Web3 and crypto skepticism is growing and people are finally starting to listen • Hacker News Board

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

#431

Post by hemloc_io » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 9:58 PM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #363

hemloc_io wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the steelman arg I've found for crypto as a general social media replacement is based on three pillars. 1. Ownership by default. NFTs are kinda a silly example, but since your wallet ("You") own your the token that represent your assets being able to transfer them around with you whenever you go somewhere new is cool. 2. Authentication with your wallet makes things much better. SSO for the whole web. 3. Align…

> 2. Authentication with your wallet makes things much better. SSO for the whole web. SSO for the whole web means if you do something deemed "bad" you can be blacklisted from every service at the same time. How is this good?

Sure, but that's effectively that happens already with our centralized gatekeepers.

See what happened to Alex Jones, regardless of if you think it was justified or not.

With a crypto wallet, you don't have to start from scratch with a new account on a service that doesn't ban you because you own that data, in theory you could even port your social graph over.

I don't think this is inherent to crypto, but it is inherent to decentrazlied open standards like Mastedon for example. The advantage that crypto "wallets" have here is that it's not just for social media, it can be for payments etc.

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

#432

Post by hemloc_io » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 10:05 PM UTC

rjvs wrote: post #276

hemloc_io wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the steelman arg I've found for crypto as a general social media replacement is based on three pillars. 1. Ownership by default. NFTs are kinda a silly example, but since your wallet ("You") own your the token that represent your assets being able to transfer them around with you whenever you go somewhere new is cool. 2. Authentication with your wallet makes things much better. SSO for the whole web. 3. Align…

You already own any assets that you create by default. If you type a message into a text editor, you own the copyright on it. Under Facebook's Terms of Use, you more-or-less give up that ownership when you paste it into a form on their website. There is no intrinsic limitation in Web 2.0 technology that robs us of ownership, it is business incentives that do it. Please explain how adding a crypto wallet or blockchain…

Sure, I don't disagree with you. I'd ask what's the likelihood that we create new regulation that says that Facebook has to let you own your own content, or even export that content.

I wouldn't say it's very high, where crypto is here now, and the default design is with ownership in mind. Plus with crypto's money side you can find different business models than traditional web companies. (As a matter of fact with a public blockchain data probably becomes a lot cheaper on a mass scale.)

Crypto maximalism IMO is a "doomer" position, the idea of burning down more efficient and established systems for a new one.

I personally don't know if it's a functional idea, but I can see a case.

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

#433

Post by hemloc_io » Wed, Jan 26, 2022, 10:14 PM UTC

jboy55 wrote: post #273

hemloc_io wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the steelman arg I've found for crypto as a general social media replacement is based on three pillars. 1. Ownership by default. NFTs are kinda a silly example, but since your wallet ("You") own your the token that represent your assets being able to transfer them around with you whenever you go somewhere new is cool. 2. Authentication with your wallet makes things much better. SSO for the whole web. 3. Align…

One of the biggest issues I have with this is, I don't want you to see my friend list. I don't want you to see my wall, I don't want you to glean my interests by reading the public ledger. If you say, well, all of that is stored locally, or can be imported and exported to any 'front end' such as facebook/twitter. There's another big issue, what if your friends don't want to exist on that front end? Either events/post…

Hmmm I feel like this is technically in the weeds, but I'll try and come up with an answer.

I'd assume a social network's storage layer would be distributed as well, on IPFS or something similar with an encrypted blob that includes all your content.

Paired with a privacy focused scheme like Monero's where you can't see the contents of wallets you could keep the contents of social graph hidden, and do some transactions around.

I'd also say that privacy wise it's not like our current systems are perfect. You had reddit admins deleting and modifying people comments for example.

Not as bad as the general public being able to see your interactions, but not great if employees at these companies can see all your things you'd rather keep private. (And the design of these services makes it so that from a business perspective they want to see that data for targeting, and from a customer service perspective you want to be able to debug issues unlike crypto which rn has no CS expectations.)

0: https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13739026/reddit-ceo-stev...