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Web 3.0 – The Great Con

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Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#181

Post by lioeters »

jiggawatts wrote: post #170
lioeters wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the first I've heard of it, but apparently DID (W3C Decentralized Identifiers) is an underlying standard that's separate from what Microsoft is building on top of it. > 2. Trust System. In order to be able to resolve DID documents, DIDs are typically recorded on an underlying network of some kind that represents a trust system. Microsoft currently supports two trust systems, which are: > - ION (Identity Overlay…

If you read through the DID/ION, etc... standards, you'll quickly notice the Blockchain / crypto pedigree once you start looking for the keywords. "Trustless", "decentralized", "ledger", etc... all make a regular appearance. > Introduction to Microsoft Entra Verified ID In a similar discussion I tried to politely make the point that despite over two decades of "identity" experience under my belt, I have literally no…

A major characteristic of the crypto/blockchain trend I noticed is how so much of it is "creative" gibberish - new concepts, words, systems, architectures - but when I dig down to their essence, it's like a castle made of sand, or a pipe dream made of clouds. I keep thinking, there must be some concrete technical innovations that drive this flourishing new field.

Occasionally there's an insight, like distributed computing, decentralized and trustless - and it gives me hope that something real is happening, that there's practical value. But then I see the ecosystem and market full of pseudo-technical BS and outright fraud. It reminds me of modern financial instruments with intellectual-sounding concepts, derivatives, securities, repackaged loans, and so on, enabling a wide range of tricks and scams upon the public.

As far as scams go, it makes sense that most of it is made up of words, like politics and religion. And maybe some parts of the story can be based on reality, to make it sound more believable.

Microsoft Entra seems to be marketed to enterprise customers, big money. But that's the completely wrong audience to try and sell "decentralized". Enterprise-scale companies need centralization of identities.

---

I gotta admit though, even after the disillusionment and breaking the spell, I'm still a little bit curious and hopeful that the crypto/blockchain hype has at least a few nuggets of real, practical value. It's a great con indeed, and one of the biggest mass "nerd sniping" I've witnessed.

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#182

Post by osigurdson »

I’m don’t own any crypto but this is overly dismissive. Encoding game theoretic concepts into a “token” such that various parties can be incentivized in the correct way such that the value of the overall ecosystem is maximized is a valuable concept.

There are many great cons, the current monetary system could easily be considered one of them. Fractional reserve banking is a fraudulent concept at its core. Yet, we keep it because it kind of works to create the right incentives (we accept some level of corruption for this reason). It isn’t (at all) clear to me that we have landed on an optimal system.

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#183

Post by ThomPete »

JohnFen wrote: post #162
ThomPete wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing. You either understand it or you don't. I can get you to see it. I don't have to, in the future it will be just there. Web3 is a special case of wild wild west in a market with way too much money inflating it all, but the fundamental principles about having an open database accessible to everyone is here to stay. The stock market is down up to 90% in some cases. You need to think about this when som…

> I've just seen this so many times before and I can personally see the use cases, they are just not what most people think they are. Then what are they?

i posted a few links in another comment

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#184

Post by hiq »

ThomPete wrote: post #179
hiq wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It will evolve and at one point we won't even know we are using it. It's been more than 10 years and billions poured into the ecosystem since Bitcoin started, and I still don't know anybody who uses a blockchain for anything beyond speculation, even though I'm in tech. After how many more years without widespread adoption would you be convinced otherwise?

10 years is nothing and again just because you don't know anyone, doesn't mean they don't exist so not sure what you want me to say to that. Plenty of people use is.

From your other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33228497:

> There is so much use for blockchain especially as infrastructure for society and in 10 years from now we will not even be thinking about it.

So you do seem to think that 10 years matter and that it's the time left before it becomes part of our lives, but still it's unclear what's supposed to change in the meantime and why this hasn't happened yet. There's just as much money lost on a regular basis (maybe even more now that projects are bigger), it's still mostly a speculation platform, no real infra in sight and mostly "ideas" that don't pass a basic business plan analysis or simply the question: "wouldn't it be better to implement this idea, but without a blockchain?".

Bitcoin has changed very little since its inception. The first 10 years haven't fundamentally changed its adoption, there's no reason to think that 10 more would do much more. "Just believe in it" is not very enticing for a technology.

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#185

Post by ThomPete »

hiq wrote: post #184
ThomPete wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10 years is nothing and again just because you don't know anyone, doesn't mean they don't exist so not sure what you want me to say to that. Plenty of people use is.

From your other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33228497 : > There is so much use for blockchain especially as infrastructure for society and in 10 years from now we will not even be thinking about it. So you do seem to think that 10 years matter and that it's the time left before it becomes part of our lives, but still it's unclear what's supposed to change in the meantime and why this hasn't happened y…

That is not the point I was making.

My point is that Web 3.0 is not a great con and that it's here to stay and that down the line we won't even think about it.

It also being used today, but today we are having the same kind of discussions as we had with the internet in the 90's

Bitcoin changed from being currency to being store of value. Quite a big change.

But again I am not sure who you are trying to convince here. I have already provided plenty of examples of what I think is use cases both from business to infrastructure to societally. I never said just believe it and I am not sure why that straw man is being thrown in there.

