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Web3 is centralized and inefficient

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Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#111

Post by jxi »

yashg wrote: post #31

Agree 100%. Web3 is useless. The whole web3 thing is an extension to get more people and more real money to get into the crypto ecosystem and provide liquidity to the early adopters and insiders. I haven't found one legitimate use case for blockchain. The only thing it is useful for it speculative gambling. I wrote about it some time ago and and shared here on HN https://yash.info/blog/what-is-web3/

You haven't looked very hard if you think it's 100% useless. Some top of mind things:

- Transferring funds overseas

- Trading/speculation on public exchanges

- Selling art online

There's a lot of sensationalist articles about how these things are all ponzis or as you say "providing liquidity to early adopters", but you don't have to buy and hodl major coins to use Web3/decentralization. Many of the above use cases are much easier on the blockchain than using traditional brokers. Not to mention there's a lot of friction in the form of providing personal info when you sign up (which may end up hacked/leaked) and chance of being subject to random discrimination.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#112

Post by yashg »

dmead wrote: post #69
bigbonch wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart Canada has used blockchain [1] to better their supply chains systems. I suspect when you say you "haven't found one legitimate use case for blockchain" you're referring to the consumer space based on current offerings. I would argue that "blockchain" just as an idea and technology has plenty of use cases. [1] https://hbr.org/2022/01/how-walmart-canada-uses-blockchain-t...

so would a database, or a linked list, or literally any data structure... again, a solution looking for a problem.

Hammer in search of a nail.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#113

Post by grensley »

vmception wrote: post #5

> A lot of Web3 platforms are in fact centralized. Your wallet (MetaMask), marketplaces (OpenSea), APIs (Alchemy) are all central platforms. Sure, they use a distributed database (blockchain), but before that it’s still a Go app on AWS, meaning its centralized. > Your wallet (MetaMask) Run your own node. This is lazy reporting to reach the end point about fawning over FreeBSD (its in the article, literally an article…

With 16% of Americans saying they have invested in cryptocurrency in some form, coupled with the classic adoption graph (https://www.ou.edu/deptcomm/dodjcc/groups/99A2/curve.JPG), crypto is begging for ways to burst into the mainstream early majority, and the way to do that is with the familiar. They want Coinbase, and OpenSea, and low friction experiences.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#114

Post by alexb_ »

bosky101 wrote: post #76
Victerius wrote: post #2

Can someone explain what Web3 is in 50 words or less to a layman?

web1 - read from centralized servers, send 1:1 web2 - read/write/contribute to centralized servers, who moderate ownership web3 - anyone can read, write, host. Consume for free(termed gasless), but contribution costs. Trustless, so self attesting of ownership. Content in web2 was free because of an ad supported model. I think it's important to note that content is free in the web3 world. Which means that anything can…

>centralized servers

The internet was not designed to be centralized. It become centralized because everybody realized centralization was a way easier way to do everything.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#115

Post by everfree »

nl wrote: post #20

This is a pretty weak piece. > Your wallet (MetaMask), marketplaces (OpenSea), APIs (Alchemy) are all central platforms. The whole point of the blockchain as a decentralized database idea is that people are free (in the "you don't need permission" sense) to build on it. Just because OpenSea is a popular interface for trading NFTs it doesn't mean you can't also trade those same NFTs elsewhere. And your wallet isn't "c…

> And your wallet isn't "centralized" at all. Just because MetaMask happens to be implememented using a server doesn't mean you can't export your seed phrase and import it into (eg) TrustWallet and use that instead or as well.

It's not even that. Metamask defaults to using a particular server, but you can set it to anything you want to in Settings.

The original post is just wrong. Aside from the default set for convenience, Metamask isagnostic to whether you want to plug it into a centralized or decentralized API service.

If you choose to run a local Ethereum node, Metamask even has a default already set in the Networks dropdown list.

This feels like yet another article trying to paint broad ideological strokes about Web3 without grasping any nuance.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#116

Post by hannasanarion »

mccorrinall wrote: post #104
hannasanarion wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A public ledger is not inherently valuable. A trusted ledger is valuable, but a ledger doesn't have to be public to be trusted. When I swipe my card at the grocery store, I'm not shaking in my boots with my fingers crossed, doubting whether the transaction will be recorded as transmitted or not. If for some looney toons secret agent reason you need a transaction to be public, you can tweet a picture of the receipt. O…

When I use $payment_processor/card_network then I need to trust a corporation again. I don’t want to do that due to bad experiences. Yes, unfortunately mining is too profitable with the current prices, we need it to go back to a much lower price. Probably won’t happen for a long time (bubbles can exist for decades). Bitcoin can in theory transact more volume than VISA while using the same energy as it is now since th…

The payment processor is the party to the transaction whose trust is least dangerous.

