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

But, aren't you folks web2?

nadh.in

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 191 posts

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#101

Post by whoooooo123 »

dmitriid wrote: post #80
cameronh90 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's worth separating the technology of cryptocurrencies from the culture surrounding it. Blockchain technology was innovative and is interesting, but still early stage. I doubt that many of the early adopters of Bitcoin expected it to blow up in the way that it did, rather than just being a cyberpunk experiment that would potentially lead to some world-changing technology in the future. I would consider myse…

> Blockchain technology was innovative and is interesting, but still early stage. [1] - Cryptographer David Chaum first proposed a blockchain-like protocol in his 1982 dissertation - Further work on a cryptographically secured chain of blocks was described in 1991 by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta - In 1992, Haber, Stornetta, and Dave Bayer incorporated Merkle trees into the design - The first decentralized bloc…

> there are still no discernible use cases for it.

You are wrong. There's at least one discernible use case for Blockchain: the facilitation of crime. To that end, it's been very successful.

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#102

Post by kareemsabri »

k__ wrote: post #10
mjburgess wrote: post #4

For the first time my anger over crypto moves into genuine concern. Is an entire generation of young people experiencing a kind of "pokemonisation" of crypto well into early adulthood? In other words, is a generation of 20-somethings wasting the better part of that decade on this tech, in these scams? If so, this feels new (?). We're not talking about the chain-letter crazes of the 20s/30s, the housewife pyramid sche…

When I graduated, mobile was the big thing. That's old now. So, what to do to make a name for you? What big new field is there where you don't have to compete with people that have 10 times the experience than you? Independently of what you think web3 might solve or doesn't solve, it's still just programming. Someone learning cryptography and coding will get a job in other places.

I'm not sure what you mean by "make a name". As a dev I never needed to make a name, I just acquired skills that were useful for businesses (or my own business) through building applications. How you compete with people with 10 times the experience than you is through a lower salary, as always.

I agree that "web3" skills are programming, and some of it is actually quite challenging and involves more computer science than your average web or mobile app, so I don't think web3 programmers are lost by any stretch of the imagination, even if that ecosystem collapses, they will be reabsorbed into the broader software industry.

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#103

Post by acdha »

hocuspocus wrote: post #43
sdiacom wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hang out in spaces for people entering tech, and I see the crypto advocates and grifters creeping in and around these spaces. It's extremely successful. Lately, I'm even seeing crypto grifts specifically aimed at people entering tech from non-traditional backgrounds, weaponising the language and discourse of diversity and empowerment to trick them into not just buying into the grift, but code the grift for them. Fo…

I wouldn't really worry about people with a college degree. At one point or another you remember you classes on distributed systems and you realize the entire space is bullshit. I agree we'll see bootcamp grads and other people from non-traditional backgrounds get burned but it also gives them opportunities that wouldn't exist otherwise, so I'm not sure it's a net negative overall. The much bigger issue lies within p…

> I wouldn't really worry about people with a college degree. At one point or another you remember you classes on distributed systems and you realize the entire space is bullshit.

The number of people in the space with degrees from major CS programs suggests that we shouldn’t be confident about that. Smart people can talk themselves into a lot when there’s the prospect of being rich, and the poor architectural fit of blockchains for most application led means there are plenty of distracting hard problems to work on rather than question the entire system.

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#104

Post by birracerveza »

mjburgess wrote: post #4

For the first time my anger over crypto moves into genuine concern. Is an entire generation of young people experiencing a kind of "pokemonisation" of crypto well into early adulthood? In other words, is a generation of 20-somethings wasting the better part of that decade on this tech, in these scams? If so, this feels new (?). We're not talking about the chain-letter crazes of the 20s/30s, the housewife pyramid sche…

What the hell is this comment? And top comment on HN, what?

If the technology is useful it will be used. If it's not it will die on its own. You can NOT police technical skill.

What kind of mentality is this...?

