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Web3 is a stupid idea

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Re: Web3 is a stupid idea

#211

Post by giantrobot »

Nevermark wrote: post #180
warkdarrior wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may not be the selling point you think it is, since most people are not creators looking to monetize their content. Your statement then sounds like: "Envision web3: your opportunity to pay to visit any website!"

Most people are sick of ads and would happily pay 1/10 a cent to read a quality article, especially if the process was frictionless. And most creators would love to keep their content open for everyone, but not have icky ads cluttering up their content. I think you are underestimating how much micropayments will iron out a lot of problems for a lot of people. Host your own scrapbook page (er, Facebook) for penny's wi…

> Most people are sick of ads and would happily pay 1/10 a cent to read a quality article, especially if the process was frictionless.

I don't know that an article is quality until I am done reading it. I already paid for my ISP, my electricity, and my computer equipment. I'm spending my finite amount of time reading it. Why would I pay extra for the privilege? Unless I will materially gain from reading it, i.e. "here's a discount code for your next month's ISP bill", I'm just gambling 1/10th of a cent that I might get some sort of emotional contentment reading an article.

Even if the content of the article is good, what if the presentation sucks making it physically difficult to read. For my 1/10th of a cent am I getting an easily accessible form of the content? If I want to read the content again will I have to pay another 1/10th of a cent? If my 1/10th of a cent for a single page view or a full read of the content, if the host breaks up an article over multiple pages am I paying for each one? Can I freely download and use the content within the bounds of Fair Use? What are the full terms of my transaction?

While you're trying to make the case for some trivial amount of money, if everyone is asking for a trivial amount of money then in aggregate it's no longer a trivial amount for users. If I can't get a refund if an article sucks then I am not interested. If a website has to potentially give refunds to users then they won't be interested.

Even with micro-transaction payments websites have the same perverse incentives to get traffic as ones that run advertisements. The more traffic they get the more money they make. Content producers will also eventually require some sort of onerous DRM to make sure that every single view of some bit of content is paid for with a micro-transaction.

Re: Web3 is a stupid idea

#212

Post by def_true_false »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #184
def_true_false wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, a crypto thread on HN that's not 95% sour grapes? Well, color me surprised. Did a larger part of the usual HN crowd manage to get in at the start of the bull run this time?

Not really, the comment is describing an actual use case and unique value proposition of cryptocurrency, rather than talking about market price.

Yeah, it was about the thread in general. Apologies.

Re: Web3 is a stupid idea

#213

Post by giantrobot »

xtracto wrote: post #147
binarymax wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your last phrase is really what gets me. Why should any web delivery platform get "clogged up" by content? If this becomes popular, then it just gets slower and more painful to use in ways that aren't fixed by adding more infrastructure? Also, what is the value add that can be explained to someone who just wants to use the web and leaving the jargon like permisionlessness and composability aside? What reason would an…

It reminds me of 90s internet: First, there was the web. Then we got images slowly downloading at 56kbps. Then we got MODs and Midi , and suddenly we had MP3s clogging the existing 56kbps infrastructure. Until we started getting ISDN and broadband: 128k , 256k ! And we got RealVideo ... which kept 'buffering' and clogging the infrastructure. Later we got mp4, bittorrent and whatnot. This absolutely clogged our low sp…

> Then we got MODs and Midi , and suddenly we had MP3s clogging the existing 56kbps infrastructure.

This is just wrong and not in any way analogous to some blockchain network getting clogged up.

Your first problem is you've got your causation backwards. Fast dial-up facilitated access to larger media files. People didn't get 56k modems to download MP3s, they downloaded MP3s because they had 56k modems. Even then MP3s (and other media) were commonly 64k and 96k rips because people had limited bandwidth and storage space. You'd only find 128k MP3s and the like on specialty F-serves and FTPs.

Your second problem is RealMedia content was very specifically tuned to work over dial-up connections. RealVideo's buffering problems were very often last-mile bandwidth and latency issues. Even great 56k dial-up had quarter second RTTs, single digit percentage packet loss, and topped out at ~45kbps actual payload throughput. RealMedia servers (and the file and stream formats) explicitly supported multiple streams based on your available bandwidth. That's why RealPlayer had a dropdown asking what type of Internet connection you had, a single RM file or stream endpoint could actually serve multiple streams at different bitrates just like today's HTTP streaming. While a single RealMedia server might be congested if it had tons of clients the backbone networks had plenty of bandwidth and were typically not "clogged up" from RealMedia servers.

Lastly, the problem with Ethereum and other blockchains is their backbones are clogged up with speculative transactions. They're not scaling to meet current demands for transactions and only maybe possibly will scale in the future to handle future amounts of transactions. The Ethereum case is in fact the clogged backbone you were trying to ascribe to the Internet of the past.

Re: Web3 is a stupid idea

#214

Post by vmoore »

rchaud wrote: post #164
vmoore wrote: post #59

Web3 is hardly stupid (it's actually very clever). The name if off-putting more than anything. When I think of Web 3.0, I think of augmented reality, every physical thing having its own QR code which you can look up easily with a smartphone. And if the thing is too small, it could have a chip in it that communicates with NFC and you could learn more about your environment. We're still sort of there, but the dream of…

QR codes are about the easiest possible attack vector for malware. Is there a decentralized malware scanner that I can pass the QR code through first?

