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An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

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Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#91

Post by wmf »

PretzelPirate wrote: post #84

One interesting misrepresentation is this: “ Several innovations in distributed consensus design make Solana’s performance possible.” Solana’s consensus protocol isn’t responsible for its performance, it’s the fact that they mandate higher performing machine SKUs and at least 500Mbs (recommending 1Gbs) internet speeds. They also had to largely centralizing and have around 1000 validators. Ethereum’s fees and performa…

1,000 validators is "centralized"? Don't look at how many Bitcoin pools there are.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#92

Post by necubi »

practice9 wrote: post #82
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #73

Not going to lie, I thought and still think that the whole Web 2.0 thing was clever marketing and window dressing on top of fairly pedestrian but useful technologies. It was actually less of seismic shock than mobile first which despite being a bigger shift didn't actually get a number. As far as I'm concerned, Web3 is beyond this. It's what happen when you let Ponzi schemers write the marketing material. I can't for…

Blockchain isn't even central in Web3, but it surely helps. Web3 = decentralized identity, full data and connection graph ownership by user, reputation transfer, verification via zero knowledge proofs, support for VR/AR and 3D objects. All of this stuff is either in prototype or draft phase, but it's ok. These things need to be built to stop horror stories on HN about "algorithm justice" and "data kingdoms”: - Google…

And that's an improvement how? At least with Google there's a chance you'll be able to get your account back. If it's "decentralized" (which in crypto land is apparently synonymous with "run by a cabal of miners in China") and you lose your private key, you're completely out of luck.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#93

Post by nyanpasu64 »

practice9 wrote: post #82
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #73

Not going to lie, I thought and still think that the whole Web 2.0 thing was clever marketing and window dressing on top of fairly pedestrian but useful technologies. It was actually less of seismic shock than mobile first which despite being a bigger shift didn't actually get a number. As far as I'm concerned, Web3 is beyond this. It's what happen when you let Ponzi schemers write the marketing material. I can't for…

Blockchain isn't even central in Web3, but it surely helps. Web3 = decentralized identity, full data and connection graph ownership by user, reputation transfer, verification via zero knowledge proofs, support for VR/AR and 3D objects. All of this stuff is either in prototype or draft phase, but it's ok. These things need to be built to stop horror stories on HN about "algorithm justice" and "data kingdoms”: - Google…

It's a noble goal. And I don't think that's what NFTs and blockchains and their promoters are setting out to do.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#94

Post by zepto »

koboll wrote: post #83
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #73

Not going to lie, I thought and still think that the whole Web 2.0 thing was clever marketing and window dressing on top of fairly pedestrian but useful technologies. It was actually less of seismic shock than mobile first which despite being a bigger shift didn't actually get a number. As far as I'm concerned, Web3 is beyond this. It's what happen when you let Ponzi schemers write the marketing material. I can't for…

>It doesn't help that I personally have yet to see a use for a blockchain which isn't replicating an existing financial instrument while trying to avoid the eyes of the state. I mean, there's a domain name system. There are various games. There was recently a high-profile crowdfunded attempt to buy an artifact at auction. Feel free to be skeptical of all of these, but what's the point of posting that you "haven't see…

How is that crowdfunding thing anything other than a failed publicity stunt? There is nothing new that was demonstrated.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#95

Post by PretzelPirate »

wmf wrote: post #91
PretzelPirate wrote: post #84

One interesting misrepresentation is this: “ Several innovations in distributed consensus design make Solana’s performance possible.” Solana’s consensus protocol isn’t responsible for its performance, it’s the fact that they mandate higher performing machine SKUs and at least 500Mbs (recommending 1Gbs) internet speeds. They also had to largely centralizing and have around 1000 validators. Ethereum’s fees and performa…

1,000 validators is "centralized"? Don't look at how many Bitcoin pools there are.

1000 validators is very centralized. All you have to do is bribe 2/3rds of them control the chain. This is on top of Solana not having slashing in place to punish bad behavior, and the Solana Foundation hosting validators for people who want to delegate.

Solana’s 1000 validators may not even be owned by 1000 different entities, which reduces the attack difficulty.

