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Why Web3?

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Re: Why Web3?

#651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To start you Tweet off chain, and you only verify on chain. Most of the skeptics here seem to take pride in their shallow understanding of blockchain - most of these questions are posed with some idea that people want to post a million tweets a day on the Bitcoin blockchain. People smart enough to answer your questions don't actually hang out here - I would know, because I hang out with them where they are welcome. A…

Ok so if the data is off chain for the tweets, that off-chain resource becomes the gatekeeper, doesn't it? I am becoming convinced that there may be value somewhere in this open database, but I'm also convinced that 99% of the people advocating for web3 and making a ton of "money" on current token speculation do not know what this value will be. The most convincing application I can think of is a PGP for the modern w…

I'm not entirely sold.

Application data...

Let's say there's a Great Open Database of microblogging. This is somehow distributed across multiple systems, and sized so that it can handle the load, and provides a query language to make that database useful... Shoot, let's spin up a couple clusters of CouchDB and go from there and build a microblogging platform on top of that?

Does it solve the problem? It's trivial for anyone to spin up their own clone of a CouchDB - just replicate it. You want your own uncenersoable copy - its yours. And yes, there are numerous problems with this that as you pull the thread get to the point of "at some point, you're going to have to trust some central authority"

That might be where you're getting to the "PGP for the modern world" - though I'm going to contend that every solution has a similar problem of getting the average person to treat their keys securely... and that means having one copy and getting ransomeware or having key stealing malware has become much, much more problematic than it is in today's world. I believe that that social / computer literacy problem needs to be solved for the average person before one can reasonably move forward with PGP for the modern world.

Re: Why Web3?

#652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously you need a way to identify the real artist. For example if they put their public key on their official web site, it would be a pretty good indicator. People also used to create chains of trust with public key infrastructure. Maybe you trust Bob, and Bob trusts Alice, and Alice has personally met the artist at Burning Man and verified their key there. Or you go to the government and let them provide a regist…

> Obviously you need a way to identify the real artist Thats the point though. Nothing about the blockchain has anything to do with this part, and this is really the only part that matters. So, once again, my point stands. The private key has nothing to do with identifying the real artist. Instead, it is something else entirely that identifies the real artist. > on their official web site So then the official website…

" and this is really the only part that matters."

No it isn't. The point of NFTs is to prove ownership and facilitate trade. Not identifying creators.

Re: Why Web3?

#653
post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've asked for this many times (though not here) and still haven't received a satisfactory answer, so I'm curious: who said any of this? Is there a single influential architect of the net or the web who believed this or is this something that was and is a politically aspirational goal by special interest groups like the GNU folks?

One reference is “Free” by Chris Anderson, https://www.amazon.com/Free-Future-Radical-Chris-Anderson/dp... DHH has written about abundance as part of his approach to Rails, https://world.hey.com/dhh/i-won-t-let-you-pay-me-for-my-open... The “Post-scarcity economy” article on Wikipedia lists a number of references, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy Generally, computing trends toward abundance. Comp…

Right but none of these folks were associated with the origins of the net or the web at all. They're people who either inferred post-scarcity through trends they saw or wanted to apply an ideology to the net and the web. DHH is the only technical person in that list.

The reason this distinction is important is because a lot of folks try to make the case that the ideological origins of computer networking were with an eye toward post-scarcity, but this seems incorrect to me. Instead it seems to be ideological anger that the internet is not supporting post-scarcity economics.

Re: Why Web3?

#654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to hate on crypto, that's your prerogative but stop using the old, tired, false argument about money laundering. It is easier to launder money through the legacy financial system than through cryptocurrency. In fact, financial institutions and businesses do it all the time.

> It is easier to launder money through the legacy financial system than through cryptocurrency I work for a bank and this is a flat out lie. We have a significant number of controls (regulated by government agencies) for managing money laundering risk. We try to identify source/destinations who hide behind shell companies through beneficial ownership methods. We enforce domestic and international sanctions. We ident…

The issue is not how many ineffective pro-forma controls banks have. It's whether they stop the activity. Even the Economist agrees that money laundering through the lagacy financial system is out of control.

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/04/12/t...

Re: Why Web3?

