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

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

#91

Post by romeros »

rabuse wrote: post #45
schleck8 wrote: post #10

Serious question: What problem does web3 or decentralization fix? - Oligopoly of the hyperscalers -> rent server from small provider like ovh/hetzner/netcup (there is plenty). The reason AWS, Azure and GCP are so popular is because people don't care. - Privavy intrusions -> Adblocker/DNS Blocker/Turn off JS/Use browser settings This won't be fixed by web3, ad monetization and tracking won't magically stop. They exist…

I believe crypto is a great way to decentralize fundraising for startups/growing companies. Removes the middleman's cut from the equation, and you have no terms to agree to.

The problem with this approach is that the founders can inadvertently start a pump and dump scheme that crypto comes with.

You want to organize the worlds information and build a search engine. Okay, you create a google coin. You issue 21 Million coins.

As soon as you announce it people are going to buy in and you will in a period of a few months become a billionaire. With no product. Just an idea.

And then you get to dump your shares on the "investors" and you get to be a billionaire.

There is no incentive to further develop your idea.

Look at what happened to ICP. The VCs got in at 3 cents a coin. Each coin shot up to $750 per coin. Then the VCs dumped it on the retail noobs making a lot of money with absolutely no working product.

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

#92

Post by jillesvangurp »

duxup wrote: post #21

Help me out here… Does it matter? It feels like most web3 discussion is just discussion and none of the core parts exist at all…. and some folks just threw nfts and crypto currency into the bucket to have something concrete to point to. I don’t have a problem with discussion about meta discussion but I’m also skeptical that it matters/ that this is just meta about meta …. with nobody doing any of this web3 stuff.

No it doesn't. Ultimately people and investors vote with their feet (and money) and then stuff is built and gets traction or not. The "debate" about whether web3 is a thing or not or should be a thing is not that interesting.

I guess the reason it pops up on HN so often is that Y Combinator has some money in web3 related projects: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?query=blockchain

A lot of those investments strike me indeed as unlikely to have any ROI worth reporting on. But they did get lucky with Coinbase. So, a few of those achieving some level of success is not completely unthinkable.

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

#93

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

mikewarot wrote: post #49

I highly recommend Dan Olsen's documentary mentioned in the article. You'll have far more situational awareness after watching it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g

> I highly recommend Dan Olsen's documentary

Me too.

It's been posted on HN, without much uptake, e.g.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30041948

and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30036937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30027175 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30032406

It's one of those articles that you don't plan to watch through, because it's extremely long, but watch all of anyway, because it's extremely and consistently good.

I feel that I'm going to watch all 2h18 more than once before I'm done with it.

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

#94

Post by yrral »

schleck8 wrote: post #10

Serious question: What problem does web3 or decentralization fix? - Oligopoly of the hyperscalers -> rent server from small provider like ovh/hetzner/netcup (there is plenty). The reason AWS, Azure and GCP are so popular is because people don't care. - Privavy intrusions -> Adblocker/DNS Blocker/Turn off JS/Use browser settings This won't be fixed by web3, ad monetization and tracking won't magically stop. They exist…

Your data being locked up by companies and not to be able to be used by others.

Web3 is less centralized in that the user data is exposed and freely available to be composed upon. For example, when someone makes a deposit (say of ERC20 USDC to earn interest, around 3.0% currently) on https://compound.finance, that data is freely available and the "receipt" becomes another token (the ERC20 USDC cToken). [1]

This token can now be used for other things, on any other protocol, without the involvement of compound itself. For example, there is a "compound" pool on https://curve.fi that allows users to deposit cTokens so that they can earn interest on their stablecoins while also providing liquidity for stablecoin swaps and earning swap fees as well on top. [2] In fact, with this pool, the user can deposit/withdrawal just pure ERC20 USDC instead and curve will deposit/withdrawal that into/from compound on behalf of the user, again, with no involvement of compound at all. (other than interacting with its "immutable" smart contract)

This deposit then gives the user back another ERC20 token "cCrv" that can then be used in other DeFi protocols without the involvement or authorization of curve.

In contrast, in traditional web2, companies gatekeep this information so hard that there are 10B+ companies such as plaid that mostly just scrape user bank account data. Just recently AA is suing The Points Guy for scraping their website. [3] I recall there's even a comment in this thread about someone getting their own scraper banned because they were trying to scrape their own data.

[1] https://compound.finance/docs/ctokens

[2] https://curve.fi/compound

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30013100

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

#95

Post by alar44 »

fullshark wrote: post #4

The evidence to support the claim is pretty weak, basically there's some more anti-crypto blogposts and documentaries out. I could easily make an article with the reverse claim and point out the pro-crypto blogposts and documentaries.

