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Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

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Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#401
post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternate take: How are NFTs not a more decentralized version of digital goods that already exist? Game companies (Epic, Activision-Blizzard-Microsoft, etc.) have been (a) creating (b) limited number (c) digital goods that (d) can only be acquired / traded on their platforms and according to their terms. How are NFTs not (a)+(b)+(c), except without the post-sale, first party control of (d)? Personally, I think NFTs a…

>How are NFTs not a more decentralized version of digital goods that already exist? I don't think they are. In practice they also suffer from (d) because the large majority of NFTs appear to be traded exclusively on Opensea. I don't expect this to change at all because any system like this requires some kind of centralized authority to enforce initial ownership of the art before it's placed on the chain, otherwise yo…

Ownership attestation is a pretty common service. Law companies do the same thing for home titles during real estate purchases, and there's definitely more than one provider of that service!

> there is no value to anyone in having alternate trading platforms for these goods, all value is derived from being verified by a particular platform and baked into that platform

Some value is derived from being verified. People sell stolen merchandise and art all the time, albeit at a discount to actual price. And there's nothing intrinsic to that verification that requires Opensea.

If there were an equally trustworthy provider, or even a provider that offered better title insurance, why would people still use Opensea?

> there is no value in trading a Fortnite dance outside of Fortnite

And here's where I think the slightly interesting component is. Isn't there?

If Epic says "ownership of this digital thing gives you this other thing in game", imagine there are two ways to trade that digital thing: (1) within Epic's internal platform, or (2) on an open Blockchain.

Doesn't it stand to reason that (2) is a clearer ownership claim, with less control, and therefore more valuable? And if it's more valuable, then isn't Epic incentivized to sell their digital goods on Blockchain (and get better prices for them) than their internal platform?

Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#402
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might draw comparisons to the stock market. The Dow Jones lost 90% of its value in the Great Depression, but we didn't do away with the stock market altogether. We fixed the structural problems because there is clear utility to the trading of corporate securities.

Currencies that lose 90% of their purchasing power tend to get replaced. Equities/securities? Not so much. I think the point is that Bitcoin is either a terrible currency, or not a currency at all but an equity.

Do they? I more often see a mere slashing of a few zeroes and maybe a slightly different name, but with the old one being convertible and keeping the same monetary policy.

Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but you don't know me, I've seen lots of BTC/ETH maxis who adopted the term early and continue to use the term to describe their efforts (and it's really not hard to find them doing this on HN and Twitter either) so if you disagree with their assertions and think they're misinformed I suggest you take that up with them and not me.

You made the comment not them, if you don't know about something its best to keep your ill informed opinions to yourself.

I have read countless research papers and press releases and blogs and open source code relating to web3 over the past few years, so if I'm ill informed then it sounds like you're suggesting that pretty much everyone else is also. If there is some secret I'm missing, now is your chance to say it. Please try to make more substantial comments. Thanks.

Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#404
post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How are NFTs not a more decentralized version of digital goods that already exist? I don't think they are. In practice they also suffer from (d) because the large majority of NFTs appear to be traded exclusively on Opensea. I don't expect this to change at all because any system like this requires some kind of centralized authority to enforce initial ownership of the art before it's placed on the chain, otherwise yo…

Ownership attestation is a pretty common service. Law companies do the same thing for home titles during real estate purchases, and there's definitely more than one provider of that service! > there is no value to anyone in having alternate trading platforms for these goods, all value is derived from being verified by a particular platform and baked into that platform Some value is derived from being verified. People…

>Ownership attestation is a pretty common service. Law companies do the same thing for home titles during real estate purchases, and there's definitely more than one provider of that service!

Sure, but now we're back to talking about properties of the good old common law legal system, which in some ways is already decentralized. It's not benefiting from anything provided by blockchains and crypto.

>If there were an equally trustworthy provider, or even a provider that offered better title insurance, why would people still use Opensea?

To me, it's the same reason everyone still uses Amazon. Blockchains don't change this dynamic.

>If Epic says "ownership of this digital thing gives you this other thing in game", imagine there are two ways to trade that digital thing: (1) within Epic's internal platform, or (2) on an open Blockchain.

Public blockchains do not provide any additional value here. The only important part is if there is consensus between the two parties to agree that the digital thing should mean something in both places. A public "trustless" blockchain is just noise as far as this goes. The whole thing doesn't work if there is no trust between the two parties to agree that token A should correspond to both item B and item C.

>Doesn't it stand to reason that (2) is a clearer ownership claim, with less control, and therefore more valuable? And if it's more valuable, then isn't Epic incentivized to sell their digital goods on Blockchain (and get better prices for them) than their internal platform?

I don't see how this is the case. If I'm not mistaken, you're talking about transferring an item from an Epic game to another game. That means Epic gets the initial payout for the item and the company making the other game gets nothing but still has to expend time and money supporting items that Epic got paid for. I can't see why they would agree to that.

The ownership claim also isn't clearer, both companies could still just decide to shut down their games simultaneously or retire those items and now you're left with nothing.

Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#405
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I don't think it's about personal sites at all and I wouldn't rely on the limited history of the internet but you'd see decentralized services have flourished until powers at be shut them down or gobbled them up. To those with different priorities than what I listed (privacy, ownership) they usually care about usability, and decentralized platforms can be just as usable and popular. I think all the hate is from th…

> Ask yourself, why are you rooting against this thing? I'm rooting against scammers using something I do care about as a sales tactic for something which has failed to find market demand.

Root against scammers on web[0-9], don't root against the tech.

Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You made the comment not them, if you don't know about something its best to keep your ill informed opinions to yourself.

I have read countless research papers and press releases and blogs and open source code relating to web3 over the past few years, so if I'm ill informed then it sounds like you're suggesting that pretty much everyone else is also. If there is some secret I'm missing, now is your chance to say it. Please try to make more substantial comments. Thanks.

I don't need to write an essay to point out you are wrong.

Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#407
post #222

Free markets and network effects leads to the accumulation of wealth and power by the few. Piketty did the hard work of documenting this. Getting away from theory and into business strategy, network effects are an often discussed strategy in start-up culture to become a "unicorn". What is a unicorn? Usually the winner of a battle to seize a market leveraging "disruption" brought on by new technology. A truly decentra…

The great thing about crypto is that anyone can make a coin. Crypto is not anti-democratic. It's not pro-democratic either. It's simply egalitarian in the classical sense of the word.

Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you go into how blockchain might solve those problem? Because it seems to create them instead

I can try, but to be totally clear this is only an idea that I have in my head, and is far from fully formed. But as far as I understand, it should be possible for a user on a blockchain, to have their set of data encrypted in the ledger. It should also be possible to implement a sort of permission scheme. So I am imagining, instead of relying on things like Epic Systems and other EHR systems, that control your data…

The question is not just how do you get existing systems to integrate, it's how do you ensure that everyone uses the same blockchain? Technological solutions don't magically force anyone to agree on things and interoperate.

Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#409
post #103

Diehl regularly neglects disclosing his conflict of interest when railing on crypto - he is CTO of a centralized block chain company that will be selling to governments and central banks.

And everybody pumping crypto owns crypto, but that isn’t a COI?

[deleted]

Re: Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen

#410
post #103

Diehl regularly neglects disclosing his conflict of interest when railing on crypto - he is CTO of a centralized block chain company that will be selling to governments and central banks.

And everybody pumping crypto owns crypto, but that isn’t a COI?

~it is~

But they don’t hide it

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