To be fair, it took decades for e-commerce on the web to become mainstream. Remember what a joke Webvan used to be in 2001?
Didn't pg write Viacom (shopping cart software) in 1995, and sell it to Yahoo in 1997?
It’s not still the early days of blockchain
21–30 of 1001 posts
Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain
#22Blockchains exist for a reason completely other than performance. Of course a centralized database would perform better. That’s not the point. I think engineers keep getting hung up on this and don’t zoom out and see the big picture.
Thank you for saying this, this point seems to be completely glossed over frequently, but it’s literally the point of blockchains. To be explicit, the reason blockchains exist is to have a globally consistent database that doesn’t require trusting the operator.
>To be explicit, the reason blockchains exist is to have a globally consistent database that doesn’t require trusting the operator.
which I mean when I think of that I think - that would be really useful for crime because you don't want to trust the operator because either 1. they're a narc 2. they're a criminal.
it's also useful for currency because not trusting the operator allows you to keep them from turning into paypal.
but then I just draw a blank on what it is useful for after that.
Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain
#23Blockchains exist for a reason completely other than performance. Of course a centralized database would perform better. That’s not the point. I think engineers keep getting hung up on this and don’t zoom out and see the big picture.
Except that as Moxie pointed out just recently, the way it all is set up, everything is centralized anyway. So it's not actually being used in a different way.
Some blockchain technologies are highly centralized, but even then I think it's more like an "active/passive" configuration than a truly centralized system. If the system goes wrong, it's still easy to move to a different one.
Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain
#24Following the same logic, the late 90s were not the web “early days” because the web started in the early 90s
Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain
#25To be fair, it took decades for e-commerce on the web to become mainstream. Remember what a joke Webvan used to be in 2001?
Uh, 2001 happens to be the year that Amazon became the biggest bookseller in the world, having been founded five years earlier. That's literally about as mainstream as you can get, and it was half a decade.
Whether or not you agree with the arc of the linked article, the basic facts are correct: blockchains have been with us for a decade now and haven't done much or made anything that wasn't itself a speculation about blockchain.
Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain
#26Blockchains exist for a reason completely other than performance. Of course a centralized database would perform better. That’s not the point. I think engineers keep getting hung up on this and don’t zoom out and see the big picture.
What is the big picture then? I've never got anything concrete that doesn't sound like the usual buzz word snake oil.
Blockchains solve the wrong problem for a lot of the proposed applications I've seen, like handwaving about "supply chain". The biggest difficulty is not that you don't trust the database, it's that you don't trust the connection between the electronic data and reality. How do you trust a person to have packed the correct grade of meat into the box you are buying? If they've dutifully recorded something on the blockchain and you can verify that nobody has tampered with that record, it still does not help you.
And if you have regulation to ensure supply chain steps comply, then you trust the regulators, then you can have a central database.
Crypto coins are unique in that you can verify them mathematically. They have no connection to anything else out in the real world so they don't have that problem.
So aside from coins, where else is it that you would not trust a central database, but you can verify/trust the entries being added to that database?
Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain
#27I'm not long on anything blockchain related. But I don't understand why people get so invested in it being a scam or failure. Maybe it is, and it'll all die. That's fine. Why do people spend so much time insisting that it's the inevitable outcome. Let it do its thing, find something better to do.
> But I don't understand why people get so invested in it being a scam or failure.
Can't speak for everyone. But from my perspective, it's because certain "applications" are being marketed very heavily to non-technical people who aren't able to reasonably assess the viability of the technology. I'm thinking of NFTs in particular. The only other popularized non-NFT applications are cryptocurrencies, which are pure speculation (i.e., gambling).
In short, that's a moral issue. People were outraged by the Madoff scandal (and others), and this doesn't look a lot different to people who understand the underlying technology. Nobody wants their mom going broke because they bought some hyped-up blockchain thing on the advice of some super-hustler internet marketing influencer out looking to make a buck.
Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain
#28Blockchains exist for a reason completely other than performance. Of course a centralized database would perform better. That’s not the point. I think engineers keep getting hung up on this and don’t zoom out and see the big picture.
Except that as Moxie pointed out just recently, the way it all is set up, everything is centralized anyway. So it's not actually being used in a different way.
NFTs are set up in a centralized way.
Every time there's a bull market in cryptocurrency, the charlatans jump out of the woodwork. They build a bunch of websites and scam a lot of naive people. When the market reverses, these project disappear one after another, usually with people's money, sometimes because they don't actually solve a problem. Almost every one of these NFT grift projects are going to disappear over the next year or two.
Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain
#29Blockchains exist for a reason completely other than performance. Of course a centralized database would perform better. That’s not the point. I think engineers keep getting hung up on this and don’t zoom out and see the big picture.
I feel like even after zooming out and seeing the big picture, it's hard to imagine blockchain solving real world problems. Blockchains are good when there's a lack of trust and decentralization is absolutely necessary. There are very few problems that actually need a blockchain. Anything that has the government in the loop (like buying houses or property) is a non starter and anything that runs on centralized server…
> Blockchains are good when there's a lack of trust and decentralization is absolutely necessary. There are very few problems that actually need a blockchain.
How about the current status quo of the Internet? Do you think being mined, sold, and endlessly tracked is OK?
Re: It’s not still the early days of blockchain
#30Blockchains exist for a reason completely other than performance. Of course a centralized database would perform better. That’s not the point. I think engineers keep getting hung up on this and don’t zoom out and see the big picture.
I don’t think we even need to “get” web3/blockchain/whatever rebrand.
No one understands what it will be (and people involved in the space barely understand what is, as in what all exists, today).
But here’s something that is concrete to anchor to: there’s somewhere north of $1T floating around in blockchains today.
That’s an incredible amount of money and people that have problems that need technology solutions.