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Web3? I have my DAOts

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Re: Web3? I have my DAOts

#451
Practical Comparisons

  Web 2.0 censors people on Twitter | VS |  Web 3.0 won't do this
  Web 2.0 servers can fail | VS | Web 3.0 servers won't fail
  Web 2.0 reality | VS | Web 3.0 ideals
  
Circa 2004, when web 2.0 was inspiring similar articles. The ideals were democratisation, participation, bridging the web-user/webmaster dichotomy. A web where everyone could participate fully.

Just like today's web 3.0, the web 2.0 concept started from new technologies (ajax, xml, etc.) and it weaved an idealistic roadmap to where these would lead. The participatory, user generated web.

I think idealistic perspectives tend to fall into determinism fallacies. To pick on a cliche, Marx thought of socialism/communism as something that would happen almost inevitably. Web 2.0's technologies did not determine its outcomes. Neither will web 3.0's. It matters who will gain prominence. What their ideas are. What their interests are. What people choose. etc.

I agree that crypto, and other technologies have a lot of positive potential. Potential isn't outcomes though. A web 3.0 Zuckerberg is a scary thought, and I think it's just as likely as a positive outcome.

Re: Web3? I have my DAOts

#452
post #120

It's disingenuous for the author to present instances where some level of trusted actors is required in the near-term to make a service operational as voiding any claim of decentralization; obviously, the centralization of a network exists on a spectrum and where it's present in Web3 tech it's almost invariably more limited in scope than the centralization of their Web2.0 counterparts. Likewise his claim that APIs re…

Arguments about blockchain here on HN are frustrating. There are plenty of good examples of where it works very well but the mental gymnastic people go through to deny the obvious are incredible. The most basic to me is the Automatic Market Maker system. For example Uniswap is a system with only a few (relatively speaking) lines of a code at its core and a team of a couple of dozen. The system does billions of dollar…

> There are plenty of good examples of where it works very well but the mental gymnastic people go through to deny the obvious are incredible.

Blockchain is a very interesting technical implementation, but there's a gigantic step between being interesting technically and being world-changing. So yes, you'll find interesting applications on the blockchain, but it's not the magical solution that will revolutionize everything. Things like Uniswap are cool, but in the end it's just a currency trader. Helium looks to me like yet another attempt at crowdsourced wireless. I remember Fon from back in 2005, promised to change the communication landscape, and last I heard about them I think they pivoted to just offering WiFi tech to companies.

Re: Web3? I have my DAOts

#453
I do wonder if there will be a similar trajectory to crypto as happened to the web in the 90's.

It started as this niche academic/techno subculture thing and slowly grew over the next few years though still in relative obscurity. Then over only a few short years it exploded into the common consciousness but still most people did not use it nor have access to it. Some even ridiculed it (see Krugman & Letterman).

As we know the hype grew each year then each month and then each week. And before we knew it there were enormous amounts of money being pumped into building ludicrous businesses without a clear plan, product or use case. This was still at a time where internet access and daily usage did not exist for most people, not even in the western world.

This all came to head in the Dot Com bubble at the beginning of the new century.

And ever since we have seen mostly level headed investment and buildup of capabilities on the web. While it never went away, the type of hype cycle that was seen in the 90's never materialized to the same degree. Utility and more level headed thinking took over.

Rational (buisness) decisions have mostly been made ever since, rather than those more tending to give way to emotion and bro selling (selling a product/tech/idea without really understanding and coming to terms with the fundamentals and limitations of it).

Now, in my perspective there is some utility in crypto. I am not sure the utility is as much as has been reported, nor do I believe the nations on this planet will allow it to go as far as some believe it might simply for the fact that our societies run on taxes. And I am absolutely for any kind of restriction on any kind of crypto that relies of PoW with its enormous energy usage (we have better things to use it for).

But I do hope there will be a crash akin to the dot com bubble which will clean out the clutter a bit and leave room for the more mature and levelheaded inventors to grow out from the ashes.

Re: Web3? I have my DAOts

#454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sign-In with Ethereum" will be huge. I purposefully avoid "Sign-in with Google" because putting too much power in a centralized authority terrifies me. I'd much rather have the convenience of "Sign-In with X" but backed by something I have control over.

