Is Web3 anything?

#1

Post by mharju » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:09 AM UTC

Is Web3 anything?
chris-granger.com

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#2

Post by jolux » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:21 AM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#3

Post by tracyhenry » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:27 AM UTC

> Once submitted, that “contract” will be carried out exactly as specified. It is observable to everyone, debuggable, and non-falsifiable.

But a centralized database can also achieve this, right? The premise of the general public trusting a blockchain more than an established, centralized 3rd party (e.g. government) seems so feeble.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#4

Post by echelon » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:27 AM UTC

Web 3.0 was the Semantic Web.

The Semantic Web was coming into prominence at the peak of Bittorrent and P2P. It allowed people to publish data in schemas without centralized databases. Protocols in markup. You could declare and share schemas for things, build on top of other people's schemas, and remix endlessly. It was powerful.

You could define your contact details in FOAF and a client could ingest that and make contacts.

You could consume articles as RSS or Atom and use any client you wanted. Clients that were faster and more performant than HTML-based websites. We could have shed HTML and Javascript for many schema-aware applications.

If we'd built Reddit back then, it'd have been topics and comments that were digitally signed and exchanged p2p, with signed voting, interest graphs, and curated peer groups.

Unfortunately, this was just as the VC and ad-money fueled Google and Facebook were coming into prominence. They built centralized systems that were easy to use faster than the Semantic Web community could move. (Semantic Web was much broader - some were interested in predicate logic distributed databases, which were a bit much.)

Web 3.0 was the Semantic Web. Do not forget. We can still use the lessons today. This is what the web could have become if the advertising gravity well hadn't sucked it in.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#5

Post by GameOfKnowing » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:30 AM UTC

This is a system dreamed up by those who have been on the right side of hard power for long enough to forget it exists.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#6

Post by baby » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:31 AM UTC

A much more interesting news in the space, not being discussed on HN: polygon just acquired Mir for 400 million $. They are slowly acquiring every zero-knolwedge teams in the space.

https://blockworks.co/polygon-acquires-mir-in-400m-deal-to-s...

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#7

Post by lmm » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:31 AM UTC

But is there any case where you'd actually trust a pile of blockchains more than an existing trust mechanism (whether that's neighbourliness, contract law, or something else)? If you're not a programmer, getting a programmer to review your smart contract probably costs more than getting a lawyer to review your regular contract. If you are a programmer, you probably know better than to rely on some code being bug-free.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#8

Post by pengwing » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:32 AM UTC

lmm wrote: post #7

But is there any case where you'd actually trust a pile of blockchains more than an existing trust mechanism (whether that's neighbourliness, contract law, or something else)? If you're not a programmer, getting a programmer to review your smart contract probably costs more than getting a lawyer to review your regular contract. If you are a programmer, you probably know better than to rely on some code being bug-free…

The irony of course being that you would have to fully trust the programmer who reviews your contract.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#9

Post by jolux » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:33 AM UTC

All of the examples of having to trust the government in this article neglect the fact that trusting the government is not just trusting the government, and it’s not just the government storing a deed or giving you a Social Security Number that makes it real. It’s the whole complex web of laws and regulations that created these policies that make them real, and the people (your fellow citizens) who have collectively decided to run society by these rules. Your recourse when somebody runs afoul of these rules is the courts, which you may feel free to criticize, but pretending they don’t exist is just silly.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#10

Post by westoncb » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 6:33 AM UTC

> Most of the descriptions I’ve seen focus on mechanisms - block chains, smart contracts, tokens, etc - but I would argue those are implementation details ... The real question is what fundamental capability are people pointing to when they talk about web3?

That's exactly the change in focus needed in order for discussions of this topic to be more rational/sober/productive, imo.