Can we stop talking about web3 unless we're talking about an actual spec, service or product?
Why Web3?
41–50 of 706 posts
Re: Why Web3?
#42One thing that is confusing most loud supporters of Web3 are VCs and yet: "It all comes down to the database that sits behind an application. If that database is controlled by a single entity (think company, think big tech), then enormous market power accrues to the owner/administrator of that database. If, on the other hand, the database is an open public database that is not controlled and administered by a single…
Wouldn’t an open database lead to loads of ACID issues or is the point of blockchain to prevent that
Further, open databases will potentially make it harder for iterative change on that data.
Structures and versioning become harder when that is distributed at the protocol/standard level. Right now the web is already distributed, the protocols/standards are open and versioning data/content/apps/endpoints on top of that is easy, but updating protocols/standards takes time. Apps are a second layer to that, versioning is harder as you have to roll out updates and the OSs/standards they are built on are the slower changing part, web3 is even harder as updates and versioning of the protocol/standards AND the data/content on top will need to propagate and there may be pushback and splits/forks as we are seeing ETH being difficult to change core protocols/flows. There may be innovations on this as we go but also turbulence until that is realized.
For some areas like personal data and ledger data not changing much is good. For anything beyond that it makes it harder to change. Versioning and iterative change is already difficult in some cases when a company has full control over the structures. Getting multiple companies to agree on standards is harder, especially when that impacts revenues on those systems. The same will happen with web3 maybe more intensely. Right now even open standards are actively killed off because they share data. Right now "web2" could have shared databases, and there are some, but companies push away from that and actively look to own data which is a problem. However the same will happen with web3 at additional levels including the protocols/standards now.
What may happen is APIs public facades/interfaces/signatures are more atomic/stable and less changing which is always nice to have, with the guts of the structures being more keyed/document data formats. I am always a fan of iterative change that doesn't nuke the public interfaces/facades unless absolutely necessary. It may lead to "cleaner" more generic public interfaces potentially, but it may also lead to stagnate iterations and infighting like current web standards. In a way, web3 is more about standards than what is built on it. Standards can be flexible or not, both with their pros and cons.
In a way with cryptocurrency, the real goal of the investors of web3 is recreating the web with a sort of toll system, that can be good and bad but their aim is collecting on actions on new protocols/standards.
Taking control away from companies for important data like personal data and shared public data may be good, but there is also some trouble ahead and many things to work out. The same type of sharks that capture that data are looking to go lower in the stack and control that area, and extracting fees/tolls on the movement in that structure even if it is an open database. There are pros and cons to all of this.
Re: Why Web3?
#43This reads like an obligatory post on the topic with no real substance. I’m on mobile so it’s a good opportunity to succinctly express what I view as the major, near-future positives for Web3: - identity and trustless SSO via things like ENS and “sign in with {client such as metamask}” - data sovereignty, or at least less platform lock-in, especially for low/no code users - grants, crowdfunding, and other financial s…
Anytime the ENS sign in stuff is brought up, I feel obligated to point out the following:
Alex Van de Sande, the co-founder of ENS, posted in 2018 an interesting demo with UniLogin, "[Universal Logins demo for Ethereum](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5t94cCg6XE)". [The project was abandoned in 2020](https://medium.com/universal-ethereum/out-of-gas-were-shutti...).
This is a hard problem that needs a fantastic solution. I don't think sign in with Ethereum is better than UniLogin. UniLogin was good, the team was smart, and this was still too much of a problem for them to feel like it was worth their time to solve.
Then there's the significant problem of state expiry. How do you log out? I don't see that they're really addressing this problem. Right now the EIP has the attitude to "push that problem down to the servers". Websites need complete solutions, not more problems. Others have already made progress down this road, and I don't see anything different from what has already been done before.
Re: Why Web3?
#44[deleted]
Re: Why Web3?
#45there are no practical use cases for blockchain outside of git
Re: Why Web3?
#46I wish I could separate decentralized database from volatile investment. I understand that it can provide an incentive to get paid for essentially hosting part of the database. Is your average person benefiting from this or did we just give most of the centralization to mining farms where electricity is cheaper?
