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My First Impressions of Web3

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Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#781

Post by BlueTemplar »

guelo wrote: post #445
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…

Is IPFS really web3? IPFS is a slight upgrade to bitorrent, and p2p tech was popularized by Napster over 20 years ago. It's been a part of the internet longer than "web2"

Indeed, it's the point of the article: Web 2.0 was already supposed to be this decentralized nirvana with blogs and peer to peer software like IPFS. And look what ended up dominating !

Some day these new centralized "web3" services will just remove (or very severely restrict) their APIs, just like Twitter and Facebook did. (Hopefully the effect will not be as dramatic on the companies using them...)

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#782

Post by Galanwe »

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?

As other comments mentioned, you can change your endpoint in metamask.

Also, metamask is not the only wallet there is... Some dApps only accept Metamask buts it's becoming rare. Most dApps implement multiple alternatives, like WalletConnect, which is more of a dapp/wallet protocol, which allows you to use any wallet software.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#783

Post by IanCal »

wmf wrote: post #220
jd007 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO this diagnosis is still one level away from a more fundamental truism, which is that people don't want to pay anything for digital goods. Running servers can and has been massively simplified over the last couple decades, and I don't see any inherent technical barrier preventing it from being as simple as registering for an account on FB (i.e. anyone can do it). The deeper problem is the lack of willingness to pa…

people don't want to pay anything for digital goods Which brings up a different problem: Web3 assumes that everything you do online will cost money . Even assuming that fees go to zero, virtually nobody wants that. Web3 advocates will say that the money you earn will offset what you spend, but you only have to look at Patreon/Substack/OnlyFans earnings to see that it won't happen for most people.

Arguably, everything does. You just also either sell something at the same time or someone else subsidises it for you. Neither of those approaches are forbidden in web3. It may be more explicit at least.

More generally though, "everything" there means state changing operations. Read only doesn't.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#784

Post by discreteevent »

spamizbad wrote: post #455
jrochkind1 wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or even just include a content hash along with the URL in the NFT payload. Just a way to verify the referent of the URL hasn't changed since the NFT was minted. Where you can find the content with that hash if not the URL can be left arbitrary or out-of-band, but it's at least capturing a fingerprint of the content, not just an address. It seems like this would be absolutely trivial to implement, right? Just... add a…

Despite the various claims about how the worlds smartest most talented developers are working on web3… that’s not true. It was a significant oversight and I think technical leadership in the space is lacking. You have people who know lots and lots about crypto stuff but they are focused like a laser. It’s like that crypto thought-leader on Twitter who didn’t know his NFT’d pfp was being served to various web clients…

They can't see the wood for the merkle trees.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#786

Post by discreteevent »

didibus wrote: post #779
_heimdall wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know for sure, but I'd guess they don't do file hashes because image hosts so often change the file you uploaded. They might compress it, remove unnecessary metadata, or add their own metadata. All of that would change the file contents, breaking the hash. A permenantly verifiable has still doesn't really solve it though. Someone can still change or remove the file later, even if you downloaded the original b…

> What's the point of paying so much money for the right to kind of own a piece of art that anyone can legally copy and use? I don't fully understand the "collector" mindset. But let's assume there are people, similar to whales in free-to-play games, that are willing to pay ridiculous large sums for what the majority would not be willing to pay anything for. Now, think of those collectors as being willing to pay for…

That's a good explanation and it looks like people do value NFTs for those reasons. But it still doesn't compare to the Mona Lisa which if I possessed it I would know that only those physical brush strokes came from Leonardo's hand. The vinyl example is better. But even then the vinyl is physically old and unique. I can take it out and know that it was pressed in 1972. The NFT is just pixels on my screen that are a copy of a copy of.. and will be destroyed when I close the viewer.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#787

Post by bspammer »

lekevicius wrote: post #766
shrimpx wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's possible to place illegal content onto the Bitcoin blockchain. I wonder if Bitcoin already has illegal content in it.

Yes, both Bitcoin and Ethereum have very illegal content. So far, nobody cared about this aspect.

So anyone running a mining node could potentially be prosecuted for distributing illegal content? That definitely seems like it will be a massive issue in the future.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#788

Post by menzoic »

sbierwagen wrote: post #646
distrill wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is the maximalist argument here that these companies are going to build out all this infrastructure, move the global financial system onto it, and then rip it apart and rewrite it to be entirely distributed afterwards I haven't heard anyone articulate this as their vision lol. I would think they distribute the systems somewhere between trading monkey JPEGs and actually moving the global financial system onto it. As…

"You should check out my new car company, ThreeWheel. We're completely revolutionizing the business of getting around. The key innovation is that our cars have three wheels. This reduces tire cost, improves aerodynamics, and reduces rolling friction. Our three wheeled cars are the future of all wheeled transport!" "Okay." "But our prototype has four wheels, as a temporary prototype to test out the technology." "That…

This example is not good. Hardware has a much different release cycle than software. Once you sell a car, you can't simply release a hardware update.

99.999% of internet software is built iteratively. Even programming languages and operating systems have versions. This argument about needing everything to be decentralized from the beginning is exposing bias because it's not a logical conclusion unless you're bent on antagonizing web3.

Even most DAOs start out centralized and slowly become decentralized. This is expected. You don't want to go full decentralized until everything is stable.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#789

Post by spaniard89277 »

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 you expect the crypto system to be participated only by high-effort members you're bound for dissapointment.

Re: My First Impressions of Web3

#790

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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