What is the difference between "Sign-in with Ethereum" and the signature-based auth that has been available for decades without blockchains?

1. Has an actual path to adoption (because people have keys and have a motivation to try hard to retain their keys because they have crypto assets)

2. Once smart contract wallets properly gain adoption, you'll be able to do recovery (see: https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/11/recovery.html )

3. Lots of built-in anti-sybil techniques (eg. verifying that the address has nonzero balance is a pretty simple and effective one)

Re: Web3? I have my DAOts

#455
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are probably tired of hearing this, but this is not a problem with wiring, it's a problem with US banks. When i bought my home in the UK six years ago, i phoned my bank, told them how much i wanted to send and to who, and they did it, with the money arriving straight away. If the amount had been less than 20k, i could have done it online rather than over the phone; the back-end payment machinery is the same, b…

This sounds worse than using a website: incredibly easy to steal money from the bank by faking voice and phone number.

You have to punch in your pin number and answer a security question before you can talk to anyone. As is standard for phone banking.

Re: Web3? I have my DAOts

#456
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you're talking about revenue vs. profit. That part of the "value" is still created, it just goes to the power company or the ASIC manufacturer instead of the miner. If you mine $100 worth of Bitcoin, there is $100 worth of Bitcoin created, whether the electricity cost you $20 or $120.

This is not how 'creating value' works. If you create something that sells for $100 but cost $100 to be produced, you have created zero value, and if it cost $120 you have destroyed value. In economics this is called added value, it's defined as the value of the output minus production costs. The sum of all added value over a period of time amounts to the GDP.

But if I build an ASIC computer for $100 and sell it to some miner for $120, have I (the ASIC company in China) not created $20 in value?

If Bitcoin goes to zero I still made my $20.

Re: Web3? I have my DAOts

#457

I find both the evangelism of and the hostility towards “Web 3” kind of silly. Obviously there’s some amount of interesting stuff and obviously there’s some amount of tech bro assholes getting rich who “shouldn’t”. Just like ~2008-2012, ~1999-2002, ~1994-1996, ~1982-1986, etc. On the technology side: distributed Byzantine consensus is an open problem with some promising prototypes. It would have very cool use cases:…

This is the best take I've seen on HN. It's unfair to judge tech by its scummiest users, just as it is unfair to present future potential as if it's already here. There is remarkable amount of technological innovation being created, if you care to dig deep.

I think Web3 will be a thing… we just don't know what and how exactly. It's like going to a very misty field, hoping to find something there. We'll find _something_.

Re: Web3? I have my DAOts

#458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

all the other assets that can absorb billions of dollars in liquidity are throughly manipulated Bitcoin is thoroughly manipulated. Tether is minting a billion dollars a day now, with zero oversight and close ties to the major exchanges. Exchanges themselves have been found front running customers, running wash trades on their own coins etc etc. Fraud is rampant in this space and there is zero oversight from the norma…

> trillions of dollars that tether has minted Tether has "only" minted $78 billion, not trillions

Sorry, tens of billions of dollars, not trillions, my mistake. They are currently adding 1 billion a day at times, where does that money come from?

Does anyone really believe 78,423,306,967 USD are currently invested in Tether?

Re: Web3? I have my DAOts

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do all those things without a blockchain. It's just more practical using a blockchain. I used to survive without a cellphone. It wasn't hard. You just called your friends when you and they were at home.

> It's just more practical using a blockchain. In which shape, way, or form is it more practical with a blockchain?

Are you saying it's not more practical for me to pay $100 for a bottle of wine that will be made sometime in the future plus $60 in transition fees!?

Re: Web3? I have my DAOts

#460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

all the other assets that can absorb billions of dollars in liquidity are throughly manipulated Bitcoin is thoroughly manipulated. Tether is minting a billion dollars a day now, with zero oversight and close ties to the major exchanges. Exchanges themselves have been found front running customers, running wash trades on their own coins etc etc. Fraud is rampant in this space and there is zero oversight from the norma…

Everything can be manipulated, but bitcoin compared to any other asset we know, is the only thing that cant be changed. You can create a new bitcoin but you cant create the same bitcoin and thats makes all the difference in the world.

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