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The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

cheapskatesguide.org

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Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#61
post #30

> 'Some people use the term "Web 3.0" to refer only to decentralized blockchain-based networks without considering that all personal websites have essentially the same goals, be they on the regular Internet or on the new blockchain networks. Those who use the term "web 3.0" seem to have forgotten that self-hosted personal websites that run on home servers and are accessible over the regular Internet are inherently de…

It's worth noting that there is a core of people doing real work in crypto who are not trying to peddle NFTs or other sleight of hand rungpulls designed to separate the gullible from their money.

Ethereum, for example, is full of people building interesting things like off-chain low-cost trading using non-interactive zero knowledge proofs and actively working to make crypto less energy intensive and more useful. They don't want to sell you an NFT and it's not part of some elaborate rugpull- There are plenty of examples of people doing this important work because they legitimately believe that a world where fiat control is divorced from the levers of governmental power is a positive change.

There are also, of course, people trying to use those achievements as part of a weird shell game where the end result is giving gullible strangers nothing in exchange for something. That's sort of the human condition.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#62
post #30

> 'Some people use the term "Web 3.0" to refer only to decentralized blockchain-based networks without considering that all personal websites have essentially the same goals, be they on the regular Internet or on the new blockchain networks. Those who use the term "web 3.0" seem to have forgotten that self-hosted personal websites that run on home servers and are accessible over the regular Internet are inherently de…

And! The ledger isn't used by the main marketplaces or wallets (eg OpenSea & MetaMask) when you're trying to look at your assets. You can be deplatformed from those places, unable to trade your assets with anyone on those sites/using those wallets.

From that Moxie Marlinspike article:

> A crypto wallet like MetaMask, Rainbow, etc is “non-custodial” (the keys are kept client side), but it has the same problem as my dApps above: a wallet has to run on a mobile device or in your browser. Meanwhile, ethereum and other blockchains have been designed with the idea that it’s a network of peers, but not designed such that it’s really possible for your mobile device or your browser to be one of those peers.

> A wallet like MetaMask needs to do basic things like display your balance, your recent transactions, and your NFTs, as well as more complex things like constructing transactions, interacting with smart contracts, etc. In short, MetaMask needs to interact with the blockchain, but the blockchain has been built such that clients like MetaMask can’t interact with it. So like my dApp, MetaMask accomplishes this by making API calls to three companies that have consolidated in this space.

> For instance, MetaMask displays your recent transactions by making an API call to etherscan > …displays your account balance by making an API call to Infura > …displays your NFTs by making an API call to OpenSea

> Again, like with my dApp, these responses are not authenticated in some way. They’re not even signed so that you could later prove they were lying. It reuses the same connections, TLS session tickets, etc for all the accounts in your wallet, so if you’re managing multiple accounts in your wallet to maintain some identity separation, these companies know they’re linked.

> MetaMask doesn’t actually do much, it’s just a view onto data provided by these centralized APIs. This isn’t a problem specific to MetaMask – what other option do they have? Rainbow, etc are set up in exactly the same way. (Interestingly, Rainbow has their own data for the social features they’re building into their wallet – social graph, showcases, etc – and have chosen to build all of that on top of Firebase instead of the blockchain.)

> All this means that if your NFT is removed from OpenSea, it also disappears from your wallet. It doesn’t functionally matter that my NFT is indelibly on the blockchain somewhere, because the wallet (and increasingly everything else in the ecosystem) is just using the OpenSea API to display NFTs, which began returning 304 No Content for the query of NFTs owned by my address!

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#63

The Internet today feels like a big box strip mall in suburbia. While visiting my home town, I looked for a local, independent hardware store. There was only Home Depot and Lowe's. Then I realize how few independent businesses were left. On the Internet, you have Google, Amazon, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter. Much of the good content is hidden in their secret gardens (Facebook, Twitter, and increasingly Reddit). Discover…

A big problem today is that platforms only highlight only popular/trendy or paid content. What I would like to see are platforms that give regular people a chance either through chronological or random discovery. There is so much great content out there that doesn't make it into the limelight because of algorithm bias or because creators don't have the money/resources to boost their content.

