Web 3.0 – The Great Con • Hacker News Board

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#191

Post by earthboundkid » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:37 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #70

juunpp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like a 401k?

In practice, 401k's have turned out to be significantly less risky for the employee than the pension plans they replaced. I suspect your argument would be better targetted if it was framed around how large social security and other safety net programs should be. But if you do allow that personal retirement savings should be encouraged and subsidized, the existing 401k program is turning out to be nearly optimal.

Didn't the pension funds all go broke because the regulators let them undercapitalize them to start with on the assumption they could make it up in the market, and then whenever markets went down and they would bust? I mean, I agree that it was a tragedy, but ISTM the blame goes to the people in the 60s and 70s who were like "Oh yeah, we don't need to pre-fund the pensions. GM will live forever, and the market will never go down."

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#192

Post by dwgebler » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 5:37 PM UTC

bo1024 wrote: post #190

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).

> 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).

There's probably some truth in this, in respect of the voting. I certainly never expected it to have a brief stint top of the front page when I submitted it.

As the author I'd like to hope it was an interesting read, but I'll absolutely agree if you're much familiar with the crypto space, it's not new information or a new set of arguments. That doesn't matter to me because for me, for the position I take on this industry, I think what's important is for more people to speak out against crypto, to challenge the hype around blockchain and not be afraid to say it's simply not delivering.

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#193

Post by tim333 » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 6:56 PM UTC

A lot of the arguments seem kind of bad. Just in the first paragraph:

"Blockchain is the greatest technological fraud" - It's just a hashed data structure. Maybe people use it for fraud but that's like saying accounts are a fraud because someone had bad ones once.

"[Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies] are functionally useless as currencies outside the realms of criminal activity and a Ponzi scheme in effect if not name for everyone else." - they are used a fair bit in speculation which is not actually illegal. With bitcoin there is no ponzi schemer, the thing doesn't collapse ponzi like - it just goes up and down.

Not to say they don't have flaws but there is interesting stuff too.

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#194

Post by ThomPete » Mon, Oct 17, 2022, 10:02 PM UTC

hiq wrote: post #188

ThomPete wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

All businesses are fundamentally "just" ideas that have been executed.

You are proving my point exactly. You set up some arbitrary rules that you want reality to comply too and then you make all sorts of claims from that.

And some of these I mention ARE already businesses some of them.

This is exactly what I knew would happen. "If this is reality I deny reality" is basically what you are saying.

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#195

Post by only_human » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 12:34 AM UTC

osigurdson wrote: post #182

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 kee…

There is absolutely nothing to stop fractional reserve banking from re-occurring in crypto. In fact it's already happening on a massive scale with stablecoins, which are pretty much doing all the same things as banks, but even less regulated. If you think the current capitalistic system is a fraud then it makes no sense why you would search for solutions in the form of unregulated "tokens" minted by random people and backed by nothing and it all can vanish in the blink of an eye. It's all the same scams but somehow worse.

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#196

Post by only_human » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 12:43 AM UTC

tern wrote: post #118

zdw wrote: post #29

Something that only received a passing mention in this is that cryptocurrency and related web3 items are sold like a technical panacea to a whole host of other problems with the financial system, governments, corporations, and so on, some of which are real, some are definitely in the realm of fantasy. From my perspective it's just changing one set of monetary system problems for another set of technical and resource…

Overwrought marketing language and idealism are definitely problems, but there's something significant to there now being a chance to create a new financial system, or meaningfully impact the current one. Specifically, there is energy and capital available, whereas previously it would have been impossible to work on this seriously absent a collapse or crisis in the current system. As for whether the technological cha…

Bitcoins and blockchains aren't giving anyone a chance to create a new financial system. It's the same system. Ever notice how the goal of every prominent crypto company is to just accumulate real hard dollars, not crypto? You still can't meaningfully buy anything legal with crypto without exchanging it for dollars first. There's no reason for this ever to change either. Bitcoin was never even intended to be anything beyond a payment system, that idea that it was going to be "a new form of money" was pushed later by people who didn't understand the system but were attracted to it for ideological reasons. It was pretty obvious by the early 2010s that it was going to fail as a payment system, so a host of new narratives were created and people just ran with it despite none of them making any sense.

