51–60 of 225 posts
For a con, blockchain has served me extremely well. Its allowed me to pay when paypal/credit cards/my bank have decided they're going to not allow payment to a service. It's allowed me to get paid cash in hand without having to involve entities who its none of their business why that money has been paid to me. It's allowed me to bypass currency exchange issues and fleecing.
XMPP, bittorrent, now blockchain. All 3 have the same thing in common that they had high hopes of creating a distributed alternative future for their paradigm. The first 2 fizzled into mostly fringe usage. I guess we'll have to wait and see if blockchain follows the same path, but seems to be going that way
Torrents are still going strong and quite useful if you need (say) a movie or TV show that's legally unobtainable in your country.
And yet despite all the technology having been built and stable the trend in media has been overwhelmingly towards centralisation e.g. Spotify, Netflix and an all you can eat model.
It's because ultimately users care about the experience above all else.
99% of Web3 is crap. 1% pure gold. Same thing with the first .com bubble. AI have been through this too and is now having a revival. Blockchain and Web 3 is not going anywhere it will just not be championed by the current generation. The coming will use this as it was the most normal in the world.
Exactly which part of Web3 are you referring to here? I've not seen anything that matches your assessment.
> Blockchain is the greatest technological fraud of the last decade. A fraud so simple, so ridiculous and yet so brilliant, it's taken in even some genuine experts in its thrall of empty hype and false promises. On top of this fraud sits the even greater fraud of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, which are nothing more than unregulated, unlicensed, wild west securities. They are functionally useless as currencies outside…
We have lit a metaphorical forest on fire with proof-of-work mining and been told that it's good for the environment. We have charged a weeks wages in transaction fees for a loaf of bread and been told that it's good for the poor. We have seen people lose their life savings over typos and been told that it's a good store of value. We have allowed blockchain founders to walk away with billions of stolen savings and been told that it's decentralized.
As a generalization, blockchains and cryptocurrencies cause more far more damage than good.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Torrents are still going strong and quite useful if you need (say) a movie or TV show that's legally unobtainable in your country.
Not just that, companies like Blizzard save millions in server costs.
Which is why torrents has really fallen away in favour of fast CDNs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure I understand your meaning; I don't think I know what definition of "illegitimate" you're operating with.
Bitcoin advocates are angry about the fact that central banks create and destroy money regularly to control the market. And usually that there is some big doomsday financial event coming up that only “hard money” like bitcoin can avoid.
Blockchain may be a good way to hide money (i.e. in a country with runaway inflation where the government has constrained access to banking and foreign currencies) but if the crash is global then nobody is safe.
"Great" is hyperbole. The con was always obvious. A "great" con would be something that suckered people who aren't greedy or shortsighted.
> They are functionally useless as currencies outside the realms of criminal activity I think this kind of misses the point. Cryptocurrency has already accomplished incredible things. For example, it's never been easier to buy LSD. DAOs make it simple to work remotely without needing to reside in a specific location. All the benefits of crypto come from their ability to circumvent regulations. It lets people do busin…
What unique properties of a DAO accomplishes this?
> They are functionally useless as currencies outside the realms of criminal activity I think this kind of misses the point. Cryptocurrency has already accomplished incredible things. For example, it's never been easier to buy LSD. DAOs make it simple to work remotely without needing to reside in a specific location. All the benefits of crypto come from their ability to circumvent regulations. It lets people do busin…
> All the benefits of crypto come from their ability to circumvent regulations.
is for all intents and purposes a rephrasing of
> They are functionally useless as currencies outside the realms of criminal activity