You swipe at the grocery store, what's Visa gonna do, not record your transaction? Why is that the only part of the exchange that you're worried about?

Why is it them you want to stop trusting, and not the POS terminal manufacturer who could be lying about the total on the screen?

Or the grocery store you're buying from who could be selling you poison, or who could refuse to carry out a delivery you ordered after taking your money, or who could mischarge you for the items you bought?

And how is your situation improved by switching away from the payment processor with legal responsibilities and administrative controls, to an immutable system that will never, ever, ever let you get the money back in the event of any of the other parties to the transaction turning out to be untrustworthy, even if a court orders it?

Immutability is not correctness. In fact it is the opposite, because in any system that takes input from the real world, errors are guaranteed, whether malicious or accidental. Eliminating the possibility of error correction from the system decreases it's trustworthiness.

> Bitcoin can in theory transact more volume than VISA while using the same energy as it is now since the block time is always 10 minutes.

No it can't. The bitcoin block size is fixed at 10mb, and they've been full for years.

It is theoretically possible for consumption to go down as people exit the network, but that won't ever happen, because the POW system is inherently a power-consumption arms race. There is not, nor can there ever be, a disincentive from buying more hardware and consuming more power. If you crunch more than the other guys you're going to win more blocks and be financially rewarded. The protocol guarantees that the ROI is always positive.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#117

Post by moorow »

philliphaydon wrote: post #99
bigbonch wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart Canada has used blockchain [1] to better their supply chains systems. I suspect when you say you "haven't found one legitimate use case for blockchain" you're referring to the consumer space based on current offerings. I would argue that "blockchain" just as an idea and technology has plenty of use cases. [1] https://hbr.org/2022/01/how-walmart-canada-uses-blockchain-t...

Blockchain does not help supply chains. It doesn’t guarantee that things have been tampered with. It doesn’t solve any problems.

I remember a project when I was consulting that was floated, a few years ago. It was a blockchain-backed ledger for tracking fuel charges across a truck fleet - effectively, when the truckies filled up with fuel, they'd record it in the ledger. It can't be modified or altered, nobody can defraud the company because it's an immutable record!, shouted the sales team.

I mean, the truckie could always put the wrong value in when he entered it.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#118

Post by olliej »

mccorrinall wrote: post #104
hannasanarion wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A public ledger is not inherently valuable. A trusted ledger is valuable, but a ledger doesn't have to be public to be trusted. When I swipe my card at the grocery store, I'm not shaking in my boots with my fingers crossed, doubting whether the transaction will be recorded as transmitted or not. If for some looney toons secret agent reason you need a transaction to be public, you can tweet a picture of the receipt. O…

When I use $payment_processor/card_network then I need to trust a corporation again. I don’t want to do that due to bad experiences. Yes, unfortunately mining is too profitable with the current prices, we need it to go back to a much lower price. Probably won’t happen for a long time (bubbles can exist for decades). Bitcoin can in theory transact more volume than VISA while using the same energy as it is now since th…

No, the BTC protocol is limited to an upper limit determined by the maximum blocksize. Last I checked that put the limit of BTC at something in the region of 7 transactions/second without increasing the block size.

To match Visa alone you'd need to increase that by a factor of 250 - you could reduce block time, increase block size, whatever. But that would also by necessity increase the storage requirements of each node by a similar factor.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#119

Post by yashg »

valcron1000 wrote: post #64
yashg wrote: post #31

Agree 100%. Web3 is useless. The whole web3 thing is an extension to get more people and more real money to get into the crypto ecosystem and provide liquidity to the early adopters and insiders. I haven't found one legitimate use case for blockchain. The only thing it is useful for it speculative gambling. I wrote about it some time ago and and shared here on HN https://yash.info/blog/what-is-web3/

What about international transfers without a middle man dictating what, when and how? If not for blockchain I would probably be working on a completely different field. Just because you don't find it useful does not mean that it's the same for everyone else

I don't understand this hatred for middlemen amongst the crypto crowd. Middlemen provide trust. You want to replace middlemen as trust providers with code? The trustless solutions like Proof of work are slow and inefficient and cost much more than middlemen do.

And despite all of that the cryptoverse still has middlemen and centralised platforms. Because not everyone has to run their own node. Be your own banks is not feasible for majority of human population.

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