Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Web3 is expensive P2P

netfuture.ch

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 384 posts

Re: Web3 is expensive P2P

#181

Post by kkielhofner »

web41 wrote: post #138
kkielhofner wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most NFT content is hosted with HTTP(s). Many NFTs that reference an IPFS url point to a specific IPFS gateway run by the creator as opposed to a “standard” IPFS url with ipfs:// I know this because I have a product that indexes various blockchains and the referenced content.

how many of those are minted with OpenSea? and how many are high value - not spam? OpenSea engineers should be shamed for their use of HTTPS URLs in contracts, but it is not the norm outside of their minting platform.

Many are minted with OpenSea (of course).

In any case across the 70 million or so NFTs I have indexed HTTP is definitely the majority.

Re: Web3 is expensive P2P

#182

Post by kkielhofner »

Karunamon wrote: post #53
kkielhofner wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most NFT content is hosted with HTTP(s). Many NFTs that reference an IPFS url point to a specific IPFS gateway run by the creator as opposed to a “standard” IPFS url with ipfs:// I know this because I have a product that indexes various blockchains and the referenced content.

Wow, the situation is even more dire than I thought. So by and large, the decentralization benefit is completely off the table for most NFTs. Would you be willing to share some numbers on what you're seeing? This is valuable information.

We'll be providing these kinds of stats in real time when we launch!

Re: Web3 is expensive P2P

#183

Post by kristjansson »

axg11 wrote: post #69
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #7

What is the value proposition of web3 to the user? JS web apps offloaded the compute and memory onto the browser/client, web3 to offload storage costs onto the user. You will up pay for every click. web3 and metaverse feels so dystopian. but the young generations that were raised by tiktok will probably accept it.

Some benefits that I think web3 can bring to the user: - Universal login: An alternative to "Sign in with Google/Apple/XYZ" that can't be denied by a corporation. There are countless examples of these companies deactivating accounts for questionable reasons. - Permissionless composability: I'm not sure how to word this one better. If a developer wants to build on top of blockchain data, they can. No need to apply for…

I get stuck at the point where I’m supposed to store the key material for my highly secure, persistent, web3-wide identity in … a browser extension? To which I then allow every web3 site I visit to access? I understand that it helps adoption, but there’s an enormous impedance mismatch there. Why isn’t there offline identify verification front and center?

Re: Web3 is expensive P2P

#184

Post by dwaite »

chrisco255 wrote: post #134
moolcool wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Universal login You can have universal login with MetaMask, sure, but that functionality isn't reliant on a blockchain. It's decades-old public key cryptography. > Ownership in communities.... The difference is that existing platforms don't let you build on those communities outside of their walled garden But successful internet communities do everything in their power to remain walled gardens. What could they poss…

> You can have universal login with MetaMask, sure, but that functionality isn't reliant on a blockchain. It's decades-old public key cryptography. For sure, you can do PGP, but if it's decades old, you have to ask yourself: Why hasn't public key cryptography taken off as a sign in solution in the same way that email or Google or Facebook have been? Mainly because it's always been a chicken and egg problem for consum…

> For sure, you can do PGP, but if it's decades old, you have to ask yourself: Why hasn't public key cryptography taken off as a sign in solution in the same way that email or Google or Facebook have been?

For the same reason a Metamask extension to do so won't take off outside of specialized applications.

Since users have not yet authenticated, this is part of a conversation process of potential users to registered, authenticated users. Only options which will increase that will be supported.

People to some very high double-digit percentage understand what a "Sign in with Google" button does, what will happen if they hit it. Because of that, there is high likelyhood if someone hits that button that they will return successfully authenticated.

PGP never had a website-based authentication option. Mutual TLS did, but other than a few certificate authorities I've never seen it out of the enterprise space - the compatibility and user experience were never even close to sufficient to offer as a broader option.

As optimized as the sign in with Google experience is, there are still sites which will not support it because they want to make sure the user does not get 'lost' on another site if there are failures. They simply will not outsource their funnel.

