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Web3 is centralized and inefficient

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Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#241

Post by rablackburn »

threatripper wrote: post #226
mmaunder wrote: post #188

I still can't get over that NFT's are just a URL pointing to the data. They don't even have an on-chain hash of the digital asset. It's like selling a sign pointing to houses for the price of the house, and claiming you own the house, hoping that the sign will increase in value the way the house does, and bragging about it. For reference: https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

Legally owning a house is literally just having your name and the address of your house in a book. EDIT: The actual power does not reside in the book. It resides in the mindshare this specific book has. Anyone can put anything in a book but only some people control the book that people pay attention to. Similar it is with fiat, cryptos and nfts. The power is not in the technology itself but in the mindshare they occu…

Yes, but the book has a legal authority backing it up saying that its entries are property rights to the listed address.

Buying an NFT just to have an NFT is like paying for an entry in a book with no further meaning. You just get to say that’s your entry.

Oh and the entry is an http url, so there’s a good chance it’ll 404 eventually (if you even get a status code back)

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#242

Post by smt88 »

telomero22 wrote: post #220
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/

Here are just some of the use cases 1. 100x cheaper, faster cross-border transfers 2. Immutable, digital, accessible, secure ownership of music, video, real-estate, cars, gaming assets, health data 3. Instant access to nearly all possible financial products (loans, lending, startup investments etc.) without a middle man There are many, many more use cases. Crypto drastically increases accountability, transparency, ac…

1. Transfers of what? The recipient has to convert to fiat to do anything useful.

Cheaper and faster don't seem to be happening either, at the moment.

2. You can never digitally own a physical object. Your ownership is centralized in the real-world legal system.

You say "secure" as though people are going around stealing houses from each other by snatching their deeds. Ownership of all of those things is already secure enough.

3. In the US at least, none of this is true. Users still have to go through KYC and there is almost always a middleman involved. Crypto has escaped neither institutionalization nor regulations in developed countries.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#243

Post by meheleventyone »

threatripper wrote: post #226
mmaunder wrote: post #188

I still can't get over that NFT's are just a URL pointing to the data. They don't even have an on-chain hash of the digital asset. It's like selling a sign pointing to houses for the price of the house, and claiming you own the house, hoping that the sign will increase in value the way the house does, and bragging about it. For reference: https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

Legally owning a house is literally just having your name and the address of your house in a book. EDIT: The actual power does not reside in the book. It resides in the mindshare this specific book has. Anyone can put anything in a book but only some people control the book that people pay attention to. Similar it is with fiat, cryptos and nfts. The power is not in the technology itself but in the mindshare they occu…

The book is just a register, the power is in the legal system that defends that register and will settle disputes. Plus legally owning a house grants far more rights than merely having an entry in the register saying you do.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#244

Post by meheleventyone »

threatripper wrote: post #237
oblio wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I physically live in that house and nobody can trivially and completely legally take it down for good.

You can physically live in a house that you don't legally own. Those are two different concepts.

Not really the ability to physically occupy the house is one of the rights owning it gives you. There are other ways to gain that right but there is conceptual overlap there.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#245

Post by JesseAldridge »

rablackburn wrote: post #241
threatripper wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legally owning a house is literally just having your name and the address of your house in a book. EDIT: The actual power does not reside in the book. It resides in the mindshare this specific book has. Anyone can put anything in a book but only some people control the book that people pay attention to. Similar it is with fiat, cryptos and nfts. The power is not in the technology itself but in the mindshare they occu…

Yes, but the book has a legal authority backing it up saying that its entries are property rights to the listed address. Buying an NFT just to have an NFT is like paying for an entry in a book with no further meaning. You just get to say that’s your entry. Oh and the entry is an http url, so there’s a good chance it’ll 404 eventually (if you even get a status code back)

And where does legal authority come from? Social consensus - it's the same thing.

The legal edifice maintaining property rights also requires maintenance.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#246

Post by ryan_lane »

TobyTheDog123 wrote: post #65
mccorrinall wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we “missed the boat” for Web3, does that imply that it isn’t going to bring its benefits to all of us?

I was speaking from an investment perspective there, not a utility one.

The utility is late investors paying early investors high prices to get on the boat, and to rescue the early investors from the boat.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#247

Post by lawrenceyan »

mmaunder wrote: post #188

I still can't get over that NFT's are just a URL pointing to the data. They don't even have an on-chain hash of the digital asset. It's like selling a sign pointing to houses for the price of the house, and claiming you own the house, hoping that the sign will increase in value the way the house does, and bragging about it. For reference: https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

Does it matter for the 99% who will never look at the on chain transaction or smart contract?

Sometimes knowing the technical layer and low level implementation details too well impedes in understanding / utilization of the actual abstracted task imo

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#248

Post by yashg »

telomero22 wrote: post #220
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/

Here are just some of the use cases 1. 100x cheaper, faster cross-border transfers 2. Immutable, digital, accessible, secure ownership of music, video, real-estate, cars, gaming assets, health data 3. Instant access to nearly all possible financial products (loans, lending, startup investments etc.) without a middle man There are many, many more use cases. Crypto drastically increases accountability, transparency, ac…

1. Nope. Still need to convert it to real money for buying something. Gas fees > transfer fees.

2. Nope. It doesn't grant any ownership. It's a just a pointer to a file on third party server. Ownership is enforced by a central authority. Code is not law.

3. Nope. Without an underlying economic activity it's all a ponzi scheme. There is no finance in DeFi. Just scammers running pump and dump schemes and rugpulling starry eyed idiots who think centuries old financial principals are useless and want to make a quick buck without doing anything.

Trust me when I say this, I did a lot of research and reading in earnest. I really hoped there was something of substance in it. I really wanted to embrace web3 and its promise of an open distributed web. I am a programmer. I am always open to learning about and adopting new technologies. I tried hard. I started by reading the original Bitcoin whitepaper by Satoshi. I looked at the web3.js framework. I read as many whitepapers as I could. I looked at many of the projects. Things just don't add up.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#249

Post by unmole »

vmception wrote: post #200
mmaunder wrote: post #188

I still can't get over that NFT's are just a URL pointing to the data. They don't even have an on-chain hash of the digital asset. It's like selling a sign pointing to houses for the price of the house, and claiming you own the house, hoping that the sign will increase in value the way the house does, and bragging about it. For reference: https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

I think of them as digital digital picture frames. A market for digital, digital picture frames currently exists and it has high margins. That is the extent of my thought on the what people are buying. They aren't advertised that way though and the transaction receipt of purchasing the digital, digital picture frame can be a valuable asset. Regarding where the images being viewed are stored, many are not following be…

> I think of them as digital digital picture frames.

I don't understand this analogy. A digital picture frame lets me look at pictures. What on earth is a digital digital picture frame?

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#250

Post by cbovis »

mmaunder wrote: post #233
testesttest wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They don't even have an on-chain hash of the digital asset Yea... 45% of NFTs have their hash on chain https://yournfts.org/#stats . It isn't great but it isn't none.

Interesting point from the same source: > For example, OpenSea serves most of the NFTs they mint over HTTP. If the OpenSea ever collapses, ~8% of NFTs vanish.

The NFTs will still exist and be tradeable outside of OpenSea even if OpenSea itself disappears because they live within a smart contract.
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