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Web3 is centralized and inefficient

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Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#321

Post by brazzy »

miracle2k wrote: post #277
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

> 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. If your metaphor is correct, it remains correct even with a hash being stored on-chain. Frankly, most NFT critiques seem just as thinly thought through as yours. T…

> And you need a blockchain for this, to give it the credible neutrality needed for it to be considered something equivalent to real ownership; you can't have it be at the mercy of a single entity.

No, you don't, and yes, you can. And in fact, you yourself say that this is still the case just a few paragraphs earlier:

> People coalesce around this believe, because the edition was released by whoever owns the actual copyright (ideally the artist).

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#322

Post by blenderdt »

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

What also is amazing is that people are now buying art for huge amounts of money, not because it's good art or it has any value, but because it's NFT art.

So it's even worse than you say, they are selling a sign pointing to a very cheap house, but not for the price of the house but by overvaluing the sign's value.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#323

Post by ComradePhil »

It is inevitable that certain chains and dapps will be "centralized", in that most of the computation and storage will move to a few big datacenters.

What the people like the author have not understood is that running blockchain ans dapps on Azure is NOT THE SAME as running Postgres and a go app on a VM in Azure in a VERY IMPORTANT way... and that is Microsoft taking the servers down does not make the app or the data go away.

This is THE selling point of blockchain and dapps.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#324

Post by ALittleLight »

eru wrote: post #266
divs1210 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not why making an NFT out of the ticket is interesting. It's interesting because I can, for example, resell my Woodstock ticket on an open market.

Only if the ticket seller wants you to be able to do that. Remember, it's trivially easy to follow transactions on the block chain. So the ticket seller can see whether an NFT has been resold, and can just refuse to honour it. Or only honour the first wallet it was in, regardless of whether it is still there or not.

I think the idea may be to resell it as memorabilia - which might work for some rare or legendary performance, but, I think, in the typical case will be meaningless.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#325

Post by hiq »

everfree wrote: post #134
cardy31 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out most people wanting to do international transfers without a middleman are criminals. Regular people are for the most part fine with international transfers going through banks, likely via SWIFT.

I don't know if you've actually tried to send an international wire transfer, but it requires more paperwork/effort, is more expensive, and is less reliable than signing a crypto transaction. Many smaller banks require you to physically drive to the branch and wait in line to send one. They usually cost upwards of $40 and that's before currency conversion, which is done at a rate that may or may not be favorable. Mak…

> I don't know if you've actually tried to send an international wire transfer, but it requires more paperwork/effort, is more expensive, and is less reliable than signing a crypto transaction.

Don't platforms such as https://wise.com/ solve international wire transfer problems? I have experience with only a few currencies, but as long as you can do transfers in your home currency online you should be able to do the rest via Wise online as well.

In terms of costs, you'd have to go into details to really compare (e.g. some platforms claiming "no fees" are just subsidizing them unsustainably), but if you're converting from and to fiat currencies via something other than a stablecoin you might already lose more because of volatility.

I haven't experienced or heard of reliability problems with bank transfers, is that a thing?

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#326

Post by unmole »

chii wrote: post #316
unmole wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But an NFT doesn't let me look at a picture. It doesn't have a display for one. The whole point of a digital picture frame is that it has a display. Is a browser a digital digital picture frame? I have as much need for a specialised digital digital picture frame as I have for a digital paperweight.

The frame isn't _for_ you, it's for everybody else, and that frame shows (with proof) that _you_ own the picture. That's why the mona lisa framed in the museum is worth more than a replica picture. It's not even the frame, it's the fact that there's a public broadcast of a form of ownership.

So, it's not like a digital photo frame?

> That's why the mona lisa framed in the museum is worth more than a replica picture.

The Mona Lisa in the Louvre is worth more than a replica because the Louvre owns it? That's an original take, I'll give you that.

Is that is the case, why does the Louvre own the original and not a replica?

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#327

Post by miracle2k »

kravens_last wrote: post #283
JesseAldridge wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And where does legal authority come from? Social consensus - it's the same thing. The legal edifice maintaining property rights also requires maintenance.

This is true, but the flaw in your reasoning, and in the raison d'etre of NFT's in general, is that social consensus is the be all, end all. There isn't really the problem of acquiring a 100% perfect copy of an asset in the real world. You can approximate an item, but you can't literally get the same exact thing down to the molecular composition. On the internet, this is absolutely possible (replace molecules with by…

The NFT is the property. Social consensus is why people want to own it. The blockchain enables the creation of an ownable digital record. Our legal system continue to function and will still arrest you if you steal an NFT.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#328

Post by birracerveza »

Every single day, the exact same article, with the exact same points, repeated the exact same way, and every time they are wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. (But of course it reached the top of HN with hundreds of upvotes.)

Just for one glaringly obvious example, look at

> And if Web3 is “decentralized”, then why can OpenSea take away your NFTs?

No, they cannot take away your NFTs, they can hide your listing, at best, but bonus points for linking to another crypto smear article that completely misunderstands how crypto and web3 work as well.

You people don't even try to understand what you're criticizing, you're just parroting disinformation because you're mad at crypto.

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#329

Post by [deleted] »

hestefisk wrote: post #136
xiphias2 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin has nothing to do with Web3, they are two different things (web3 is a new term, Bitcoin is a system from 2008)

Bitcoin has a scripting system which gives it some limited smart contract capabilities. If web 3 is about programmable money and ownership I would argue BTC is very much relevant to Web 3.

[deleted]

Re: Web3 is centralized and inefficient

#330

Post by nullc »

smt88 wrote: post #242
telomero22 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 secu…

I agree that the whole NFT whatever crap is 99.99% bull, but XKCD386 compels me:

> You say "secure" as though people are going around stealing houses from each other by snatching their deeds.

https://whyy.org/articles/philadelphia-man-charged-with-stea...

(not that blockchain woo would add much or any value to this problem, but title fraud is an actual thing)

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