much value however, and I think this is why this subdomain of web3 remains underserved.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#704

Post by bsagdiyev »

shagie wrote: post #198
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #97

> People don’t want to run their own servers, and never will That's one believably accurate summary. But here's another: rather than focus on trying to make it easy, cheap and simple for everyone to run their own servers, the tech world spent 1996-today instead focused on offering to take care of this for everybody else, for a price. Everybody concluded in the late 90s that the "nobody wants to run their own servers"…

I was a webmaster back in the days when one could debate cern vs ncsa and which provided a better server and for a while, I ran my own web servers at home on some static IPs from Speakeasy... The issue is that the complexity of the modern systems have gone beyond what one person can keep in their head and maintain. This is doubly true when one considers the amount of time investment to keep on top of patches and CVEs…

Responding to this in particular:

> The issue is that the complexity of the modern systems have gone beyond what one person can keep in their head and maintain. This is doubly true when one considers the amount of time investment to keep on top of patches and CVEs.

I dislike that this myth keeps getting thrown around. I’m not the brighest person around but the state of my self hosted applications, be it config, patch level, etc is probably the easiest part of running them. Configs aren’t archaic like they used to be, OS patches itself when setup, and everything just works. I somehow manage to run this, with a busy work schedule, a busy home life and a 2 year old who just wants my attention all the time.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#705

Post by unhammer »

What are examples of actually successful decentralised software? I can think of

    - syncthing
    - git (regardless of github, I still regularly clone/fetch between and within my own machines)
    - bittorrent
None of these needed a cryptocurrency blockchains or stupid buzzwords in order to lure in users, they just solved real problems. I guess they are all fairly dependent on a stable protocol, making it hard to retrofit features, but some people do prefer that situation for at least some of their needs ;-)

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#706

Post by bsagdiyev »

astrange wrote: post #662
AlotOfReading wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet as it exists today for the vast majority of people simply isn't well-equipped for everyone to have their own servers. Imagine a small server box that you could simply plug into the wall and give your wifi credentials. You still have the solve the NAT issue. You still have to secure the publicly routable box somehow and constantly apply updates, or backdate when (not if) something breaks. In parts of the…

They're also noisy and you don't have a personal security team.

False to both. My home server is quiet and my OS keeps updated automatically.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#707

Post by bcherny »

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…

> Couldn't Rolex issue a PGP signed CSV of all valid Rolex serial numbers once a month on IPFS and you'd get the exact same security and trust profile without having to involve any "web3" feature?

They totally could. But what’s interesting about NFTs is they standardize this process across all kinds of assets and issuers. Instead of a CSV for Rolex, a Twitter history for an artist, a deed for a house, a rental agreement for an Airbnb, it’s all just one format.

In the past, there’s been tremendous value that’s come out of standardizing stuff, allowing infrastructure and new kinds of businesses to be built on top.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#708

Post by ThreeToZero »

jiggawatts wrote: post #677

The author mentions that currently all NFTs are just URLs, but it is possible to store data directly in the blockchain, even if it would be prohibitively expensive. An issue with general-purpose immutable storage is that it can be permanently polluted with illegal data. Everything from child pornography, instructions for making drugs or explosives, doxing/attack information, private keys for copy protection systems,…

Bitcoin is 'vulnerable' to this. The most common use is to put financial transactions on Bitcoin, but you can put whatever binary data you want. Famously the genesis block[1] includes a newspaper headline to prove it was created after a specific day.

It's possible to place illegal content onto the Bitcoin blockchain.

[1] - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#709

Post by cblconfederate »

unhammer wrote: post #705

What are examples of actually successful decentralised software? I can think of - syncthing - git (regardless of github, I still regularly clone/fetch between and within my own machines) - bittorrent None of these needed a cryptocurrency blockchains or stupid buzzwords in order to lure in users, they just solved real problems. I guess they are all fairly dependent on a stable protocol, making it hard to retrofit feat…

email is the most successful decentralized tech we use.

It's not that decentralized doesnt work, but people need an incentive to make it work. cryptocurrencies currently aim for maintaining a high price, not delivering a final product (which might tank the price)

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#710

Post by brian_cloutier »

Tepix wrote: post #702
Galanwe wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The centralization of apis (infura > How hard is it to create a competitor to infura? Infura is merely hosting nodes for you and exposing their JSON RPC endpoints. They did not _create_ the API. There's already plenty of competitors in that space. QuickNode and GetBlock for instance, if you want mutualised/managed nodes. You can also host your own node yourself, or use e.g. AWS Blockchain to host it for you, or eve…

> If you are using JSON RPC APIs (which most people do) there is nothing that locks you to Infura or any other provider. How do you switch to another provider in Metamask?

When you open metamask there's a dropdown in the top right. It lets you choose which network you're using, and defaults to "Ethereum Mainnet". If you hit the "Add Network" button you can configure which server your metamask talks to.
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