Yeah I think the long tail really suffers with a lot of popularity algorithms. Instead of a mixed bag with a bit for everyone you get the absolute lowest common denominator.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#64
post #30

> 'Some people use the term "Web 3.0" to refer only to decentralized blockchain-based networks without considering that all personal websites have essentially the same goals, be they on the regular Internet or on the new blockchain networks. Those who use the term "web 3.0" seem to have forgotten that self-hosted personal websites that run on home servers and are accessible over the regular Internet are inherently de…

Vitalik's response to Moxie is worth a read:

https://np.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/ryk3it/my_first_im...

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#66
I don't think Web 3.0 is going to be the kind of decentralization people are all hyping up now - we are still too close to Web 2.0 and the innovations are nebulous at best.

However I do think there will be a Web 3.0 and it is going to come about when processing power, battery life, efficiency, global internet, and easy power generation all start reaching a critical point. Combine that with a general psychological backlash toward mega surveillance, concentration of power in massive corporate entities, and mass automation and we will be ripe for a world where low tech becomes stylistically cool again but with just the best of the tech world when wanted.

If you plucked someone out of ancient Rome and brought them to this society a lot of the technology might really seem like magic. I am imagining independent adhoc networks that can be easily setup to servicing a small remote village completely disconnected from the outside world and just as easily instantly connect that village to a high speed global network. And it all runs off a few solar panels or some other source of cheap power.

The decentralization of Web 3.0 will come about when we have the hardware to actually do things like that. When the ratio of cheap power generation to power use blows away what we have now. Who knows what crazy stuff people will come up with!

Or we could go the Wall-E route and it all goes to shit

Lets face it though - version point 0 is often a buggy mess. Bring on Web 3.1 !

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#67

I sure hope that's right. It was the best feeling in the world to stand up an Apache server on my Amiga, and later my little FreeBSD server, and see my friends viewing the website I was hosting on my dialup connection. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't elegant, and it certainly wasn't fast, but it was mine . I made that. From installing the server to writing the HTML, I owned that service from end to end and had completely…

The barrier of entry was actually lower than that. We didn't need to stand up an Apache server. We could just sign up for a Geocities/Xoom/Tripod account and upload HTML or use the built in site editor to create content.

Somewhere along the way, people stopped building well organized sites and started producing chronologically organized writings and content. These chronologically organized articles and content have dominated web content and social media ever since.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#68
post #42

I sure hope that's right. It was the best feeling in the world to stand up an Apache server on my Amiga, and later my little FreeBSD server, and see my friends viewing the website I was hosting on my dialup connection. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't elegant, and it certainly wasn't fast, but it was mine . I made that. From installing the server to writing the HTML, I owned that service from end to end and had completely…

The thing that is missing in the DIY website space is discoverability. Fix that, and you might have a chance of competing with big corporations. (In the old days we had "web rings", but I'm afraid that's not going to work today)

Which is why I wish the webmention had taken off more than it did

https://www.w3.org/TR/webmention/

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#69
post #30

> 'Some people use the term "Web 3.0" to refer only to decentralized blockchain-based networks without considering that all personal websites have essentially the same goals, be they on the regular Internet or on the new blockchain networks. Those who use the term "web 3.0" seem to have forgotten that self-hosted personal websites that run on home servers and are accessible over the regular Internet are inherently de…

It's worth noting that there is a core of people doing real work in crypto who are not trying to peddle NFTs or other sleight of hand rungpulls designed to separate the gullible from their money. Ethereum, for example, is full of people building interesting things like off-chain low-cost trading using non-interactive zero knowledge proofs and actively working to make crypto less energy intensive and more useful. They…

Yes there are people with 100% good intentions working in this space. There were also people with 100% good intentions working at Theranos.

Re: The old internet shows signs of quietly coming back

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By not collecting data it has no need for, and not passing that data on to third parties? By providing an ability to delete any user account, and for editing any personal information? By not using EBCDIC to store said information? Are you making this more complicated than it needs to be?

> Are you making this more complicated than it needs to be? I'm not sure. I guess if one trusts the default logging settings on the server software to be compliant, and only uses static HTML, maybe that's adequate? But as soon as any third-party code or data provided by some other server gets involved, it's hard to know what might be logged elsewhere as a result of visiting your site. I mean, would an old-fashioned w…

You tell us you have no idea what third-party code you add might be tracking from users. And say this is a reason why you/they should be allowed to do it? (With "it" being... anything the third-party sites want to at all?)
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