Is web3 crypto money? Is it peer to peer? Is it blockchain?
Does the blockchain really make sense for something like a HN clone or an instagram?
If I were trying to proselytize web3 I would be promoting tech demos and convincing people why it is better. Like the Rails blog video that blew all of our minds in the past. We all wanted to use Rails after that. The benefits were clear.
Re: Why Web3?
#47The author struggles to make the point that Web3 has value. Isn't "another opportunity for grift" a source of value for grifters?
Or even mention the “value” of the many DeFi apps that are available on the ethereum blockchain. What do they do? My real question is: why would an investor want to put money into a company that doesn’t “own” the data from their customers? Do they even _have_ customers? What is their business model? I know, I know - they make commissions on all those billions of transactions that will happen on the blockchain. Right?…
On a very small scale I am working on a next-generation web for myself and people immediately around me.
My #1 principle is cost minimization so that I don't need to worry about what it costs to run.
Futurists circa 1970 expected that people would be getting their news from something like cnn.com in the Early 1980s
https://www.niemanlab.org/2013/08/summer-reading-2013-the-in...
In some sense it came true in that you could access the AP newswire on Compuserve and the Source and that there were teletext services in Europe.
All of these faced bad economics. The cost of CompuServe was astronomical. The only one that came close to mass market was Minitel in France and that was because the phone company saw they could save money on directory services.
The web came along because technology had progressed an order of magnitude past feasibility to the point where people could publish stuff on the web and not worry about what it costs. That act of closing the circle and making it financial sustainable really trashed it.
Re: Why Web3?
#48because institutions lost their influence
no kids reads newspaper, nor they watch the TV, traditional propaganda has no effect on them
web3 would be a way to centralize everything again, so propaganda could be better targeted, opinions controlled, and easily censor-able
you lol'd at china and their social credit score system? don't be jealous, you'll have yours! but it wont be about being a good citizen, it'll be about being a servant consumerist
i see web3.0 as a way for the establishment to regain the influence they lost on their people
the boomers trying to stay relevant
the people late to the internet party, can't have a piece of the cake, so they want to force their way in
a way for societal scammers to keep doing what they love doing
NFT people? they can't wait selling art they bought for $5 from fivers and pretend you own a piece of a database they rent on digital ocean for $5 a month
lol, what a wonderful plan, definitely something China is jealous of, no wonder they are looking for ways to get the hell out of this planet and conquer the space
because there is one thing that would definitely kill our species, if the west tries to expand its shitty society outside of this dying planet
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i mean, people dream of meta verse, how ridiculous, therefore i can be ridiculous with my posts too! who cares, we not looking for transcending humankind, are we? my bad my bad, i mean, you not even trying lol
Re: Why Web3?
#49As time goes on, the ever-evolving nature of the predictions about how crypto will change the world for the better keeps looking more and more like the ever-evolving nature of the predictions we were seeing 50 years ago about how the space aliens were going to come along and change the world for the better.
Granted, crypto has a bit of an advantage over the space aliens in the race to realize a transformative impact on the world, by virtue of the fact that it actually exists. That's not the parallel I'm trying to draw here. It's more... it seems that they're both a situation where people are really just attached to this one amorphous romantic idea, and the specifics really don't matter at all. Meaning they can be freely reconfigured, at will and without much limit, in order to ensure we're always talking about something that's off in the future rather than something we might expect to happen now, let alone in the past. Which, something like that is absolutely perfect fodder for daydreaming.
So then I ask myself, "Is kicking a ball through it a core part of the plan, or is this goalpost really just a thing that's fun to move around?"
Perhaps my problem is that there's not really any romance in my soul.
Re: Why Web3?
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because experienced VCs know web 1.0 also started with decentralized / libertarian ideals, but ultimately early players built walled gardens and gatekeeping around the "world wide web". They don't want to miss the web3 boat, and they're betting the web 1.0/web 2.0 playbooks still apply.
Agreed. Most of the decentralization talk is Kabuki and it's still about controlling the platform.
Indeed, a world ruled by feudal lords and corporate fiefs still possesses as little liberty as one ruled by a centralized empire.