This is a good answer for that: https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1434530149119135753
That's a lot of words to, essentially, say "OK, Boomer".
Web3 is a stupid idea
91–100 of 220 posts
Re: Web3 is a stupid idea
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
This dream of penny transactions is as old as the web — even HTTP status code 402 was reserved for this purpose [1], but a unified solution never happened. Many startups have tried building add-ons and other solutions for this, but it doesn't seem to be a very attractive proposition to a larger user base. People seem to prefer subscriptions rather than nickel-and-diming each piece of content. (Consider how Spotify an…
Everyone I've talked to (and my personal feeling) is that people are kind of sick of the number of subscriptions they have and have to maintain. I think the microtransaction thing never took off not because it's a bad idea, but because it never was built-in and legit feeling and widespread. If I just had a general crypto wallet where I could add some spending money every once in a while, and I could use that to unpay…
While subscription fatigue is very real, I’m not sure micro transactions solves anything either. In fact, a great example is IAPs - most revenue is dominated by whales, with the rest barely transacting significantly at all.
Re: Web3 is a stupid idea
#93Even an ideal blockchain-ified P2P "Web 3.0" is a silly fantasy on par with NAT-less IPv4. First they reinvented gold & databases, now they are reinventing IP. Flat networks are a thing of the past, when you could keep the whole Internet in a paper directory on your desk. Blockchains may be used for settlement and accounting within small networks of international firms, but they will never service the latency and thr…
I suggest you look into blockchains like Solana and Fantom, there have been some technological advancements lately that allow crazy fast and cheap transactions (with some other downsides of course). I think of the current state of crypto as a kind of a wild west situation, there's still so much to be discovered and there's a lot of competition between different tokens to see who can do something better than the other…
Fantom: "Each network built in Fantom is independent from one another."
Solana: "Many [Solana] clusters may coexist. When two clusters share a common genesis block, they attempt to converge. Otherwise, they simply ignore the existence of the other."
Continuing my analogy, now they've gone and reinvented NAT/"IP federation", and destroyed the global P2P nature of Bitcoin. They've readded middlemen to online payments. Remind me what problem they are solving?
Re: Web3 is a stupid idea
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
People are building things like renewed web standards (Project Fugu, for example) and P2P networks (Beaker, Hypercore), and light clients (Mighty). These projects don't get any attention from the "Web3" crowd because they don't involve currency speculation.
You cannot separate economics incentives from networking protocols. You need an actual sepeculative market to price and offer these services. Most of open source fails because they don't acknowledge this reality.
What about bittorrent?
Re: Web3 is a stupid idea
#95I was around for web 2.0, and it felt like a substantial change over how the web worked previously. It was the first glimpse that the web was capable of replacing the desktop apps we were accustomed to, while simultaneously adding new capabilities that didn't exist in desktop apps. There was a lot more to it, but to the casual user that was the most obvious difference. This was the first thing I've read about web 3,…
That's because "Web 3" is more of a marketing term, whereas "Web 2.0" was a descriptive term coined for something that had already emerged in the preceding years from countless independent implementations, evolving together.
When "Web 2.0" was named, most of the techniques had been used for over a decade, and social networking side of it was well established too. Even "AJAX" was coined years after some sites were already using that technique, without that name.
Web 3 is an attempt to portray p2p, cryptocurrency, IPFS and similar types of networks as on an equal footing to the evolutionary changes that vaguely made up Web 2.0.
In particular, the name implies it's "the" (singular) next version of the Web after 2.0.
But it's too early to be sure of that. Most people aren't using it, most sites aren't using it either and don't plan to. The real successor to Web 2.0 that things evolve to en masse might be quite different than Web 3 proponents are describing at the moment.
Re: Web3 is a stupid idea
#96It's much easier to criticize than to build an alternative. I don't think anyone at Metamask or in the space in general thinks to themselves that the ecosystem is in a state of full maturity or that there aren't major problems. Despite its shortcomings, MM and Web3 have given us capabilities that simply didn't exist five years ago. And those capabilities aren't just limited to a select number of shadowy super hackers…
To be fair, in the article I at least outline alternative approaches. And in any case, I believe that by building a commercial product like MM, their makers unwillingly shut the door a bit more for a more standardized approach. Not actively, but simply just by mere existence.
Tim, thank you for commenting on your article!
I'm curious about your reasoning here: would you mind walking us through how you come to the conclusion that building a product like MetaMask, closes the door for a more standardized approach?
Re: Web3 is a stupid idea
#97My main concern with it is that a lot of these temporary ecosystem workarounds become de facto standard and it lessens the original purpose of doing all this. An example in the article is Infura. It is a system designed to allow easy use of the network in the interim before a truly decentralized peer to peer network is mature, but habits form and interests entrench and tools get built on infrastructure and you get le…
Metamask and others are seemingly the Google Gears of 2021.
Re: Web3 is a stupid idea
#98Best way I can explain crypto is it's a way computers can pay one another without a bank or money in between. You have a solar panel that trades power for crypto. It wirelessly messages a drone to clean it. You build both and let them work without a human's bank account. Remember pass codes for video games? Crypto is a lot like that, the video game entering the real world.
They won't up end replacing money. They require peer discovery. Just take those out if no one wants it. There are ways around it but it will stop widespread adoption. It's easier to get the leadership positions yourself by doing the work or winning the argument instead of fighting against things people don't want.
Re: Web3 is a stupid idea
#99Even an ideal blockchain-ified P2P "Web 3.0" is a silly fantasy on par with NAT-less IPv4. First they reinvented gold & databases, now they are reinventing IP. Flat networks are a thing of the past, when you could keep the whole Internet in a paper directory on your desk. Blockchains may be used for settlement and accounting within small networks of international firms, but they will never service the latency and thr…
Theres some great work being done on zk roll ups you might be interested in.
Congrats to Vitalik or whomever on reinventing settlement banks.
Re: Web3 is a stupid idea
#100A large chunk of my internet experience lately has been on web3, and the experience is _wonderful_ despite it's immaturity.
It's incredible to be able to go to different websites (Zapper, Zerion, OpenSea, etc.) and simply have all my data already exist -- without needing to create an account, export/import.
web3 makes me believe in a new era of the internet that isn't full of ads, cookie consent forms, dozens of sign-in services, tracking, etc.
An anonymous version of myself and my data exists everywhere. It's really a hackers dream.