It's always the same discussion though. People who say they want use cases aren't really interested in them. It's a weird phenomena to me but each to their own.

You are more than welcome to think there isn't a reason to think it's going to work out and then you act accordingly to that belief. I see it differently I do see the need and act accordingly.

It's all good.

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#186

Post by braingenious »

dmantis wrote: post #150
braingenious wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Don't you agree it is easier to set up a business through blockchain, and get paid for running some service? No. > I am building a side-project that runs on Google Cloud. I think most tricky part for me, will be setting up the payment system without breaking any tax laws...Should I just put a Paypal pay button? It’s a pretty easy option, yes (hence your phrasing of “just put a button”) There’s also Stripe or Square…

> There’s also Stripe or Square No, there aren't. That's not available for Chinese, Russians, Iranians, Argentinians, Nigerians, Thai, South Africans, which is more than 1/3 of the world population and you can't just forget about our existence, you know. Don't say that if you can handle some stuff in your particular country, that makes the whole technology useless worldwide speaking. We are human beings and deserve t…

https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/country-worldwide

Most of the countries you’ve listed have Paypal, so in that case I would suggest that since obviously Stripe and Square aren’t available.

Edit: The only countries you’ve listed that don’t have Paypal are currently under sanctions from the US that can make doing business legally tricky for me. If your sole use case is avoiding sanctions, then yes obviously crypto is useful. That is not an obvious scenario when asked “Isn’t the blockchain easier than (traditional payment platforms)?”

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#187

Post by shadowgovt »

ethanbond wrote: post #166
jeroenhd wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wonder how crypto doomsayers are going to pay the power bills keeping their network alive once the financial doomsday finally arrives. If everything goes tits up as badly as they say, I wouldn't rely on digital currencies to still be viable, especially with the incredible energy and hardware costs associated with proof of work blockchains. Blockchain may be a good way to hide money (i.e. in a country with ru…

You just put your InternetCoins on a thumb drive, label it with the amount (and the most recent known conversion rate) and then you try to pawn it off at the apocalypse general store by just saying “trust me as soon as the internet starts working again you’ll be super rich.”

Jokes on them, because I'm saving bottlecaps.

They're far more fungible in the apocalypse, because the algorithm is simple:

- I have something

- Someone gives me bottlecaps for it

- I give someone else bottlecaps for something they have that I want.

I mean, how will someone dilute my store of value? Turn on one of the ancient, rusted bottling plants? Please. Never going to happen; the scavs have already ripped all the important parts out of the machinery.

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#188

Post by hiq »

ThomPete wrote: post #185
hiq wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33228497 : > There is so much use for blockchain especially as infrastructure for society and in 10 years from now we will not even be thinking about it. So you do seem to think that 10 years matter and that it's the time left before it becomes part of our lives, but still it's unclear what's supposed to change in the meantime and why this hasn't happened y…

That is not the point I was making. My point is that Web 3.0 is not a great con and that it's here to stay and that down the line we won't even think about it. It also being used today, but today we are having the same kind of discussions as we had with the internet in the 90's Bitcoin changed from being currency to being store of value. Quite a big change. But again I am not sure who you are trying to convince here.…

> Bitcoin changed from being currency to being store of value. Quite a big change.

It's never really been used as either in practice, because of its volatility. "Store of value" is a big statement for something that was once at 60kUSD and is now at 20kUSD. It's mostly used because "number goes up".

> plenty of examples

I went through your links, they don't pass the test I mentioned, namely: in practice, you're better off without a blockchain. That's why so many of these are just "ideas" and not actual businesses and never take off, even 10 years in and all the tech being there already.

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#189

Post by dwgebler »

zeroclip wrote: post #154

This post is mostly about Bitcoin and Proof of Work. Currently "Web3" tech is being built on Ethereum, Proof of Stake, zero-knowledge proofs, rollup sequencers, data availability sampling, and multi-party computation. The recent advances are not like the earliest iterations; a harsh critique of Bitcoin is not equivalent to the harsh critique of Web3. The post is riddled with fallacies. For example: > Imagine, for exa…

> Nobody in Web3 is suggesting you hold all of your assets in a single private key that you physically carry to a restaurant

I'm not suggesting that, either. It's a metaphor. In the metaphor, we're not talking about crypto wallet keys, we're talking about actual, physical keys which open doors. But many people do of course keep all their crypto keys in a single, vulnerable location, or hand the contents of their wallets over to another wallet for some other purpose such as lending - typically this is on centralized exchanges or defi markets and platforms, for example Celsius - which I haven't checked in a while but can only assume is still in business, doing well and allowing customers to access their funds.

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#190

Post by bo1024 »

version_five wrote: post #80

Looks like this got moved off the front page which is too bad, I would love to see it plastered everywhere for a few days I watched the discussion unfold a bit and it was instructive. Obviously there were a lot of upvotes on the story because I think the thesis is basically commonsense for most people that pay attention. Except for the actual active scammers (or chumps that have somehow been had) who are quickly voti…

I like to read things on HN because they're interesting, not because they're right or wrong.

Maybe most people were voting on this because they think it's right or wrong, not because it says anything new or interesting (I don't see that it does).

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