#655
post #430

The current state of web3 reminds me of people building new game engines well before any reasonable game could be built on the platform. This happened a lot in the 90's/2000's in the Interactive Fiction community. Smart people would find IF, play a bunch of games, build a game or two, then decide the existing platforms "didn't fit their style or the kinds of features they wanted" and start discussing how _they_ would…

A lot of them are happening right now. The most interesting thing about Web3 is just how much stuff is being built. Really innovative financial models, huge DAO that are beginning to work, NFT communities that actually help people. It's happening right now, just join the discords.

Discord is a non-starter for wider usage.

List any usage that goes beyond crypto users. No one cares about DAO's or NFT's (scam).

Give us a real world application that millions of non-crypto users would benefit from?

Re: Why Web3?

#656
post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People want things to be cheap and convenient. Convincing yourself otherwise is a mistake.

False dichotomy. Convincing yourself that all blockchain will ever be is data posted in Bitcoin PKscripts is embarrassing.

No post body was provided.

Re: Why Web3?

#657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can literally mint infinite NFTs of the same piece of digital art. That's what I fathomed. What I don't get is why would anybody pay anything for them

The use cases are more than art. Art is a part of the equation, sure, and we see these... incredibly inflated prices being paid for art as insane. Digital art. That can be replicated. In which ownership of the NFT may/may not convey ownership of the artwork. Of course this sounds absolutely nuts, and people can be forgiven for believing it is absolutely nuts and that's all there is to it. But consider a very successf…

> Digital art. That can be replicated. In which ownership of the NFT may/may not convey ownership of the artwork. Of course this sounds absolutely nuts

So. Digital art can be replicated, and they may or may not convey ownership. And then you immediately turn around, replace "digital art" with "digital cards" and "perks" and pretend that this is now somehow different just because you're using NFTs for literally the same thing, but called a different name.

> That doesn't mean valid use cases won't emerge.

It means exactly that: valid use cases will not emerge because of what NFTs are.

Re: Why Web3?

#658
post #430

The current state of web3 reminds me of people building new game engines well before any reasonable game could be built on the platform. This happened a lot in the 90's/2000's in the Interactive Fiction community. Smart people would find IF, play a bunch of games, build a game or two, then decide the existing platforms "didn't fit their style or the kinds of features they wanted" and start discussing how _they_ would…

A lot of them are happening right now. The most interesting thing about Web3 is just how much stuff is being built. Really innovative financial models, huge DAO that are beginning to work, NFT communities that actually help people. It's happening right now, just join the discords.

> The most interesting thing about Web3 is just how much stuff is being built

The amount of stuff being built is really not interesting.

> Really innovative financial models

None of those financial models are innovative

> NFT communities that actually help people.

Yeah, right.

> It's happening right now, just join the discords.

Yup. The regular cultist words. "Just google it"

Re: Why Web3?

#659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is often not necessarily the case. For web3 - I'm still waiting to figure out what problem it can solve meaningfully.

That's more or less what the GP said. "If the technology is good" applies both to how well it works, but also how useful it is. Neither of those has a good answer yet. But the best way to see it being useful is to actually create an MVP and show it in practice, not through fancy words.

Was talking about "it'd sell itself". Good technology often doesn't sell itself.

Re: Why Web3?

#660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see a way it could make sense. The NFT contains text that declares what the buyer of it gets. For instance they get the right to use the digital art on their website. And maybe a right to sell that right to someone else if they stop using it on their website. If I tried to create such an NFT from someone else's art that would be fraud if I don't own the copyright to that art. Is that how it works in practice? D…

> Do NFTs (typically) include immutable text which clearly spells out what rights are transferred to the buyer of the NFT? This can be included immutably on-chain. Mostly it is done off-chain, which is ok, because enforcement of any such license would happen off-chain and in courts anyway. Frequently, no license details are given at all, which may also be ok, because people who collect fine art aren't doing it for th…

> In that sense, very limited use-rights are actually required

Specifically, what use rights does an NFT grant?

For photographs (and I have a small gallery of them collected over the years in art festivals and galleries), they're hanging on my wall... though I can't publicly display them (that's part of the copyright).

If I sell a print of a digital image (that I captured with a camera) and I sell a NFT of the same digital image, what are the differences in the use rights that the two buyers have?

If the digital image, hosted on a server that I maintain goes offline (I didn't pay my network solutions bill and someone else buys the domain), what does does the NFT retain rights to?

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