Solana scales through centralization, not new ideas in blockchain scalability.

I don’t care how many Bitcoin mining pools there are. Mining pools are different than validators since they are made up of different individuals and not a single controlling entity. I also think PoW should die, and that’s all Bitcoin will ever support.

Edit: if all we want is 1000 entities controlling our chain, we can choose 1000 well-known institutions (banks, libraries, etc…). That would be less vulnerable to bribes and random censoring (perhaps I censor txt if a Dapp that’s competing with my investments) than 1000-ish unknown entities running the chain without any slashing.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#96

Post by zepto »

bko wrote: post #79
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #73

Not going to lie, I thought and still think that the whole Web 2.0 thing was clever marketing and window dressing on top of fairly pedestrian but useful technologies. It was actually less of seismic shock than mobile first which despite being a bigger shift didn't actually get a number. As far as I'm concerned, Web3 is beyond this. It's what happen when you let Ponzi schemers write the marketing material. I can't for…

> which isn't replicating an existing financial instrument [available to the developed world] while trying to avoid the eyes of the [benevolent] state Not everyone has access to Venmo or free checking accounts. And not every behavior the state is trying to restrict is nefarious.

Even fewer people have access to cryptocurrency wallets and exchanges than have access to Venmo and it’s international equivalents.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#97

Post by tata71 »

echelon wrote: post #89
DantesKite wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Riding off a wave of addicts and their enthusiasm for gambling. Meanwhile, Cash App, Apple Pay, and Stripe have done more for fintech in the past month than all other cryptocurrency technologies combined in the last decade.

Bingo. They can't even get their numbering scheme right. This would be "web4" Disregarding the semantic web throws out the history of the tech that sought to build p2p knowledge graphs before the social giants pushed it aside. They care little for these concepts given their blatant disregard.

Nah, jamming shitty responsive sites into phone screens was Web 2.5.

Convergence, meaning plug your phone or tablet into fullsize keyboard and display, will be the new normal.

Crossplatform web app EVERYTHING, PWA if you please, with web3 hooks where relevant, is Web 3.0.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#98

Post by stefan_ »

afavour wrote: post #88
koboll wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It doesn't help that I personally have yet to see a use for a blockchain which isn't replicating an existing financial instrument while trying to avoid the eyes of the state. I mean, there's a domain name system. There are various games. There was recently a high-profile crowdfunded attempt to buy an artifact at auction. Feel free to be skeptical of all of these, but what's the point of posting that you "haven't see…

The crowdfunding to bust the constitution is surely a replication of an existing financial instrument? Crowdfunding is not new. That particular episode also laid bare the problems no web3 proponent seems to want to address: a whole load of people are going to lose all the money they gave to the fund because transaction fees will swallow their investment whole if they ever try for a refund.

Not to mention that all the transaction fees meant their final fund was just barely too small to actually buy the item they had crowdfunded for. Cryptocurrency: it just ain't good for anything.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#99

Post by kall »

mattlondon wrote: post #71

So .. TL;Dr web3 is nothing to do with the web , and is just the same old smart contract crypto hype we've all seen before? No mention of the actual distributed web protocols like IPFS or Dat as far as I could tell. Have I massively missed something or has the crypto community just co-opted the name web3 for their own non-web related stuff? How does the web factor in to crypto?

I think the web part is now "log in with your wallet, fetch account state from the blockchain". It all happens on the normal web and the blockchain access is facilitated by "normal" web API gateways like Infura or Cloudflare. This is my view from the outside so it might be off on the details.

It seems pretty reasonable, as far as crypto stuff goes, except that there is a massive, expensive machine behind all the HTTP APIs that is solving very specific problems you probably don‘t have while making someone rich.

Re: An engineer's observations on Web3 and its possibilities

#100

Post by kall »

hervature wrote: post #38
jerrygoyal wrote: post #27

are there any other working examples of web3 except torrents?

Sorry, I'm not going to allow people to rewrite history and claim torrents are Web3. The technology is 20 years old and the most dominant protocol for file sharing.

Arguably the most successful decentralized protocol so far. They where just 20 years ahead of the scene.
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