Re: Web3 is expensive P2P

#185

Post by pshc »

chrisco255 wrote: post #134
moolcool wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Universal login You can have universal login with MetaMask, sure, but that functionality isn't reliant on a blockchain. It's decades-old public key cryptography. > Ownership in communities.... The difference is that existing platforms don't let you build on those communities outside of their walled garden But successful internet communities do everything in their power to remain walled gardens. What could they poss…

> You can have universal login with MetaMask, sure, but that functionality isn't reliant on a blockchain. It's decades-old public key cryptography. For sure, you can do PGP, but if it's decades old, you have to ask yourself: Why hasn't public key cryptography taken off as a sign in solution in the same way that email or Google or Facebook have been? Mainly because it's always been a chicken and egg problem for consum…

Exactly! AFAIK client certificates have been in browsers for decades and almost no one uses them. Whereas, like you said, millions of people now the ability and basic know-how to generate and sign with public-private key pairs, adopted via incentives that keep the wallet ecosystem thriving.

Re: Web3 is expensive P2P

#186

Post by kkielhofner »

po1nt wrote: post #95
kkielhofner wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You certainly can point to a local blockchain node but the question is - have you ever run your own? Running your own blockchain node is nothing like BitTorrent. The required storage, memory, cpu, and IOPS performance is already pushing the limits of readily available standard hardware. This applies mostly to Ethereum. When you go to higher throughput chains like Solana and Polygon the node requirements jump to hardw…

I believe these issues will solve over time by moore's law. By the time Web3 will be mainstream viable we will all be able to run nodes on our mobile phones.

Phones have batteries and maintain the decent battery life they have with aggressive sleep, control of background processes, etc.

Ethereum does a tiny number of transactions and I'm not sure Moore's law will keep up with any scale (see Solana and Polygon) as it applies to mobile devices. Then you still have the power and cell connectivity issues.

No one is going to want to wait for their local node on mobile to take a half hour (or more) to sync after it's been disconnected/idle/etc for a few hours/days to make a transaction that should take seconds.

Re: Web3 is expensive P2P

#187

Post by kjsthree »

Feriti wrote: post #115
hypertele-Xii wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet Service Providers? Hosting Providers? Literally anyone from their closet? Google isn't the Internet, no matter how badly they want you to believe that.

From their closet? What? They develop web3 software in the closet?

Not sure if you’ve heard but, over the last two years, some of the most polished and well-produced voices on NPR were literally coming from someone under a blanket in a closet. I’m not sure how much web3 is happening in closets but I wouldn’t bet on zero.

Re: Web3 is expensive P2P

#188

Post by pshc »

APock wrote: post #84
douglaswlance wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data portability is a huge value prop: Everywhere you sign-in, you already have all of your data. Is it bad to pay to click, if you earn more from the ads on the page? Along with micro-payments, you also micro-earn.

So, being FULLY tracked by every website ever, on every device at the same time, since all your data is whatever wallet you use across devices anyway, is now a good thing?

You're not wrong. Privacy mechanisms still need to be designed and implemented. There is much research, particularly in the landscape of zero-knowledge proofs.

Re: Web3 is expensive P2P

#189

Post by CuriouslyC »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #7

What is the value proposition of web3 to the user? JS web apps offloaded the compute and memory onto the browser/client, web3 to offload storage costs onto the user. You will up pay for every click. web3 and metaverse feels so dystopian. but the young generations that were raised by tiktok will probably accept it.

The value proposition is the ability to share content without restriction or censorship, and own your data rather than being locked in a walled garden.

Re: Web3 is expensive P2P

#190

Post by px43 »

diego_moita wrote: post #38

Moxie Marlinspike on Web3 [1]: * "People don’t want to run their own servers, and never will" * "A protocol moves much more slowly than a platform" [1] https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

I've been a massive fan of Moxie's work for maybe 15 years or so now, and have had the pleasure of chatting with him in person a few times, and most of what he says is solid gold. I even agree with most of the points he's making in his Web3 post, but ..

.. that line "People don’t want to run their own servers, and never will" kills me. That's exactly the problem with P2P that Web3 is trying to solve. By strapping a financial layer onto a P2P network, you can build cryptographic incentives for people to run nodes and participate constructively in running and maintaining the network. It's certainly not the intention for everyone to run their own node, but anyone CAN, and even if you don't, you can be confident that the people who are running the network are acting in your best interests.

This, of course, does assume that the incentives are well thought out and properly aligned, which is very commonly not the case, but these networks are an amazing sandbox for people to try to build incentive systems that work, and there are many systems that are working quite well, many of which can run without any central authority over the protocol at all.

Post reply on HN