That and half the value of Ethereum and Bitcoin evaporated in a matter of days.

No one wants "currency" that just up and loses half it's value.

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

#96

Post by hunterb123 »

acdha wrote: post #78
hunterb123 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess they care how much they currently care. I don't see why that's relevant when talking about the benefits of decentralization. "People are too stupid/naive so let's not make anything better for anyone" is essentially what I'm hearing.

It’s relevant because it’s not “people are too stupid/naive” but rather that most people have different priorities. If you want people to use a new system, you need to have it do something they care about better than the status quo. That’s why I suggested learning from history: the reasons why people moved from personal sites to Facebook/Twitter/etc. are important for anyone trying to get them back.

No I don't think it's about personal sites at all and I wouldn't rely on the limited history of the internet but you'd see decentralized services have flourished until powers at be shut them down or gobbled them up.

To those with different priorities than what I listed (privacy, ownership) they usually care about usability, and decentralized platforms can be just as usable and popular.

I think all the hate is from the powers at be being threatened by Web3 and the power/control it gives users. If they can't shut it down or gobble it up, they'll run hate campaigns and convince smart people to hate it for them.

Noone is hating on Web2 monopoly tech as much as this, let's just love all of the internet.

Ask yourself, why are you rooting against this thing?

But the really really cool thing about Web3 is, it doesn't matter what the haters say, it's here to stay and IS the future because it can't be stopped.

- edit -

> I'm rooting against scammers using something I do care about as a sales tactic for something which has failed to find market demand.

A moral crusade then. Maybe tackle scamming on Web2 first?

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

#97

Post by exdsq »

shafyy wrote: post #57
techwiz137 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very disgusting generalization of the average crypto user. So since I've been using cryptocurrency for 11 years now, I am definitely a criminal or drug dealer...

What do you use it for?

I get paid across various countries (UK, EU, US) and it's sure easier to get paid with a stable coin than fiat. Ever dealt with a US business when you only have a UK account and they're asking for your routing number? Had a one-day $1000 contract last year to write a quick training document and it took an extra day of communicating with their accounting team to find a solution. And then it takes days to transfer across systems. My normal payment route is EU -> UK -> US which has fees and takes two days, or I can get paid with a stable coin from EU -> US in around two minutes.

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

#98

Post by zelphirkalt »

the_gastropod wrote: post #18
echelon wrote: post #7

I disagree with the article. > [...] as crypto becomes more mainstream and people experience its downsides, critics' warnings are starting to be heard. I'm not sure that public sentiment is actually being measured or is shown to be changing, or at least there's no evidence presented here. The biggest thing happening right now is the selloff, and I think that's happening due to the economic headwinds that face all ass…

> it's not doing any better Really? As of writing, the S&P500 is down ~10% from its all-time-high. Bitcoin is currently down over 50% of its ATH. Other cryptocurrencies are faring even worse. The stock market is doing significantly better. This is an oft frustrating topic in the world of cryptocurrency enthusiasm. The contemporary American banking and finance system is awful . It's worthy of a great many of criticism…

Crypto-currencies make a few people win out at the cost of others, who in hindsight mistakenly "invested". The ones who won evangelize it the most, but they don't stop and think about, where that money came from. Might be an uncomfortable thought. Then you have the hopeful ones, who hope to win out in the future. Basically all driven by volatility and the believe, that they will be able to exit at the right moment. And maybe they will be, but then others are the losers.

I don't find this to be an ethically OK way to act.

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

#99

Post by CPLX »

axg11 wrote: post #60

The relentless number of anti-crypto and anti-web3 articles on HN is tiring. Nobody is forcing anyone to partake in this new technology. Skepticism is healthy, but criticism without being constructive is not. There are clearly _some_ novel ideas in the crypto space, even if you think the state of the community today is not healthy. Thousands of teams are exploring ideas on many different fronts (e.g. L1s, L2s, NFTs).…

> but there is a chance that _some_ of them will create genuinely novel and interesting products

Right. And there's a 100% certainty that most of the products that already exist are vehicles for scams at worst, and gambling at best.

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

#100

Post by fzzzy »

netcan wrote: post #64
nefitty wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sentiment in online chatter correlates with price movement. It becomes a feedback loop. Maybe the criticism is finally overwhelming people's risk functions.

Or the reverse... price drops make people more open to "crypto is bullshit" arguments.

Why not both?
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