> QR codes are about the easiest possible attack vector for malware

It's up to Android and iOS (and others) to make sure QR codes are not an 'easy' attack vector.

Why should it be the case that sending an SMS with a (malware-loaded) bit.ly link takes over your phone?

If the phone OS does `principle of least privilege` and sandboxing, and other mitigations then the user should be fine.

Re: Web3 is a stupid idea

#215

Post by puranjay »

masa331 wrote: post #198
puranjay wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just today I paid for access to a data tool, icy.tools. I simply connected my Metamask wallet, clicked on “Unlock premium”, confirmed the transaction, and it was done. Normally, I’d have to make an account (and doge the obligatory “sign up with Google” button), fill a form, enter my credit card info, confirm my otp on the payment site, check my email for an authentication link before using the product. Along the way,…

So wait, you were finally able to.... pay for something online? That's possible for how long now? 30 years? You compared process of one specific app with process of some other app. Yes, some apps are harder to register for, some are easier. Some want more info about you, some less. That again is nothing new. I can create app like icy.tools without collecting any usual personal info with normal web technologies also.…

There is simply no way to make payments without bypassing banks. If you think banks are great and have never ever been involved in anything bad, go ahead and keep on doing you.

If you think they’re not, come join us this side.

You: give your data to big corps, make no money. I: keep my data, also make wild money as an early adopter.

I see this as an easy decision

Re: Web3 is a stupid idea

#216

Post by puranjay »

rchaud wrote: post #209
puranjay wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Web3 gives me immediate access to a global, always-on, completely decentralized market with absolutely no gatekeepers. Money has always had gatekeepers. Sure, Stripe et al have made the barriers to entry lower, but they've only replaced legacy gatekeepers with newer ones. For the longest time, I couldn't even accept payments easily from US customers on my eCommerce site because Stripe wasn't available in my home coun…

So if I understand correctly, the benefits of Web 3 are largely payment related. It still doesn't sound like something the general public would adopt. You have to learn a whole new way of doing things, in order to get paid in a currency that has no use outside of asset speculation.

> So if I understand correctly, the benefits of Web 3 are largely payment related

And payment/finance/money is arguably the most important industry in any capital-oriented society and has a deep impact on the way people live. And for the vast majority of people, existing systems don’t work

How many people tell you that they love their bank or their credit card company?

We tend to build better versions of everything that’s disliked enough but somehow, we’ve decided that our banks and lenders will always be awful and corrupt and we should be okay with it.

Sure, you can make a better app for your bank, but the core will still be that same opaque black box.

Re: Web3 is a stupid idea

#217

Post by [deleted] »

singularity2001 wrote: post #186
Nevermark wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Micropayments need to be frictionless. If a 1 cent payment requires more than 1 cent of a persons time, it is not a workable system. Many people would love to auto pay 1 or 2 cents a page view, to no longer see ads. It might take a while, but I think eventually most people not in financial hardship will be happy to do that. (And people in financial hardship are not the best people to put ads in front of.)

I tried micropayments three years ago but transaction fees of up to a dollar forbade 1 cent payments. Is this solved now somehow?

[deleted]

Re: Web3 is a stupid idea

#218

Post by Premiuum »

singularity2001 wrote: post #186
Nevermark wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Micropayments need to be frictionless. If a 1 cent payment requires more than 1 cent of a persons time, it is not a workable system. Many people would love to auto pay 1 or 2 cents a page view, to no longer see ads. It might take a while, but I think eventually most people not in financial hardship will be happy to do that. (And people in financial hardship are not the best people to put ads in front of.)

I tried micropayments three years ago but transaction fees of up to a dollar forbade 1 cent payments. Is this solved now somehow?

Yes, the Premiuum Network (available in over 40 languages) enables 0.01 - 0.99 transactions @ 10% transaction fee:

https://Premiuum.net

Send us an email: support@Premiuum.net

Tell us about your specific use case, and we'll be happy to get you sorted.

Cheers.

Re: Web3 is a stupid idea

#219

Post by aabbcc1241 »

puranjay wrote: post #159
rchaud wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this substantially different from a website with a PayPal button? That's 2-3 clicks, max. The only difference seems to be that with PP I pay with real money, and Web3 is with cryptocurrencies only.

What if I don't want to share my email, phone number, bank account, and credit card data with PayPal? Its really disturbing to me that privacy and data rights get absolutely zero consideration even on HN.

I can buy pre-paid debit card from convenience store, that can be used for PayPal with an one-off email.

In traditional world, it's not hard to pay. But hard to receive.

With cryptocurrency, it's still not easy to convert to/from transitional money. Unless you can stay within the cryptocurrency for the whole cycle.

Re: Web3 is a stupid idea

#220

Post by gfodor »

pphysch wrote: post #176
gfodor wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is refuted by the fact the technology to solve the problem you claim will never be solved literally already exists, one version of which has a market cap of almost $10B.[1] Claiming that a very obvious engineering problem incentivized to being solved is the same as imagining us being incentivized to regress in the way you mention is also weird. [1] https://www.avax.network/

Please tell me how an Avalanche blockchain is able to handle billions of global P2P transactions a day.

I presumed you were using “blockchain” as a short hand for “distributed fault tolerant system that solves Byzantine generals problem.” If not then I agree blockchains in the literal sense probably are a transitional tech.
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