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#197

Post by only_human » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 12:59 AM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #193

A lot of the arguments seem kind of bad. Just in the first paragraph: "Blockchain is the greatest technological fraud" - It's just a hashed data structure. Maybe people use it for fraud but that's like saying accounts are a fraud because someone had bad ones once. "[Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies] are functionally useless as currencies outside the realms of criminal activity and a Ponzi scheme in effect if not name for…

No, that paragraph is correct. You may be either missing some context or using a different definition of blockchain that doesn't apply to crypto and web3. All the selling points that crypto people have said about blockchains are completely false. It is just a hashed data structure but that's the point -- how is a hashed data structure going to solve inequality, minimize global energy usage, stop wars and feed the hungry? Of course it can't, but you can still see plenty of those outrageous claims floating around on crypto twitter from people who should know better. As far as hashed data structures go, it's not even a good one. It's universally bad at everything for a number of reasons. This is a database system intentionally designed so that writing to the database becomes increasingly and artificially expensive and/or wasteful, for no actual benefit. There's nothing interesting about them.

There doesn't need to be a single person collecting the dollars for it to be a ponzi-esque scheme. The reason people call it a ponzi is because there is no actual profit anywhere in the system nor is there any reasonable mechanism for any typical investors to get stable profits. It's all speculation. The only way you can make a profit from "investing" in crypto is by selling to someone else at a higher price. Yes, ponzi schemes can continue indefinitely if people keep dumping money into it and nobody shuts them down.

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#198

Post by only_human » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 1:16 AM UTC

olah_1 wrote: post #68

Anecdotally, the only “Web 3” that has improved my life is Monero. It’s the best way I’ve found to send money to strangers on the internet. I’ve opened unofficial bounties and paid open source developers to implement them, as one example. It really “just works” in a way where other crypto currency doesn’t. I still support many other projects in this space, but Monero was the only one I felt comfortable actually using…

Software developers should universally reject payment in crypto, but especially monero. I know I would if you tried to pay me with that. It's the same situation as tornado cash. By using it you're providing cover for north korea and other sanctioned entities to launder money: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2020/02/12/north-korea-is-e...

It has no other real legal or legitimate use case, it otherwise works the same as other cryptos. You could just pay those developers in cash. Most developers I've known that aren't hardcore crypto zealots prefer to get paid in cash.

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#199

Post by osigurdson » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 1:23 AM UTC

only_human wrote: post #195

osigurdson wrote: post #182

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 kee…

There is absolutely nothing to stop fractional reserve banking from re-occurring in crypto. In fact it's already happening on a massive scale with stablecoins, which are pretty much doing all the same things as banks, but even less regulated. If you think the current capitalistic system is a fraud then it makes no sense why you would search for solutions in the form of unregulated "tokens" minted by random people and…

How does one lend out more Bitcoin / Ethereum than they currently have?

Re: Web 3.0 – The Great Con

#200

Post by only_human » Tue, Oct 18, 2022, 1:26 AM UTC

osigurdson wrote: post #199

only_human wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely nothing to stop fractional reserve banking from re-occurring in crypto. In fact it's already happening on a massive scale with stablecoins, which are pretty much doing all the same things as banks, but even less regulated. If you think the current capitalistic system is a fraud then it makes no sense why you would search for solutions in the form of unregulated "tokens" minted by random people and…

How does one lend out more Bitcoin / Ethereum than they currently have?

You can just mint your own token and then lie to people about how much bitcoin/dollars/euros/pesos/whatever is backing it, or not disclose it at all, which is exactly what they already do. At least central banks require lenders to have minimum reserves and you can know that regulated banks aren't going below that limit. No such thing exists in crypto, it's the wild west.