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Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

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Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#181

Post by [deleted] »

carlosdp wrote: post #126
jdlshore wrote: post #11

Several years ago, Mozilla/Firefox created "Persona," which was an open-source federated identity system that provided all the benefits described here. The idea was that it would eventually be built into browsers. I used it on a commercial site myself for many years. It failed to gain traction, and Mozilla eventually pulled the plug. Persona had many advantages over the Web3 vision described in this article. It was p…

I joined the team at Mozilla that developed Persona as an intern, just as they closed it down. Persona failed because it was fighting against a head-wind of an already established trend of using Google/FB OAuth2, without giving the service provider any new benefits. There was no incentive for a website to actually implement Persona, since it was just another auth provider and users weren't using it. Users didn't use…

[deleted]

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#182

Post by gillesjacobs »

ilogik wrote: post #137
mattlondon wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> uncensorability I suspect that this will be a major issue in the long-run. Once these sort of crypto-based logins become synonymous with CP and terrorism, they're going to be shunned by the average person on the street. Yes yes yes, people use email and whatsapp for the same, but at least there is the option for Google and Facebook to censor or block/ban those users (and it feels like there is increasing legal/legi…

if I run an online service, and you login with web3, if you're an asshole, I can still ban your "indelible" account

In that case you're running a traditional centralised web2 service. If your service runs as a set of smart contracts, anyone willing to pay the fees can always use it. Forever.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#183

Post by ziml77 »

meheleventyone wrote: post #27
thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #20

Why can't this be done with existing public key cryptography?

There’s even a standard for doing this with WebAuthn.

WebAuthn is exactly what I thought of too... and hardly anyone is supporting it. In fact the only place I've seen it was Best Buy's website, oddly enough! Having yet another way to do this sort of authentication isn't going to magically make people start using it.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#184

Post by voidmain »

jdlshore wrote: post #11

Several years ago, Mozilla/Firefox created "Persona," which was an open-source federated identity system that provided all the benefits described here. The idea was that it would eventually be built into browsers. I used it on a commercial site myself for many years. It failed to gain traction, and Mozilla eventually pulled the plug. Persona had many advantages over the Web3 vision described in this article. It was p…

The new hot take (I heard it from Matt Levine, I think, but I doubt it's original to him) is that pyramid schemes solve the adoption problem for technologies with network effects.

Everyone would be better off with better identity management, but it's not worth anyone's time to be one of the first users of a system with no sites supporting it or one of the first site supporting a system with no users. The web3 version of this will be something where if it takes off the first adopters get super rich at the expense of late adopters, and that makes it take off.

Similarly, conventional profit models incentivize the creators of a technology to make it as centralized and locked in as possible, so that they can profit off it over time. The pyramid scheme business model incentivizes the creators to make a decentralized and open system, so that they don't have to do any work over time once it takes off.

Is this the special kind of stupidity that only really smart people can aspire to, or the special kind of genius that only really stupid people can? Time will tell, I guess.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#185

Post by vsareto »

rchaud wrote: post #169
endisneigh wrote: post #84

So what happens when you get phished with Web3? If the value of all crypto goes down 10% YoY why would you use it? The author makes a bunch of silly assumptions: > We need some way of saying “who we are” on the internet in a consistent manner. That way we can communicate with others in a verified way and associate with digital data that we own. We also often need that data to be interoperable between different web pr…

> No, this is not true. That's why most people on this site are not logging in through Google. Sites will store their own data, and if you trust them to store that data there’s really no reason to just trust them to store a link to your identity. You're missing the point. Yes, we don't need oAuth to log into HN. But HN is a site that is over 15 years old, and reflects the technology of its time. Instead, look at the…

> I doubt that's allowed now.

It is. You have to hit next when prompted to enter an email address when registering (the input is not required)

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#186

Post by betwixthewires »

MBCook wrote: post #164
betwixthewires wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keys are identities. Someone claiming to be you doesn't matter. Always defer to keys. A non public ledger would be something agreed upon by participants only. So you and I and 5 other people for example could run some type of organization using some private way to keep track of state. You choose to trust it, if you don't, then don't use it.

If it doesn’t need a public ledger, why do you need a blockchain in the first place?

It doesn't have to be a blockchain. All these people selling "blockchain" are selling hype, the only reason you need a blockchain is if you're in an adversarial, permissionless environment and need consensus on state, and possibly need a record of historical state.

In a private system, you just need consensus among participants, potentially in an adversarial environment, but decidedly not a permissionless environment. As long as state can be kept, depending on the constraints of the system any sort of consensus and canonical state keeping mechanism would work. Could be a blockchain or something resembling one, could just be a document and it's hash kept by all participants and updated when the participants agree to a change. How complex you make consensus in a permissioned system depends on the goals and constraints of the system.

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#188

Post by kenjackson »

thesandlord wrote: post #156
carlosdp wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I joined the team at Mozilla that developed Persona as an intern, just as they closed it down. Persona failed because it was fighting against a head-wind of an already established trend of using Google/FB OAuth2, without giving the service provider any new benefits. There was no incentive for a website to actually implement Persona, since it was just another auth provider and users weren't using it. Users didn't use…

> Websites that integrate web3 wallet login do get something new: built-in, straightforward payment rails. Is this really any better than Apple/Google pay? Those are already set up, trustworthy, I don't need to convert my fiat into a cryptocurrency than can swing in value wildly, and it's super easy to set up with stripe or any of the other platforms that the website is probably already using.

I'm not very knowledgeable about Web3, but what you point out, I also find confusing. Why do I need to use ETH to buy an NFT -- my credit card should just do fine -- shouldn't it?

Clicking the "Connect My Wallet" button is kind of fun. But I feel like I've gained nothing over just using my credit card -- in fact my credit card provides me (as the consumer) tons more benefit than using ETH -- and don't get me started on gas fees!

Re: Real Problems That Web3 Solves, Part 1

#189

Post by luhn »

carlosdp wrote: post #126
jdlshore wrote: post #11

Several years ago, Mozilla/Firefox created "Persona," which was an open-source federated identity system that provided all the benefits described here. The idea was that it would eventually be built into browsers. I used it on a commercial site myself for many years. It failed to gain traction, and Mozilla eventually pulled the plug. Persona had many advantages over the Web3 vision described in this article. It was p…

I joined the team at Mozilla that developed Persona as an intern, just as they closed it down. Persona failed because it was fighting against a head-wind of an already established trend of using Google/FB OAuth2, without giving the service provider any new benefits. There was no incentive for a website to actually implement Persona, since it was just another auth provider and users weren't using it. Users didn't use…

> Websites that integrate web3 wallet login do get something new: built-in, straightforward payment rails.

I'm not convinced it's that a large benefit.

For the foreseeable future, any website that aspires to be anything more than a niche web3 player will need to support web2 auth and web2 payments. So web3 is just adding layers, not removing them. Until web3 becomes powerful enough that you're losing customers because you aren't supporting it, there's no incentive to support it. (Exactly the same predicament Persona was in.)

Additionally, cryptocurrency is not practical as a currency right now because of high transaction fees and slow settlement. This situation won't change until layer 2 networks come of age, which seem to have been "just around the corner" for the past five years.

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