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#105

Post by whoooooo123 »

pavlov wrote: post #65
World177 wrote: post #21

There are really interesting use cases of "Web3" As an example, consider domains. Ethereum Name Service domains are currently one of the most popular. If you use these domains, you instantly have access to the 10,000,000 people using MetaMask, and the 50,000,000 people using Brave Browser. They're actually very powerful when considering the centralization of normal domains. They allow you to create decentralized doma…

Are there really 10M active MetaMask users and 50M active Brave users? I mean, that's a lot. Twitter has ~200M daily active users and it's a service everybody knows. I've installed both products maybe five years ago, tried a few things and gave up, and there's no incentive in sight that would make me use them again. I suspect they're still counting me as a user on the brave web3 frontier because I have some wallets w…

Plenty of people, myself included, use Brave as a privacy-focused web browser without using or caring about any of its crypto features. Hell, I've been using Brave for years and I'm still not even sure what its crypto features are.

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#106

Post by jeswin »

varjag wrote: post #55
jeswin wrote: post #34

This is not a commentary on the article itself - I don't have an opinion on it. Most people who have experienced the pre-2000s web can tell what Web 2.0 was. It was a cultural shift in how apps were designed and used, and while the term was vague you could actually tell the difference as a user (eg: encyclopedias v/s wikis). At that point people were similarly critical of the term Web 2.0, and they weren't entirely w…

The technical foundation of Web 2.0 was simple: interactivity afforded by XMLHttpRequest. I have to see one yet to formulate what the hell Web 3.0 is under the hood, some definition a la "web but on blockchain" doesn't have enough meat on the bones.

AJAX was certainly a part of it, but it was also more than that. For example, wiki vs encyclopedias - early wikis made very limited use of AJAX, if at all.

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#107

Post by acomjean »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #26
k__ wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Mastodon basically shards data via instances. If someone shuts one down, the data there is gone. Plus, it's not permissionless. Most instances are invite only.

> Plus, it's not permissionless. Most instance admins first check if they like your face before you get in Is this really a blocker? If your face is really that objectionable, you can buy your own mastodon-as-a-service for single-digit dollars per month. (1) This doesn't seem at all "centralised" to me. 1) https://masto.host/

“New subscriptions are closed”.. guess business has been good the past few weeks.

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#108

Post by lpcvoid »

TimJRobinson wrote: post #98

I think the OP is missing what those kids actually desire when they say web3 - self sovereignty. They grew up in an era where a few big tech companies control most of their experiences, and you're completely locked into them unable to escape even if you hate the platform because that's where all your friends are. Web3 is where you can have one digital login owned by you that you can use for many services and you can…

But escaping the walled garden shouldn't be a synonym for cryptocurrency scams.

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#109

Post by acdha »

Communitivity wrote: post #96

Yes, there are a lot of scams in the crypto space. Yes, the terminology and hype make the SOA craze look like a toddler's tea. However, don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Some of the underlying technologies are valid, valuable, and might just play into whatever is in the future of the networking. The technologies I am talking about are: * Distributed Hash Tables (DHTs) * Distributed Ledgers * Abstracted di…

Most of those, and all of the useful ones, aren’t cryptocurrency technologies and were in use beforehand. When cryptocurrency salespeople complain about negativity it is in many cases because they’re pitching a system which shows no awareness of the problems encountered a decade or more before.

Now, maybe there’s some value in a prediction market which uses its own currency but that’s again not exactly revolutionary and a bit limited to build an entire field on.

Re: But, aren't you folks web2?

#110

Post by [deleted] »

k__ wrote: post #10
mjburgess wrote: post #4

For the first time my anger over crypto moves into genuine concern. Is an entire generation of young people experiencing a kind of "pokemonisation" of crypto well into early adulthood? In other words, is a generation of 20-somethings wasting the better part of that decade on this tech, in these scams? If so, this feels new (?). We're not talking about the chain-letter crazes of the 20s/30s, the housewife pyramid sche…

When I graduated, mobile was the big thing. That's old now. So, what to do to make a name for you? What big new field is there where you don't have to compete with people that have 10 times the experience than you? Independently of what you think web3 might solve or doesn't solve, it's still just programming. Someone learning cryptography and coding will get a job in other places.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN