Web3 – An Arrogant and Treacherous Successor Doomed to Fail(g147.medium.com)
g147.medium.com
Web3 – An Arrogant and Treacherous Successor Doomed to Fail
https://g147.medium.com/introducing-web-3-0-an-arrogant-treacherous-successor-doomed-to-fail-8b90529bb7be
266 comments
Web 3 has been defined as all kinds of nonsense for the last 15 years. The first time I heard this was the semantic web and almost immediately business tried to redefine that term to some conglomeration of social media and advertising. Crypto isn't even decentralized, its distributed, which is the source of the sham.
Web X.whatever is not about content. Its not even about technology. That is why term has failed to stick each and every time. Business people looking to drum up VC need something like this because a simple catch phrase is easier to sell than a concept they have no hope of understanding or explaining.
Do you remember what Web2.0 was? Yes, this was a real concept, and yes it did succeed and proliferate. In short, Web2.0 was use of asynchronous HTTP requests from pages. At that time the technology was just XMLHttpRequest (XHR), but it wasn't about the technology. It was about what you did with it. If you cannot remember back to writing code for the front end web back to 2005-2007 when this first became a thing I don't expect this to make any sense to you because you have no context.
Back then the web was a series of HTML forms and/or static pages. That's it. Content could not change and information could not be submitted without loading a new page. XHR radically changed the experience and how users interfaced with data and how data providers interfaced with users. That change to the business experience was Web2.0. Back then it was a massive improvement, but then you also didn't have the world's largest frameworks to make it so slow and unoriginal.
If people want the Web3.0 moniker to stick to something then apply to something that radically changes how the user perceives the web. Crypto is not and will never be that thing. If VCs lack so much empathy they are bound for losses by shams and cons.
One example of what a Web3.0 could be is a streaming experience where pages load in less than 0.5 seconds (with full state management) and transmit/receive updates in near real time such that you only need a delay spinner for the extreme edge cases.
Web X.whatever is not about content. Its not even about technology. That is why term has failed to stick each and every time. Business people looking to drum up VC need something like this because a simple catch phrase is easier to sell than a concept they have no hope of understanding or explaining.
Do you remember what Web2.0 was? Yes, this was a real concept, and yes it did succeed and proliferate. In short, Web2.0 was use of asynchronous HTTP requests from pages. At that time the technology was just XMLHttpRequest (XHR), but it wasn't about the technology. It was about what you did with it. If you cannot remember back to writing code for the front end web back to 2005-2007 when this first became a thing I don't expect this to make any sense to you because you have no context.
Back then the web was a series of HTML forms and/or static pages. That's it. Content could not change and information could not be submitted without loading a new page. XHR radically changed the experience and how users interfaced with data and how data providers interfaced with users. That change to the business experience was Web2.0. Back then it was a massive improvement, but then you also didn't have the world's largest frameworks to make it so slow and unoriginal.
If people want the Web3.0 moniker to stick to something then apply to something that radically changes how the user perceives the web. Crypto is not and will never be that thing. If VCs lack so much empathy they are bound for losses by shams and cons.
One example of what a Web3.0 could be is a streaming experience where pages load in less than 0.5 seconds (with full state management) and transmit/receive updates in near real time such that you only need a delay spinner for the extreme edge cases.
I am sure people would like the permissionless, decentralized databases if they didn't come with microtransactions that promise early adopters large gains at the expense of later users, like... a glorified ponzi scheme.
I think what gets me is that nobody ends up actually doing this.
The biggest and most productive entities on web3 that have the most users are the ones that everyone has heard of: crypto exchanges, or in other words, permissioned, centralized databases. Everything else seems to be a sideshow as far as actual usage is concerned. How do proponents of web3 square this?
The biggest and most productive entities on web3 that have the most users are the ones that everyone has heard of: crypto exchanges, or in other words, permissioned, centralized databases. Everything else seems to be a sideshow as far as actual usage is concerned. How do proponents of web3 square this?
I'm not aware of a centralized exchanges "on web3". Can you point to? Companies like Coinbase, Kraken, Binance are not "on web3", if that's what you mean.
There are few crypto exchanges that are "on web3", like Uniswap, Curve, Balancer, etc. And they don't rely on a centralized database.
There are few crypto exchanges that are "on web3", like Uniswap, Curve, Balancer, etc. And they don't rely on a centralized database.
This is a great summary. Many of the critiques I've read here criticize the early users of the technology, which is like blaming cars when the blame should be on bad drivers.
So many short-sighted critiques.
Web3 or whatever might not be the answer, but you have to ask yourself a question: what's the internet going to look like in 2030, when the majority of its traffic is non-western, and a massive share of all purchasing power resides in Africa and Asia?
Do you think by 2030, all global governments and their citizens will voluntarily give away control over what they can consume and create to Google and Apple? Are they going to ransom their digital economies to Apple's 30% tax?
Betting in favor of the current centralized western oligopolies is betting on the belief that the digital economy won't grow, and that there won't be a regulatory crackdown in countries with stronger technological capabilities.
In case you lose this bet, you have to ask: what's the alternative? Every large country making its own app stores and social networks? Or a decentralized variant that isn't completely controlled by a handful of western corporations?
It can go either way, but it's definitely not going to be business as usual.
Web3 or whatever might not be the answer, but you have to ask yourself a question: what's the internet going to look like in 2030, when the majority of its traffic is non-western, and a massive share of all purchasing power resides in Africa and Asia?
Do you think by 2030, all global governments and their citizens will voluntarily give away control over what they can consume and create to Google and Apple? Are they going to ransom their digital economies to Apple's 30% tax?
Betting in favor of the current centralized western oligopolies is betting on the belief that the digital economy won't grow, and that there won't be a regulatory crackdown in countries with stronger technological capabilities.
In case you lose this bet, you have to ask: what's the alternative? Every large country making its own app stores and social networks? Or a decentralized variant that isn't completely controlled by a handful of western corporations?
It can go either way, but it's definitely not going to be business as usual.
None of this, though reasonably stated, is good reason why crypto should underpin what comes next. And 7 years goes by fast. I've been in the web business professionally for almost 25 years and I can promise you that the fundamentals of the platform are not going to be upended by the fantasies of crypto dreamers by 2030. Hopefully we'll see more decentralization, or at least decentralized solutions more effectively competing with the centralized systems, but we're absolutely not going to see HTML, CSS, and JS apps and sites served over HTTPS replaced by this Web3 nonsense. My prediction is that the web of 2030 will look pretty much like it does today with a bit more capability and a somewhat different set of dominant players. My wish is that some of those dominant players are building experiences that are more user empowering, with better privacy and even anonymity characteristics.
Indeed, this is a weird false dichotomy being presented by the parent.
The current centralized corporate oligopoly may be terrible, but a crypto-underpinned "web3" would be even worse. Decentralization is laudable, but "web3" (taken to mean: some kind of blockchain / cryptocurrency bolted onto the web) doesn't solve any real problems that actually exist, and even if it did it still requires centralization in the form of exchanges to make it easy enough for normal users to interact with these things.
The current centralized corporate oligopoly may be terrible, but a crypto-underpinned "web3" would be even worse. Decentralization is laudable, but "web3" (taken to mean: some kind of blockchain / cryptocurrency bolted onto the web) doesn't solve any real problems that actually exist, and even if it did it still requires centralization in the form of exchanges to make it easy enough for normal users to interact with these things.
> Do you think by 2030, all global governments and their citizens will voluntarily give away control over what they can consume and create to Google and Apple?
It'll be Baidu and Tencent, but yes. This is already happening, and the internet is becoming more centralized, not less. Global traffic is balkanized, but it's split up among regional centralized controlling interesting, not no controlling interests.
> Betting in favor of the current centralized western oligopolies is betting on the belief that the digital economy won't grow, and that there won't be a regulatory crackdown in countries with stronger technological capabilities.
This is a false dichotomy. One need not bet for or against "current centralized western oligopolies" to bet against crypto fever dreams. One could assume that western oligopolies will be supplanted by eastern oligopolies, for example, or that the two will divvy up the market and coexist.
I would definitely bet in favor of large countries having separate social networks, because that's what we have now.
You seem to have a very western focus, and little to no understanding of how things are working in, say, China. Perhaps that's where you've gone wrong.
It'll be Baidu and Tencent, but yes. This is already happening, and the internet is becoming more centralized, not less. Global traffic is balkanized, but it's split up among regional centralized controlling interesting, not no controlling interests.
> Betting in favor of the current centralized western oligopolies is betting on the belief that the digital economy won't grow, and that there won't be a regulatory crackdown in countries with stronger technological capabilities.
This is a false dichotomy. One need not bet for or against "current centralized western oligopolies" to bet against crypto fever dreams. One could assume that western oligopolies will be supplanted by eastern oligopolies, for example, or that the two will divvy up the market and coexist.
I would definitely bet in favor of large countries having separate social networks, because that's what we have now.
You seem to have a very western focus, and little to no understanding of how things are working in, say, China. Perhaps that's where you've gone wrong.
Balkanized is an interesting choice of word.
It even has a Google definition, to divide countries and make them enemies of each other.
Yet another victim of US imperialism. I weep for what was once a free and friendly nation. The kids nowadays are taught to hate their neighbors instead of learning how their parents or grandparents were part of a resistance that fought faschist Germany.
That's just an aside. Nothing to do with the topic. I will never forget how my niece walked home from school on a road that was bombed by freedom bombs by the USA 30 minutes later. Not a single soldier has stood trial. Sorry that just struck a nerve, balkanized... is a word.
It even has a Google definition, to divide countries and make them enemies of each other.
Yet another victim of US imperialism. I weep for what was once a free and friendly nation. The kids nowadays are taught to hate their neighbors instead of learning how their parents or grandparents were part of a resistance that fought faschist Germany.
That's just an aside. Nothing to do with the topic. I will never forget how my niece walked home from school on a road that was bombed by freedom bombs by the USA 30 minutes later. Not a single soldier has stood trial. Sorry that just struck a nerve, balkanized... is a word.
> Yet another victim of US imperialism.
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire into small nations in the Balkan Peninsula from 1817 to WWI was caused by US imperialism?
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire into small nations in the Balkan Peninsula from 1817 to WWI was caused by US imperialism?
I'm truly sorry for triggering bad memories. I spent some time with a European refugee now living in the US, and it definitely helped shape how I think about things. I probably should avoid using the word in public spaces.
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It’s always so interesting to me that we already saw this happen - look no further than China - and they became oligapolized even more than the west.
Centralization works. You may not like it and you hope that developing world won’t either, but WhatsApps success sort of invalidates all your points.
Countries are fine handing over nearly all their data to whatever platform works best, because who wants less than the best?
Centralization works. You may not like it and you hope that developing world won’t either, but WhatsApps success sort of invalidates all your points.
Countries are fine handing over nearly all their data to whatever platform works best, because who wants less than the best?
It's not a problem yet because for much of the developing world, large scale internet adoption is a very recent phenomenon. And the leadership in most of these countries is still non tech savvy. There has simply not been enough time for the people or their leadership/bureaucracies to figure out what the long-term impact of this technoloy will be.
India, for instance, had 250M internet users in 2015. That number is now nearly a billion. In nearly 25 years of the commercial internet, India could only bring 250M people online. Then it brought another 750M online in the span of just 7 years.
For the bulk of India's online population, the internet is still a novelty. A prime minister elected in 2014 - who claimed to be "tech savvy" - was 58 when the iPhone was released - not exactly an age where you "get" new technology immediately.
Now fast forward to 2032. A 65 year old prime ministerial candidate would have spent 22 years of his/her life in the smartphone world. The bulk of the population would have a decade's worth of experience of the digital world. Their understanding of the problems, risks, security issues, etc. would be far better.
Already, the Indian government has announced plans to create its own mobile app store after protests by entrepreneurs against Google's app store fees.
This is only going to increase moving forward.
India, for instance, had 250M internet users in 2015. That number is now nearly a billion. In nearly 25 years of the commercial internet, India could only bring 250M people online. Then it brought another 750M online in the span of just 7 years.
For the bulk of India's online population, the internet is still a novelty. A prime minister elected in 2014 - who claimed to be "tech savvy" - was 58 when the iPhone was released - not exactly an age where you "get" new technology immediately.
Now fast forward to 2032. A 65 year old prime ministerial candidate would have spent 22 years of his/her life in the smartphone world. The bulk of the population would have a decade's worth of experience of the digital world. Their understanding of the problems, risks, security issues, etc. would be far better.
Already, the Indian government has announced plans to create its own mobile app store after protests by entrepreneurs against Google's app store fees.
This is only going to increase moving forward.
We've seen countries moving online for may years now, and the move up the scale in economic prosperity always seems to be more of a factor than the actual technical savvy. Haiti could build an App Store, but they'd have trouble attracting developers for the fractional pennies they could charge for apps.
The government of my garden shed has announced plans to create its own mobile App Store, too, but so far uptake has been minimal. The move toward viable alternatives takes time, and the seven years you've allocated doesn't seem like nearly enough. 2030 is as far from now as we are from 2015, and things haven't changed nearly as much in the last seven years as you seem to be predicting they will in the next seven years. Past performance is no guarantee of future results... but they're an indicator.
The government of my garden shed has announced plans to create its own mobile App Store, too, but so far uptake has been minimal. The move toward viable alternatives takes time, and the seven years you've allocated doesn't seem like nearly enough. 2030 is as far from now as we are from 2015, and things haven't changed nearly as much in the last seven years as you seem to be predicting they will in the next seven years. Past performance is no guarantee of future results... but they're an indicator.
The history of technology over hundreds of years is a history of convergence to centralization that can only be disrupted by new technologies that will also converge to centralization. You're probably right that the current incumbents will eventually be replaced (not by 2030 though, that's only in a little more than seven years!), but they will need to be replaced by something that is at least 10x better AND has an extremely low barrier to entry. Decentralized solutions (as we currently understand them) don't offer either of those, and it's unlikely that they ever will.
What makes internet commerce any different from any other commerce? I will absolutely make this bet. We already see it.
Countries who don't like to play by the rules of US trade -- those who resist signing trade agreements and using our currency develop or attempt to develop alternatives, and if they lack the capability to do so, they turn to other powers (basically: China). Economic activity gets silo'd into blocs, depending on which large power you want to depend on. Some countries are very cozy to the United States and participate in its trade agreements, joint ventures, currency, etc. Some countries do not.
Internet commerce is not any different at all, and cryptocurrency does not change this one bit. For example, China notably separates its internet traffic from the United States by giving heavy advantages to its own enterprises and internet infrastructure.
No country at all runs their internet economy on some cryptocurrency or cryptocomputation stack. And they never will, no matter how "decentralized" it is. The exception, maybe, is North Korea. Cryptocurrency has allowed them to be sort of digital pirates through ransomware payments. And you can see why they do that (it's not because they're building a productive internet economy on cryptocurrency!) and what the result ends up being (nobody is collaborating on a crypto venture with North Koreans, despite the heavy flow of bitcoin in and out of that country!).
Countries who don't like to play by the rules of US trade -- those who resist signing trade agreements and using our currency develop or attempt to develop alternatives, and if they lack the capability to do so, they turn to other powers (basically: China). Economic activity gets silo'd into blocs, depending on which large power you want to depend on. Some countries are very cozy to the United States and participate in its trade agreements, joint ventures, currency, etc. Some countries do not.
Internet commerce is not any different at all, and cryptocurrency does not change this one bit. For example, China notably separates its internet traffic from the United States by giving heavy advantages to its own enterprises and internet infrastructure.
No country at all runs their internet economy on some cryptocurrency or cryptocomputation stack. And they never will, no matter how "decentralized" it is. The exception, maybe, is North Korea. Cryptocurrency has allowed them to be sort of digital pirates through ransomware payments. And you can see why they do that (it's not because they're building a productive internet economy on cryptocurrency!) and what the result ends up being (nobody is collaborating on a crypto venture with North Koreans, despite the heavy flow of bitcoin in and out of that country!).
> No country at all runs their internet economy on some cryptocurrency or cryptocomputation stack. And they never will, no matter how "decentralized" it is.
Yep. They won't. They will centralize control even more and things that are not as conducive for the ruling power will likely get delisted and deplatformed.
Which is precisely why building out the decentralized web matters. At the very least, there should be an alternative available to citizens. Even if its hard to access. The penalty for not building it out is walled gardens everywhere.
If it ends up being adopted by governments and companies, great. If it's just used by a bunch of nerds to send messages or money to friends outside the walled garden, then, too, it is worth building.
Surely, a reader of HackerNews would agree.
Yep. They won't. They will centralize control even more and things that are not as conducive for the ruling power will likely get delisted and deplatformed.
Which is precisely why building out the decentralized web matters. At the very least, there should be an alternative available to citizens. Even if its hard to access. The penalty for not building it out is walled gardens everywhere.
If it ends up being adopted by governments and companies, great. If it's just used by a bunch of nerds to send messages or money to friends outside the walled garden, then, too, it is worth building.
Surely, a reader of HackerNews would agree.
So I understand this. But "used by a few nerds" isn't what most defi/cryptocurrency purports to be. We are talking about web3 -- a paradigm shift for the entire internet. The equivalent to JS for the interactive web, or email for communication... this ain't that. And that's kind of the point: this ain't that, AND it never will be that, AND can we stop breathlessly declaring that it will be that, AND can we stop scamming people based on the promise that this will be that.
We have a decentralized web, right alongside the centralized web. It does't require any sort of crypto to function, and functions better without crypto added.
Crypto is just another variety of wall.
Crypto is just another variety of wall.
> a massive share of all purchasing power resides in Africa and Asia?
I don't know about Africa, but Asia already has a massive share of all purchasing power.
> Do you think by 2030, all global governments and their citizens will voluntarily give away control over what they can consume and create to Google and Apple? Are they going to ransom their digital economies to Apple's 30% tax?
No, they're going to build things like Alibaba and Tencent and hold that control for themselves. Which they did do.
> Betting in favor of the current centralized western oligopolies is betting on the belief that the digital economy won't grow, and that there won't be a regulatory crackdown in countries with stronger technological capabilities.
Crackdown on what? Speech or human rights or ...?
> what's the alternative? Every large country making its own app stores and social networks?
Well, they have largely done that, haven't they? The "X" in Musks's "X app" clearly stands for "Wish it was WeChat" with all of the social media, shopping, commerce, banking, and communication embedded in it.
> Or a decentralized variant that isn't completely controlled by a handful of western corporations?
This is also already happening, isn't it?
It seems like all of your hypothetical questions are already answered, and none of the answers are "Web 3."
I don't know about Africa, but Asia already has a massive share of all purchasing power.
> Do you think by 2030, all global governments and their citizens will voluntarily give away control over what they can consume and create to Google and Apple? Are they going to ransom their digital economies to Apple's 30% tax?
No, they're going to build things like Alibaba and Tencent and hold that control for themselves. Which they did do.
> Betting in favor of the current centralized western oligopolies is betting on the belief that the digital economy won't grow, and that there won't be a regulatory crackdown in countries with stronger technological capabilities.
Crackdown on what? Speech or human rights or ...?
> what's the alternative? Every large country making its own app stores and social networks?
Well, they have largely done that, haven't they? The "X" in Musks's "X app" clearly stands for "Wish it was WeChat" with all of the social media, shopping, commerce, banking, and communication embedded in it.
> Or a decentralized variant that isn't completely controlled by a handful of western corporations?
This is also already happening, isn't it?
It seems like all of your hypothetical questions are already answered, and none of the answers are "Web 3."
True.
I liked the term web3 somehow, but the more I read how people react to it, it might be already burned.
I liked the term web3 somehow, but the more I read how people react to it, it might be already burned.
I don't care much for the term. It's marketing hogwash. The anonymity of the space already attracts a lot of bullshit artists, but everything was ramped up to 11 because of the sheer insanity of the markets in 2020-21 across the board.
I hope that the terminology evolves, just as the space itself evolves as well.
I hope that the terminology evolves, just as the space itself evolves as well.
Massive purchasing power of Africa, Asia? I don't believe so. USA is the major importer of illegal drugs, why? Because Americans have the purchasing power. Every country on the earth wants to export their stuff to the US. China doesn't want to depend on the West anymore--only way to do is to build their own domestic economy.
The critiques aren't short sighted. Cryptocurrency schemes are not the future of the web. Cryptocurrency is useful as a darknet currency, other than that it's all shell games, flitting around useless tokens without any productive work being done.
> Cryptocurrency is useful as a darknet currency,
Yeah, having all transactions traceable on a public ledger is surely 'useful' for criminals, scammers, etc for everyone to see once it hits the exchange. /s
Yeah, having all transactions traceable on a public ledger is surely 'useful' for criminals, scammers, etc for everyone to see once it hits the exchange. /s
The reality on the ground speaks for itself.
The reality being that it is much harder to cash out funds from crypto into fiat without leaving a single trace. Hardly benefits criminals, scammers, etc.
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, though, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and "According to the University of Technology Sydney, about 46% of criminal activity of each year is connected to Bitcoin.[0]"
Other sources, more devoted to "this is good for crypto, actually" say the percentage is tiny-tiny, apparently by counting every transfer between any two addresses, including several that might all be related to a single real-life transaction. They seem to also have a pretty high standard for what they count as "illegal activity." Even so, they'll admit it's at least $14 billion of activity in a year.
0. https://bitcoinafrica.io/2020/03/04/crypto-illegal-activity/
1. https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2022-crypto-crime-repor...
Other sources, more devoted to "this is good for crypto, actually" say the percentage is tiny-tiny, apparently by counting every transfer between any two addresses, including several that might all be related to a single real-life transaction. They seem to also have a pretty high standard for what they count as "illegal activity." Even so, they'll admit it's at least $14 billion of activity in a year.
0. https://bitcoinafrica.io/2020/03/04/crypto-illegal-activity/
1. https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2022-crypto-crime-repor...
> "According to the University of Technology Sydney, about 46% of criminal activity of each year is connected to Bitcoin.[0]"
Yet in the same source:
> The main problem for drug dealers using crypto is to turn their income into cash. This move remains complicated and insecure. Most cryptocurrency exchanges have instruments to define whether a transaction is coming from a suspicious source like the darknet. The rise of Monero use in the online drug market will hinder such tracking. However, for the reasons listed above, crypto is unlikely to completely replace regular cash in drug sales in the foreseeable future.
This doesn't refute my point of this activity being traceable as soon as it hits the exchange. Even if the cryptocurrency is a privacy coin, many exchanges have delisted such coins, making it extremely difficult and quite terrible for criminals and scammers to cash out into fiat without them leaving a trace and the authorities subsequently identifying and catching them afterwards.
> They seem to also have a pretty high standard for what they count as "illegal activity." Even so, they'll admit it's at least $14 billion of activity in a year.
$14 billion in illicit transaction volume out of $15.6 trillion in overall transaction volume at the time of the report is tiny, but is still a problem, but with most of the transactions being traceable for the authorities / exchanges to catch the criminals and scammers.
I mean, compared with the trillions of illicit funds freely moving around by the banks, it seems criminals and fraudsters still benefitted more from that whilst the banks would rather pay the fines than solving the problem.
[0] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/fincen-fil...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/20/business/fincen-banks-sus...
Yet in the same source:
> The main problem for drug dealers using crypto is to turn their income into cash. This move remains complicated and insecure. Most cryptocurrency exchanges have instruments to define whether a transaction is coming from a suspicious source like the darknet. The rise of Monero use in the online drug market will hinder such tracking. However, for the reasons listed above, crypto is unlikely to completely replace regular cash in drug sales in the foreseeable future.
This doesn't refute my point of this activity being traceable as soon as it hits the exchange. Even if the cryptocurrency is a privacy coin, many exchanges have delisted such coins, making it extremely difficult and quite terrible for criminals and scammers to cash out into fiat without them leaving a trace and the authorities subsequently identifying and catching them afterwards.
> They seem to also have a pretty high standard for what they count as "illegal activity." Even so, they'll admit it's at least $14 billion of activity in a year.
$14 billion in illicit transaction volume out of $15.6 trillion in overall transaction volume at the time of the report is tiny, but is still a problem, but with most of the transactions being traceable for the authorities / exchanges to catch the criminals and scammers.
I mean, compared with the trillions of illicit funds freely moving around by the banks, it seems criminals and fraudsters still benefitted more from that whilst the banks would rather pay the fines than solving the problem.
[0] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/fincen-fil...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/20/business/fincen-banks-sus...
centralisation is human: it’s far more plausible that there’ll be multiple centralised systems separated by cultural boundaries — examples already exist, like China — than humans doing some sort radical cross-cultural shift from centralisation to decentralisation (which is itself a strange western-libertarian obsession).
This is precisely why I care about this "decentralized" web. I don't want to live in a China-like walled garden. In the absence of decentralized alternatives, enforcing such walled gardens just becomes easier.
I expect world war and the following world government that it produces to remedy this issue by 2030.
Saving you a click:
"
There are many reasons contributing to the failure of Web3 but the most fundamental ones –
Sophisticated & Tedious Development
Self Governance & Lack of Compliance
Built upon Delusions & Lies
Not better than its predecessors in anyway
Prone to all kinds of Cybersecurity issues that can’t be eliminated
"
"
There are many reasons contributing to the failure of Web3 but the most fundamental ones –
Sophisticated & Tedious Development
Self Governance & Lack of Compliance
Built upon Delusions & Lies
Not better than its predecessors in anyway
Prone to all kinds of Cybersecurity issues that can’t be eliminated
"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0#Web_2.0
>The term "Web 2.0" was coined by Darcy DiNucci, an information architecture consultant, in her January 1999 article "Fragmented Future": [...]
Then Web 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0, 10.0, and 11.0 immediately followed in a quick succession over a few short years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_3.0
My web goes to 11, so I stopped paying attention after that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMSV4OteqBE
Web 3.0 sounds antique!
>The term "Web 2.0" was coined by Darcy DiNucci, an information architecture consultant, in her January 1999 article "Fragmented Future": [...]
Then Web 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0, 10.0, and 11.0 immediately followed in a quick succession over a few short years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_3.0
My web goes to 11, so I stopped paying attention after that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMSV4OteqBE
Web 3.0 sounds antique!
The irony of this post criticizing DeFi and blockchain in the wake of FTX is that those decentralized applications are working just fine in this downturn. Aave and Uniswap aren’t failing, they are thriving.
Why would an application stop working in a downturn?
Isn’t that the point? The protocols are built to resist changes by single entities and continue working as expected, handling user deposits non custodially, regardless of market activity. HN can declare a dozen crypto deaths with each new CEX and Uniswap will just keep filling orders for whoever is sending value through it.
I don't know, you're declaring victory because applications didn't stop working during the downturn, but I don't know that the problem was that applications stopped working during the downturn but rather that various service providers ran into financial trouble.
The goals of DeFi and web3 is to create structures that do not rely on centralized service providers, and are able to resist control of single bad actors and provide certain clear and transparent security guarantees. In that they have so far succeeded.
I wouldn’t call it victory yet. We still have years of figuring out which blockchain, DEX and DeFi models work and which will fail, most of this new tech is only a couple years into development. But the long term 10+ year vision seems clearer.
I wouldn’t call it victory yet. We still have years of figuring out which blockchain, DEX and DeFi models work and which will fail, most of this new tech is only a couple years into development. But the long term 10+ year vision seems clearer.
DeFi really is just a series of distributed (not necessarily decentralised) applications that enable parties to enter into agreements involving virtual tokens without the need for a contractual agreement between them. Not relying on contractual agreements places enormous constraints on what DeFi can do. For example, DeFi can't handle counterparty risk at all. Therefore DeFi doesn't remove the need for conventional financial institutions that rely on contractual agreements, such as so-called "centralised exchanges" and "lending platforms". It's disingenuous to say DeFi is fine because it didn't fail unlike those centralised exchanges, because DeFi doesn't (and can't) provide the same services that centralised exchanges provide (namely, custodial services and trading that isn't limited to virtual tokens).
DeFi never claims to provide the exact same fiat and off-chain services as CeFi and CEX. It has specific goals, like replacing custody with non-custody, or replacing a centralized exchange with an automated market maker that no single party can control.
This has different risks and trade-offs, obviously, but users who opted for Uniswap instead of FTX as their crypto exchange are probably pretty happy with their decision.
This has different risks and trade-offs, obviously, but users who opted for Uniswap instead of FTX as their crypto exchange are probably pretty happy with their decision.
This is like telling someone who got a terrible haircut that they should have shaved their head instead. If they got a haircut it's because they wanted a haircut not a shaved head.
Your analogy makes no sense.
There are many users who just want to hold crypto and perform basic lending and exchanges, and would be willing to spend fractionally more in gas fees to achieve this with higher security guarantees.
Everybody at Barber CEX got a surprise head shaving the other week, meanwhile Barber DEX is still cutting people's hair normally even though it is more expensive and harder to find.
There are many users who just want to hold crypto and perform basic lending and exchanges, and would be willing to spend fractionally more in gas fees to achieve this with higher security guarantees.
Everybody at Barber CEX got a surprise head shaving the other week, meanwhile Barber DEX is still cutting people's hair normally even though it is more expensive and harder to find.
What? No, you don't get it. You're making the same exact flawed point that you made before. DEXs are no substitute for CEXs.
For some users and use cases, they are.
I got my eyes on AAVE.
https://twitter.com/ArkhamIntel/status/1595041038824923136
That's the protocol working exactly as it's designed. Everything was transparently visible. Anyone could see where the funds were at any given point, what the liquidation price was, and what the total liabilities were.
If you ride a fast motorcycle and fall off because you were speeding, it's not really the fault of the motorcycle, is it?
If you ride a fast motorcycle and fall off because you were speeding, it's not really the fault of the motorcycle, is it?
Interesting metaphor you chose.
Yes, it is the fault of the motorcycle. You can "fall off" a motorcycle because of the design of a motorcycle, and it's something that doesn't happen with a car. Cars have risks when speeding as well, but they're different, and lesser, because of the protections afford by the car itself.
It's like you're subtly trying to highlight how terrible crypto is, but not realizing it.
Let's expand the decentralized web without building a crypto wall around it.
Yes, it is the fault of the motorcycle. You can "fall off" a motorcycle because of the design of a motorcycle, and it's something that doesn't happen with a car. Cars have risks when speeding as well, but they're different, and lesser, because of the protections afford by the car itself.
It's like you're subtly trying to highlight how terrible crypto is, but not realizing it.
Let's expand the decentralized web without building a crypto wall around it.
> It's like you're subtly trying to highlight how terrible crypto is, but not realizing it.
If we're equating motorcylces to crypto, then as a motorcycle rider, I can assure you that motorcycles are amzing, not terrible.
If we're equating motorcylces to crypto, then as a motorcycle rider, I can assure you that motorcycles are amzing, not terrible.
If you want to charge people to do things on your website, you can do that today and it doesn't require the use of blockchain or the creation of new tokens for payment.
Regardless of the country you're from?
Yes.
Yes PayPal. 'Please take my funds [0] and fine me $2,500 [1] if I say anything that you don't like'.
Also, thank you Stripe. 'For locking my whole account account without any reason' [2] [3] [4] [5].
[0] https://twitter.com/flipper_zero/status/1567194641610465281
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33348913
[2] https://twitter.com/zhovner/status/1384568453844066305
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28085706
[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33299222
[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23881643
Also, thank you Stripe. 'For locking my whole account account without any reason' [2] [3] [4] [5].
[0] https://twitter.com/flipper_zero/status/1567194641610465281
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33348913
[2] https://twitter.com/zhovner/status/1384568453844066305
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28085706
[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33299222
[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23881643
So what? Global trade reached a level of $28.5 trillion in 2021, so clearly global payments are working somehow.
Almost stopped reading after web 1.0 was explained as “readonly”. Eventually got to this:
> People who think a single-sign on is somehow a good thing.
I would love to see this expanded on… I stopped reading after that.
> People who think a single-sign on is somehow a good thing.
I would love to see this expanded on… I stopped reading after that.
I wanted to keep it all as short as I could. Maybe adding more hyperlinks will help.
https://sis.binus.ac.id/2022/07/21/the-differences-between-w...
https://www.renovodata.com/blog/2019/01/17/single-sign-on
https://sis.binus.ac.id/2022/07/21/the-differences-between-w...
https://www.renovodata.com/blog/2019/01/17/single-sign-on
This is better. I always equated web 1.0 with “before web 2.0”, I did not know of Berner-lee’s description. There were lots of dynamic server apps between 1.0 and 2.0.
For SSO, the link does a good job presenting various pros and cons. I don’t think it backs up the articles dismissal.
For SSO, the link does a good job presenting various pros and cons. I don’t think it backs up the articles dismissal.
>The real single reason for which I believe that all this will come tumbling down is cause of the fact that all this is falsely hyped as being something better than its predecessors but in reality it is not.
How so? If you're saying that this is the one single reason, then you have to support it with evidence.
How so? If you're saying that this is the one single reason, then you have to support it with evidence.
> How so? If you're saying that this is the one single reason, then you have to support it with evidence.
This feels like asking someone to prove a negative by providing singular examples.
I’m still looking for an example of a web3 product that is more usable, more beneficial, and more attractive than the centralized equivalent. So far the only real benefits appear to be decentralized censorship resistance and, arguably, the unnecessary tokenization that allows early adopters to get wealthy based on speculation of future functionality.
This feels like asking someone to prove a negative by providing singular examples.
I’m still looking for an example of a web3 product that is more usable, more beneficial, and more attractive than the centralized equivalent. So far the only real benefits appear to be decentralized censorship resistance and, arguably, the unnecessary tokenization that allows early adopters to get wealthy based on speculation of future functionality.
They really don't. Not every document has to include all things relevant back to the big bang. That bit in particular has been discussed by lots of people for quite a while, including a ton of posts right here, so if you just fell off the turnip truck and are truly unaware of the web3 critiques, a little searching should set you straight. Heck, I'll even give you a place to start: https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
> Heck, I'll even give you a place to start: https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
Yeah, 'Days since a car did not crash into another car. hence why all cars are dangerous and will never take off over horse and carriages'. - Car skeptic.
By now there should have been a worldwide 100% complete total ban on crypto a long time ago, just like the usage of Tor. Why didn't this happen? It's simply due to the fact that it is close to impossible to ban all of it. Regulators and crypto skeptics already know this, and instead both crypto supporters and skeptics will compromise and enforce regulations on cryptocurrencies, exchanges, etc.
Hence, only some cryptocurrencies, exchanges will survive past regulations and will continue to be widely used. I'm afraid crypto is here to stay like it or not.
Yeah, 'Days since a car did not crash into another car. hence why all cars are dangerous and will never take off over horse and carriages'. - Car skeptic.
By now there should have been a worldwide 100% complete total ban on crypto a long time ago, just like the usage of Tor. Why didn't this happen? It's simply due to the fact that it is close to impossible to ban all of it. Regulators and crypto skeptics already know this, and instead both crypto supporters and skeptics will compromise and enforce regulations on cryptocurrencies, exchanges, etc.
Hence, only some cryptocurrencies, exchanges will survive past regulations and will continue to be widely used. I'm afraid crypto is here to stay like it or not.
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I'm not interested in arguing the point. I'm just saying that the point has been argued aplenty, anybody insisting that someone must spoon-feed them the arguments right now is not asking for something reasonable. Instead, they come across like somebody looking to argue. And we all know how tiresome that can be.
Did the failure of Enron mean that the US financial system itself is a scam?
If not, then why should a scam on a blockchain be evidence that that blockchain itself is a scam?
If not, then why should a scam on a blockchain be evidence that that blockchain itself is a scam?
[deleted]
Enron was followed by regulation reworking the system to prevent it from happening again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes%E2%80%93Oxley_Act
There's little indication the crypto ecosystem is inclined to do the same. See, for example, Tether's continued core role despite years of lying about audits and getting caught cooking the books for their attestations.
There's little indication the crypto ecosystem is inclined to do the same. See, for example, Tether's continued core role despite years of lying about audits and getting caught cooking the books for their attestations.
Enron wasn't a bank or a financial corporation.
It's slower and more expensive.
That's not a good enough critique of a new tech. Applicable once it has reached maturity, but Ethereum and EVM smart contracts are relatively very new. If they're still slow and expensive in 2025, Web3 will rightly deserve to be forgotten and abandoned.
Crypto's been around for over a decade dude. How many decades do you want?
Why would I ever build a business around an Ethereum smart contract when I could just write a normal contract, and then I know the courts will enforce it even if one of my business associates tries to pull a fast one?
If it's about the precise coding of constraints and all that, you can easily write a legal contract that specifies that the piece of code should be followed. Ask wall street derivatives traders if they have any issues with making paper legal contracts arbitrarily mathematically complex. It works fine for them.
Why would I ever build a business around an Ethereum smart contract when I could just write a normal contract, and then I know the courts will enforce it even if one of my business associates tries to pull a fast one?
If it's about the precise coding of constraints and all that, you can easily write a legal contract that specifies that the piece of code should be followed. Ask wall street derivatives traders if they have any issues with making paper legal contracts arbitrarily mathematically complex. It works fine for them.
Crypto has been around for decades but most of the tech we now call "Web3" is very nascent. The ERC-721 standard used by most NFTs was first proposed in 2018, and didn't even reach technical maturity until 2019.
And yes, you can write normal contracts and get the courts to enforce it. But what if your customers are in India or Vietnam or Tibet? Under which jurisdiction will you attempt to enforce the contract?
The entire critique rests on the thesis that the world will always be the way it is - dominated by a handful of western (mostly American) corporations who will get to dictate what billions of people in the rest of the world consume, create, and share.
The reality is that the non-western part of the internet is already larger, will grow even larger, and it needs tools and products that are built for its scale and diversity. Whether that's Web3 or Web2 or Web2500, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that more and more countries will seek to yank back control from western corporations (like India making its own national mobile app store).
I, for one, will cheer on anything that challenges the FAANG oligopoly.
And yes, you can write normal contracts and get the courts to enforce it. But what if your customers are in India or Vietnam or Tibet? Under which jurisdiction will you attempt to enforce the contract?
The entire critique rests on the thesis that the world will always be the way it is - dominated by a handful of western (mostly American) corporations who will get to dictate what billions of people in the rest of the world consume, create, and share.
The reality is that the non-western part of the internet is already larger, will grow even larger, and it needs tools and products that are built for its scale and diversity. Whether that's Web3 or Web2 or Web2500, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that more and more countries will seek to yank back control from western corporations (like India making its own national mobile app store).
I, for one, will cheer on anything that challenges the FAANG oligopoly.
A so-called 'smart contract' is not a replacement for a contract. Just because you call something a contract doesn't mean it is. The same applies to 'decentralised finance'. It's not finance unless it can do financing, and defi can't.
my dude, do you always evaluate things for what they are rather than what they could be?
Absolutely! 100%, twice over. What a thing is is real. What a thing could be is limited only by one's imagination, and my imagination with regard to crypto has been burned to the tune of $1.7 trillion as of May, 2022[0].
If you'd started with the disclosure of your money-colored sunglasses, you'd have saved everybody here the time of reading your comments.
0. https://twitter.com/SuburbanDrone/status/1524870565806366730
If you'd started with the disclosure of your money-colored sunglasses, you'd have saved everybody here the time of reading your comments.
0. https://twitter.com/SuburbanDrone/status/1524870565806366730
cryptocurrency has no credibility with respect to "what could be". Cryptocurrency enthusiasts are full of hype and bluster with nothing to show for it except a massive ecosystem of wasteeful scams, theft, and fraud.
Well, obviously, we're discussing facts right? In a world of fantasy pigs might fly, but I don't know what is the point of bringing this up in this discussion.
Mostly yeah. Otherwise we get issues like neoliberalism.
Eccentric capitalisation put me off. Also, among the protocols the internet depends on, "the Web" isn't one of them.
>Web 1.0, a collection of static webpages... Search Engines, Online Communities, Streaming Services were the first few among many
Streaming services were literally among the last websites to come to ride the tail of the the web 2.0 craze. Online communities were the poster children for web 2.0, and search engines arguably relied on the same technologies as web 2.0.
Why is it that every person that writes about web3 totally fails to understand the actual technical distinction or history of the "transition" between web 1.0 and web 2.0?
Streaming services were literally among the last websites to come to ride the tail of the the web 2.0 craze. Online communities were the poster children for web 2.0, and search engines arguably relied on the same technologies as web 2.0.
Why is it that every person that writes about web3 totally fails to understand the actual technical distinction or history of the "transition" between web 1.0 and web 2.0?
1) Web1 was the fruit of academia and unix neckbeards
2) Web2 was the fruit of web developers and silicon valley finance
3) "Web3" was the product of MBAs and finance bros
You can see what's wrong with Web3. Silicon valley finance just wanted to get rich quick too, but they at least had to go through technology and programmers to get there.
"Web3" was pushed by MBAs/Wall Street (at best) and shady crytpo finance bros (at worst), and had little in "new technology". The technology that WAS used came from the Web2 era with bitcoin.
The real "next web" is in things like Mastodon (and Bittorrent and MAYBE some cryptocurrencies around distributed storage). Community or emergent things. Web1 was like that. Web2 was less so, and Web3 almost not at all.
What made "web3" actually stick a bit in the zeitgeist was the emergent nature of Bitcoin. It was distributed, networked, it didn't have controlling company, or even any real celebrity originator aside from the pseudonum "Satoshi Nakomoto".
Web1 was the maturation of TCPIP, networking, and basic text documents
Web2 was a powerful standardized browser and more general purpose UI/computing.
Web3 the hype was distributed and encryption, but has failed to produce utility to the average person, or even the average developer.
Web2 only hit its stride in the post-dotcom crash when the money got back out. In a way, the dotcom boom funded the real Web2, then the crash weeded out the get rich quick people, and Web2 was built on the hardened survivors.
Maybe "Web3" will similarly survive and thrive from a crash that weeds out the scammers.
2) Web2 was the fruit of web developers and silicon valley finance
3) "Web3" was the product of MBAs and finance bros
You can see what's wrong with Web3. Silicon valley finance just wanted to get rich quick too, but they at least had to go through technology and programmers to get there.
"Web3" was pushed by MBAs/Wall Street (at best) and shady crytpo finance bros (at worst), and had little in "new technology". The technology that WAS used came from the Web2 era with bitcoin.
The real "next web" is in things like Mastodon (and Bittorrent and MAYBE some cryptocurrencies around distributed storage). Community or emergent things. Web1 was like that. Web2 was less so, and Web3 almost not at all.
What made "web3" actually stick a bit in the zeitgeist was the emergent nature of Bitcoin. It was distributed, networked, it didn't have controlling company, or even any real celebrity originator aside from the pseudonum "Satoshi Nakomoto".
Web1 was the maturation of TCPIP, networking, and basic text documents
Web2 was a powerful standardized browser and more general purpose UI/computing.
Web3 the hype was distributed and encryption, but has failed to produce utility to the average person, or even the average developer.
Web2 only hit its stride in the post-dotcom crash when the money got back out. In a way, the dotcom boom funded the real Web2, then the crash weeded out the get rich quick people, and Web2 was built on the hardened survivors.
Maybe "Web3" will similarly survive and thrive from a crash that weeds out the scammers.
Looks like they changed the on-page title sometime today: http://web.archive.org/web/20220000000000*/https://g147.medi...
i just changed it.
Web 3.0 =/= Web3
please do not introduce anymore confusion by misnaming these concepts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web
please do not introduce anymore confusion by misnaming these concepts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web
What's a succinct definition for Web3/3.0/etc that I can tell my mother in law in 20 secs? I don't actually know what it's meant to be.
Web3 services are 900 numbers. Every use of whatever service costs you money.
i feel your pain. i myself spent quite some time writing this blog and still ended up causing confusion. These terms are quite interchangeably used at various places by various people. But yeah keep an eye on this thread and you might just find some right & easy definitions. good luck!
Owning your digital identity instead of renting it.
Web3 based apps where a company like Facebook or Instagram can't delete your content just because it might contain a nipple.
It’s amazing how this description is entirely unrelated to the reality of the so-called web3. Not just “we’re still working out some of the details,” but literally none of it exists.
It’s like you’re promised a grand night at the opera and the bus takes you to a roach-infested casino. “Music? We don’t need it, the slot machines make enough sound. Now are you going to buy some tokens?”
It’s like you’re promised a grand night at the opera and the bus takes you to a roach-infested casino. “Music? We don’t need it, the slot machines make enough sound. Now are you going to buy some tokens?”
Entirely this. And when it comes time to show success stories, they co-opt other decentralized tech like IPFS or DID. None of that needs a blockchain to operate and does just fine without implementing one. Web3 is truly DOA.
Again, web3 isn't just blockchains.
IPFS is a fundamental web3 tech since it's inception, even it's creators from Protocol Labs say so. Just because you like it more than blockchains doesn't mean it's not part of web3.
IOTA uses hashgraphs.
ArWeave uses blockweaves.
IPFS uses DAG.
IPFS is a fundamental web3 tech since it's inception, even it's creators from Protocol Labs say so. Just because you like it more than blockchains doesn't mean it's not part of web3.
IOTA uses hashgraphs.
ArWeave uses blockweaves.
IPFS uses DAG.
Sorry, but Web3 can't simply adopt whatever definition is convenient for the present arguement (no 'Metaverse' moment for you). IPFS can adopt whatever identity it wants, but simply wanting to usurp HTTP doesn't make it "Web3 tech since it's inception". It sounds like they're doing a great job driving the project into irrelevance, for whatever that's worth.
I don't think your definition of Web3 is generally agreeable.
I don't think your definition of Web3 is generally agreeable.
To me it seems that most critics have the impression that web3 is blockchains, and the moment someone says it isn't, they get mad because they arguments break down.
I was on web3 conferences and met all the creators of these technologies that consider themselves web3 but aren't considered web3 by critics of web3.
What should I make of it?
I was on web3 conferences and met all the creators of these technologies that consider themselves web3 but aren't considered web3 by critics of web3.
What should I make of it?
It’s pretty simple. In the public’s mind, the definition of “web3” has become: “First you must send us money for our crypto-token to do anything on our platform.”
If the creators of non-cryptocurrency projects don’t like that definition, maybe they should be angry at the crypto grifters and make a clean break from them? But I suppose they’re not going to do that because they also want to get rich from retail investors buying their token one day.
If the creators of non-cryptocurrency projects don’t like that definition, maybe they should be angry at the crypto grifters and make a clean break from them? But I suppose they’re not going to do that because they also want to get rich from retail investors buying their token one day.
And let’s not forget SMTP which is a core part of web3 because it’s a decentralized protocol after all. What amazing foresight they had in 1980 to build a web3 protocol before web1 even existed!
ArDrive, Lens Protocol, Huddle01, Radicle, Farcaster... it's all out there.
This seems like rhetoric. Have you tried looking?
Counterexamples: lens.xyz, farcaster.xyz, urbit.org
Counterexamples: lens.xyz, farcaster.xyz, urbit.org
You can't say something that's generally beloved like Urbit!
By the logic of web3 critics, everything they consider 'good' isn't part of web3.
By the logic of web3 critics, everything they consider 'good' isn't part of web3.
Is this sarcasm? Urbit is one of the most obfuscated and bizarre software projects in history. It makes TempleOS look like a model of clarity and common sense.
If Urbit is now a flag-bearer for web3, I don’t think the aforementioned mother-in-law will have to worry about trying to understand this stuff during her lifetime.
If Urbit is now a flag-bearer for web3, I don’t think the aforementioned mother-in-law will have to worry about trying to understand this stuff during her lifetime.
You moved the goalposts a fair amount between
> Not just “we’re still working out some of the details,” but literally none of it exists.
and
> flag-bearer for web3
These are projects that are attempting solutions. I wasn’t claiming they work, but they’re figuring things out and seeing what needs to be rebuilt to get a working social model on top of web3.
> Not just “we’re still working out some of the details,” but literally none of it exists.
and
> flag-bearer for web3
These are projects that are attempting solutions. I wasn’t claiming they work, but they’re figuring things out and seeing what needs to be rebuilt to get a working social model on top of web3.
Interesting!
Didn't know that. I just read that some people here were like "I really wanna try Urbit".
Didn't know that. I just read that some people here were like "I really wanna try Urbit".
A content service that anyone can post to and no one can delete from. Sounds great.
Someone posts child porn. Now everyone hosting that decentralized data is literally distributing child porn, and they can't stop without deleting the service from their device.
Some people are thinking that maintaining a safe haven for child pornographers is a small price to pay for absolute digital freedom. They are the reason that things like this will never work.
Someone posts child porn. Now everyone hosting that decentralized data is literally distributing child porn, and they can't stop without deleting the service from their device.
Some people are thinking that maintaining a safe haven for child pornographers is a small price to pay for absolute digital freedom. They are the reason that things like this will never work.
Literally the reason I abandoned Freenet shortly after I started playing around with it in like...2010 I think?
It feels like it was created for the purpose of distributing CSAM.
It feels like it was created for the purpose of distributing CSAM.
[deleted]
So this guy is for extreme centralization.
Moxie had a much more in-depth technical appologia for that. Here is a counterpoint for why decentralization is really important for the world:
https://community.intercoin.app/t/web3-moxie-signal-telegram...
Moxie had a much more in-depth technical appologia for that. Here is a counterpoint for why decentralization is really important for the world:
https://community.intercoin.app/t/web3-moxie-signal-telegram...
In order to understand Web3 culture, look into Professional Wrestling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe).
Web3 is fake/staged, but everyone participating in Web3 either knows this, doesn't know this, or pretends not to know this.
Web3 is fake/staged, but everyone participating in Web3 either knows this, doesn't know this, or pretends not to know this.
Web3 isn't one centralized entity that's either fake or true.
It's a bunch of bullshit, mixed with many slick ideas.
I believe in web3, but I also believe that art NFTs and crypto bros running grifter companies like MtGOX and FTX give it a bad rap.
Luckily, the ecosystem is now big enough that you can avoid that crap pretty easily.
It's a bunch of bullshit, mixed with many slick ideas.
I believe in web3, but I also believe that art NFTs and crypto bros running grifter companies like MtGOX and FTX give it a bad rap.
Luckily, the ecosystem is now big enough that you can avoid that crap pretty easily.
> Web3 isn't one centralized entity that's either fake or true.
It’s not centralized, but the players are incredibly good at moving in lock step together.
This is most obvious on Twitter, where one of the loudest crypto/web3 cheerleaders will introduce a new idea and within hours all of the other loudest crypto/web3 accounts are Tweeting some variation of the same thing.
The whole industry isn’t centrally coordinated, but they’re all reading the room and playing whatever game seems to be getting traction on a given week.
It’s not centralized, but the players are incredibly good at moving in lock step together.
This is most obvious on Twitter, where one of the loudest crypto/web3 cheerleaders will introduce a new idea and within hours all of the other loudest crypto/web3 accounts are Tweeting some variation of the same thing.
The whole industry isn’t centrally coordinated, but they’re all reading the room and playing whatever game seems to be getting traction on a given week.
Herd behavior, very common in finance certainly. I guess because they can profit from momentum even when the market ends up going nowhere over the long term.
It’s like crypto: the con is in tricking people into thinking they’re not just pawns.
> crypto bros running grifter companies like MtGOX and FTX give it a bad rap.
... and Poloniex and 3AC and Bitconnect and Terra and Celsius and Quadriga and BTC-e and and and...
The scams in the ecosystem outweigh the good by 100:1 or more. It doesn't matter how big it is if all of it is crap.
... and Poloniex and 3AC and Bitconnect and Terra and Celsius and Quadriga and BTC-e and and and...
The scams in the ecosystem outweigh the good by 100:1 or more. It doesn't matter how big it is if all of it is crap.
I don’t think you can avoid it that easily. First there’s the question of identifying grift. But more broadly the price of crypto is influenced by the grifters and their operations.
> I believe in web3
Could you elaborate on what definition of Web3 you believe in?
Could you elaborate on what definition of Web3 you believe in?
Been an avid HN reader for 10+ years. Really surprised at the anti-crypto sentiment here. The tech speaks for itself despite the annoying meme coins. JP Morgan's father told him not to invest in Edison because he thought electricity was evil. Superior tech won out
[deleted]
Thanks to everyone for letting me know about the Web3, Web 3.0 & HTTP3 confusion. I have updated the story.
Web 3 is the last of the ill-conceived prequels and the end of a misguided retcon. The true successor to the original Web trilogy will be episode 7.
It's not a successor. Agree on the doomed part.
there is a subset of web3 that is a pretty unique evolution of web 2.0 which is great for developers and product marketing
specifically it comes to the stack
web 3 application: free static frontend website, 3 variables in a smart contract deployed for 50 cents, a funnel consisting of a single call to action which is a payment, where the profit is immediately fungible and not blocked anywhere
this is applying web 2.0 principles but simplifying them to such convenient extremes that its pretty obvious why developers keep choosing it and bringing their whole communities over there
have you seen a backend interview stack for any web 2.0 organization. have you seen the funnels for any web 2.0 organization, any SaaS product? have you seen what accepting payment is like, and actually having money you can use elsewhere? its all so much more complicated for less upside
specifically it comes to the stack
web 3 application: free static frontend website, 3 variables in a smart contract deployed for 50 cents, a funnel consisting of a single call to action which is a payment, where the profit is immediately fungible and not blocked anywhere
this is applying web 2.0 principles but simplifying them to such convenient extremes that its pretty obvious why developers keep choosing it and bringing their whole communities over there
have you seen a backend interview stack for any web 2.0 organization. have you seen the funnels for any web 2.0 organization, any SaaS product? have you seen what accepting payment is like, and actually having money you can use elsewhere? its all so much more complicated for less upside
You raise some good points but I deeply disagree about payments being immediately released. So if I make a mistake in my purchase and want a refund but the seller is nonresponsive I'm just out of luck?
There's a reason why payment processing is complex and IMO to a large degree it is because it's more than just moving some numbers in a database.
There's a reason why payment processing is complex and IMO to a large degree it is because it's more than just moving some numbers in a database.
what you spelled out sounds like the opposite of disagreement, at least regarding the accuracy of the statements, you just don't like a theoretical merchant to consumer relationship, which has nothing to do with a web3 stack or service.
My thoughts are that accepting crypto for payments for a SaaS product or tangible good sold online has nothing to do with Web3.
To expand on that, a merchant that chooses not to use a payment processor that provides recourse also has nothing to do with whether they let you pay in crypto, and also nothing to do with web3, as there are payment processors that accept crypto and provide the consumer recourse.
so don't use those services? you also might find what I consider to be web3 pretty interesting
there’s usually a smart contract involved and a website that is just a GUI to interact with that smart contract in a way that makes it nearly impossible to make mistakes, with the service you want access to delivered immediately. Much more like an internet vending machine than anything else. (comes with its own problems though, phishing, backdoors, things to verify)
My thoughts are that accepting crypto for payments for a SaaS product or tangible good sold online has nothing to do with Web3.
To expand on that, a merchant that chooses not to use a payment processor that provides recourse also has nothing to do with whether they let you pay in crypto, and also nothing to do with web3, as there are payment processors that accept crypto and provide the consumer recourse.
so don't use those services? you also might find what I consider to be web3 pretty interesting
there’s usually a smart contract involved and a website that is just a GUI to interact with that smart contract in a way that makes it nearly impossible to make mistakes, with the service you want access to delivered immediately. Much more like an internet vending machine than anything else. (comes with its own problems though, phishing, backdoors, things to verify)
web3 is about digital ownership. it's not doomed to fail.
What should Web 3.0 be?
Web3 is irrelevant. Actual Web 3.0 isn't anything blockchain based. Web 3.0 is the total corporate take-over of the entire web by Google/MS/Apple requiring CA based TLS in the HTTP/3 (QUIC) implementations in their browsers.
i just want to be able to use udp without the headache of webrtc
[deleted]
Webrtc websockets implementations (and spec!) are corrupted too. They require TLS even for localhost. But at least you can still use self-signed certs so it's not as bad as HTTP/3.
It's kind of crazy to think that smartphones' inability to hold open a TCP connection (and thus the desire for UDP) are managing to ruin the entire (non-commercial) web.
It's kind of crazy to think that smartphones' inability to hold open a TCP connection (and thus the desire for UDP) are managing to ruin the entire (non-commercial) web.
my desire for udp is for out-of-order delivery for low latency game networking, nothing to do with smartphones
"Actual Web 3.0 isn't anything blockchain based."
Obviously.
There are also DAGs (IPFS), hashgraphs (Hedera, IOTA), blockweaves (Arweave), and probabl many more alternatives to blockchains to power DApps.
Obviously.
There are also DAGs (IPFS), hashgraphs (Hedera, IOTA), blockweaves (Arweave), and probabl many more alternatives to blockchains to power DApps.
Web 3.0 is the Semantic Web anyways.
Dang, this sucks.
Not the post, I respect & understand the opinion. It sucks that the initiative of creating a deflationary currency started this massive wave of people thinking that they're smarter than whoever invented Bitcoin in the first place. Everybody bought in to the hype but nobody wants to invest the time into understanding how the actual technology works.
"In fact the entire Blockchain arena is filled with either delusional or degenerate people who are inexperienced &, in no way, better than their predecessors."
FTX was a fractional-reserve bank built on buying and selling a resource designed to replace fractional-reserve banks. It's no surprise that this is how it turned out.
This whole 'decentralized wealth' thing isn't THAT difficult - get a good wallet, purchase some BTC from a friend or exchange, and transfer it into that wallet. Rinse, repeat. Don't keep your money on an exchange. Don't throw your money at pump-and-dump schemes. Don't measure your gains and losses based on what the stock market tells you, capitalism is in its late stages and government bailouts won't keep it floating forever.
Sidenote - nobody has really defined what web3 is or isn't yet, maybe Tim BL has a definition you'd like more: https://solidproject.org/take3
Not the post, I respect & understand the opinion. It sucks that the initiative of creating a deflationary currency started this massive wave of people thinking that they're smarter than whoever invented Bitcoin in the first place. Everybody bought in to the hype but nobody wants to invest the time into understanding how the actual technology works.
"In fact the entire Blockchain arena is filled with either delusional or degenerate people who are inexperienced &, in no way, better than their predecessors."
FTX was a fractional-reserve bank built on buying and selling a resource designed to replace fractional-reserve banks. It's no surprise that this is how it turned out.
This whole 'decentralized wealth' thing isn't THAT difficult - get a good wallet, purchase some BTC from a friend or exchange, and transfer it into that wallet. Rinse, repeat. Don't keep your money on an exchange. Don't throw your money at pump-and-dump schemes. Don't measure your gains and losses based on what the stock market tells you, capitalism is in its late stages and government bailouts won't keep it floating forever.
Sidenote - nobody has really defined what web3 is or isn't yet, maybe Tim BL has a definition you'd like more: https://solidproject.org/take3
> It sucks that the initiative of creating a deflationary currency started this massive wave of people thinking that they're smarter than whoever invented Bitcoin in the first place.
I'm sure there are thousands of people who have spent far more time working on and thinking about bitcoin than the person who invented it.
I'm sure there are thousands of people who have spent far more time working on and thinking about bitcoin than the person who invented it.
collectively, yes. I would say that the type of thought is different, however. The creative thought of building a foundation with the foresight of how it might be extended or implemented is different than building on top of that foundation.
I'm more saying that people like Buterin saw it gain popularity and imagined that they could do better instead of standing behind it as a unified front. Maybe I'm biased, though
I'm more saying that people like Buterin saw it gain popularity and imagined that they could do better instead of standing behind it as a unified front. Maybe I'm biased, though
> capitalism is in its late stages and government bailouts won't keep it floating forever.
It's funny to see this critique pop up in various places completely unaware of the fact that capitalism has more or less been dead since the 1940s. The Great Depression was the end of them as a dominating cultural force and they've been replaced by a managed-everything; a management class.
So when you speak of capitalism only existing in its current late stage because of unsustainable government bailouts, you're really referring to the managed world we've lived in since the New Deal which began not only the popular things we all know and associate with it, but it also massive introduced corporate governance, a managed economy, more and more government institutions/regulations/departments/etc.
We still have some rare examples of swashbuckling capitalists shaping the world to their vision (see: Elon Musk) but they are very unpopular with the managerial class because of that (see: Elon Musk).
It's funny to see this critique pop up in various places completely unaware of the fact that capitalism has more or less been dead since the 1940s. The Great Depression was the end of them as a dominating cultural force and they've been replaced by a managed-everything; a management class.
So when you speak of capitalism only existing in its current late stage because of unsustainable government bailouts, you're really referring to the managed world we've lived in since the New Deal which began not only the popular things we all know and associate with it, but it also massive introduced corporate governance, a managed economy, more and more government institutions/regulations/departments/etc.
We still have some rare examples of swashbuckling capitalists shaping the world to their vision (see: Elon Musk) but they are very unpopular with the managerial class because of that (see: Elon Musk).
yea, that's fair. I know that money hasn't been real since we got off the gold standard, I'm just hella socialist and take any chance I can get to take pot shots at the state of today's economy to further my narrative.
Free market economy is the only way I see us cooperating on a global scale though, its hard to imagine otherwise - that's why I support Bitcoin
Free market economy is the only way I see us cooperating on a global scale though, its hard to imagine otherwise - that's why I support Bitcoin
This post is super weird even if from a temp account.
How are you socialist? You’re talking about the free market. Most likely you’re a modern right wing libertarian.
How are you socialist? You’re talking about the free market. Most likely you’re a modern right wing libertarian.
I seriously do not see and never saw how "Web 3.0" is a follow up from web 1 and 2. The whole thing was a hijack by ponzi schemers or just another way to get someone to get their life savings into some crypto nonsense.
Paraphrasing this week's TWiT:
Web 1.0 and 2.0 were created by engineers to solve problems. Web 3/3.0 was invented by finance bros to disguise their various scams as the next technology revolution.
Web 1.0 and 2.0 were created by engineers to solve problems. Web 3/3.0 was invented by finance bros to disguise their various scams as the next technology revolution.
>Web 3/3.0 was invented by finance bros
Web3, not Web 3.0, not the same thing at all, the latter is the next incarnation of Tim Berners-Lee's vision for the web and has nothing to do with finance and crypto bros.
It's important to make the distinction because 3.0 is actually important.
Web3, not Web 3.0, not the same thing at all, the latter is the next incarnation of Tim Berners-Lee's vision for the web and has nothing to do with finance and crypto bros.
It's important to make the distinction because 3.0 is actually important.
Honestly...... 3.0 is actually dead on arrival thanks to the proliferation of "Web3" the brand damage is done and "3.0" should find a new name ASAP.
Imo Web 3.0 is Webtransport / Webassembly / WebGPU. But Web 2.0+ may be a more fitting name.
Wikipedia uses Semantic Web: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web
They really don't even distinguish between Web3/3.0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web3
They really don't even distinguish between Web3/3.0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web3
I was thinking that web 3 would be fitting for ActivityPub, WebTorrent, Namecoin and IPFS.
No? ActivityPub is a protocol over HTTP - that's solidly last-gen. IPFS is caught between iterations but IMO is solidly Web2, and WebTorrent/Namecoin are abstractions over pre-existing technology. I think that's appropriate for a Web2.1 starter-pack, maybe.
What's next-gen is the federation, as opposed to the centralization of the current-gen. HTTP has nothing to do with it, even the "semantic 3.0" didn't ditch it.
That's not next-gen. Federation has existed since the 90s in the form of P2P trackers and other networking paradigms. HTTP has everything to do with it because Mastodon is built on a client-server model (not a peer-to-peer one) which is the textbook definition of a Web2 network.
When web 2.0 entered the picture, it didn't bring in anything new either, but represented a different focus. I think my proposal makes sense as "3.0" because similarly, there's not much new except a new focus in it.
Not very many people make this distinction… As far as optics and media perception (which is unfortunately what matters for the cultural zeitgeist) most understand Web3 to be the next generation incarnation of the web.
That’s cynical at best. One of the goals of Web3 is to enable direct commerce without trusted intermediaries.
Anyone here like using PayPal? What if instead you had the equivalent of cash that you could use on the internet?
Web3 is attempting to create an economy decoupled from existing currencies (fiat). Unlike a country seigniorage determined ahead of time, and is publicly visible for all to see.
If the idea of creating an internet native economy with its own currency and financial tools is not intellectually stimulating to you, then look elsewhere instead of completely hating on the space.
Yes there are scams; no that is not why the tech was created.
Anyone here like using PayPal? What if instead you had the equivalent of cash that you could use on the internet?
Web3 is attempting to create an economy decoupled from existing currencies (fiat). Unlike a country seigniorage determined ahead of time, and is publicly visible for all to see.
If the idea of creating an internet native economy with its own currency and financial tools is not intellectually stimulating to you, then look elsewhere instead of completely hating on the space.
Yes there are scams; no that is not why the tech was created.
> One of the goals of Web3 is to enable direct commerce without trusted intermediaries
That's the sales pitch, but the implementations all require basically anonymous, unaccountable intermediaries that are trusted.
That's the sales pitch, but the implementations all require basically anonymous, unaccountable intermediaries that are trusted.
So let’s just stop trying all together then, since things haven’t worked out well so far.
That is in effect what your statement is implying.
I’ll preface this by stating: running financial experiments on retail investors is immoral and likely criminal.
That being said, how many failures did Goddard have before his first successful liquid rocket? A lot!
He was ridiculed in newspapers, touted as crazy, and seen as a failure by a broad community.
If you’re interested, pay a visit to NASA’s Goddard Space and Flight center (named after the father of modern rocketry).
Why should failures of the past (most of which were human folly or greed) inhibit us from innovating our way to the future?
That is in effect what your statement is implying.
I’ll preface this by stating: running financial experiments on retail investors is immoral and likely criminal.
That being said, how many failures did Goddard have before his first successful liquid rocket? A lot!
He was ridiculed in newspapers, touted as crazy, and seen as a failure by a broad community.
If you’re interested, pay a visit to NASA’s Goddard Space and Flight center (named after the father of modern rocketry).
Why should failures of the past (most of which were human folly or greed) inhibit us from innovating our way to the future?
> So let’s just stop trying all together then, since things haven’t worked out well so far.
Crypto isn’t actually trying; the intermediaries that need to be trusted are fundamental to the concept, despite the sales pitch.
If you want to direct commerce without trusted intermediaries, just do that, it’s called barter and it works in certain circumstances.
The “problem” crypto pretends to solve is that turning that in to monetary exchange that is, replacing at least one part of that direct exchange with a fungible token traded not for its own direct utility but instead optimized for use in exchange with third parties for other goods and services, makes it suddenly rely on trusting external actors and social systems, but that isn’t a solvable problem, it is unalterably inherent in the very concept of monetary exchange. All any system can do is obscure that, reducing the probability that the trust extended is warranted.
Crypto isn’t actually trying; the intermediaries that need to be trusted are fundamental to the concept, despite the sales pitch.
If you want to direct commerce without trusted intermediaries, just do that, it’s called barter and it works in certain circumstances.
The “problem” crypto pretends to solve is that turning that in to monetary exchange that is, replacing at least one part of that direct exchange with a fungible token traded not for its own direct utility but instead optimized for use in exchange with third parties for other goods and services, makes it suddenly rely on trusting external actors and social systems, but that isn’t a solvable problem, it is unalterably inherent in the very concept of monetary exchange. All any system can do is obscure that, reducing the probability that the trust extended is warranted.
Can you explain what you mean by direct commerce without intermediaries? Do you consider the retailer an intermediary? The shipping company?
dude, HN is not the place to be a blockchain pro.
Exactly… NFT’s blah blah .. blockchain everything .. came off as like a sales pitch and never seemed to resonant as where the web was headed
Web2: you stop paying a cloud provider, your data is gone.
Web3: you stop paying a network, your data stays online. Either because it's permanent by default (blockchain, blockweave) or because people deem it interesting and pin it (IPFS)
Seems like a fundamental improvement to me.
Web3: you stop paying a network, your data stays online. Either because it's permanent by default (blockchain, blockweave) or because people deem it interesting and pin it (IPFS)
Seems like a fundamental improvement to me.
> Either because it's permanent by default (blockchain, blockweave)...
https://coloradosun.com/2022/11/21/brush-eastern-colorado-se...
> Two school administrators on Colorado’s Eastern Plains were accused of possessing child pornography when they investigated a school sexting case last April. No one said the men were trying to distribute the images or had bad intent. The girl in the photos and her parents begged police and prosecutors to drop charges against the men. But one of them, 32-year-old Bradley Bass, is facing up to 12 years in prison and the possibility of being branded a sex offender. He’d have to give up his career in education, and wouldn’t be able to parent his toddler and baby boy.
> Bass violated a Colorado law that says even unintentionally possessing explicit images of kids is akin to having child pornography. Even parents could be prosecuted under the broad language of the statute.
That's not gonna be a fun collision between technology and the legal system.
https://coloradosun.com/2022/11/21/brush-eastern-colorado-se...
> Two school administrators on Colorado’s Eastern Plains were accused of possessing child pornography when they investigated a school sexting case last April. No one said the men were trying to distribute the images or had bad intent. The girl in the photos and her parents begged police and prosecutors to drop charges against the men. But one of them, 32-year-old Bradley Bass, is facing up to 12 years in prison and the possibility of being branded a sex offender. He’d have to give up his career in education, and wouldn’t be able to parent his toddler and baby boy.
> Bass violated a Colorado law that says even unintentionally possessing explicit images of kids is akin to having child pornography. Even parents could be prosecuted under the broad language of the statute.
That's not gonna be a fun collision between technology and the legal system.
Good god where has common sense in the police and justice system gone so far off the rails that this came to court and didn't get thrown out immediately?!
Web2 - stores exabytes of data.
Web3 - stores a few text files and rotten hyperlinks to jpgs of (if you're lucky) poorly-drawn apes and (if you're unlucky) rugs, while setting billions of dollars on fire.
Web3 - stores a few text files and rotten hyperlinks to jpgs of (if you're lucky) poorly-drawn apes and (if you're unlucky) rugs, while setting billions of dollars on fire.
This. It is amazing to me that the cult members talk about the fiction as if their take on it is real instead of the reality.
I think, you should look into Filecoin and Arweave.
Your assumptions seem to be based on the (rather specific) use-case of art NFTs. They got quite some hype, but to be honest, I didn't get them either.
Your assumptions seem to be based on the (rather specific) use-case of art NFTs. They got quite some hype, but to be honest, I didn't get them either.
Why exactly would you trust random strangers with your critical data rather than use S3?
In the same sense I trusted my MP3 downloads on eDonkey before the records association played a foul game.
s/played a foul game/forced me to pay for what I’d been stealing/
FTFY.
FTFY.
There is one reason is that the protocol of storage is open. Doesn't mean the thing can't die obviously, but there is some hope that someone will continue to store the data - there is some incentive (crypto value, however low or unstable that can be) to do that.
Also, nothing stops you from storing the critical data in S3 too. I wouldn't bet what will last longer as a permanent storage.
Also, nothing stops you from storing the critical data in S3 too. I wouldn't bet what will last longer as a permanent storage.
1. Both the mindshare and marketshare of NFTs and similar garbage dwarfs any use of Filecoin.
2. Dropbox and Drive are cheaper and better. S3 is cheaper.
2. Dropbox and Drive are cheaper and better. S3 is cheaper.
1. That's not really an argument. There is literally exabytes of data on Filecoin (https://stats.filecoin.io/d/z6FtI92Zz/filecoin-chain-stats?o...)
2. And gone if you stop paying.
2. And gone if you stop paying.
1. That's capacity, that's not usage. I don't care about imagined usage, I care about actual usage.
2. No, it'll just be gone if crypto crashes enough and the miners sell or turn down their hardware (Probably precipitated by some fraud in some other part of the ecosystem unwinding).
There's a reason nobody has built the next Dropbox on Filecoin. [1]
[1] I mean, you can do that, if you have Einstein hair, and your goal is to grift dumb VC money, but you're not going to put together a better product.
2. No, it'll just be gone if crypto crashes enough and the miners sell or turn down their hardware (Probably precipitated by some fraud in some other part of the ecosystem unwinding).
There's a reason nobody has built the next Dropbox on Filecoin. [1]
[1] I mean, you can do that, if you have Einstein hair, and your goal is to grift dumb VC money, but you're not going to put together a better product.
A fundamental improvement in terms of what? The cloud provider provides a service conditional on being paid, whereas what you call "the network" seems to provide the service for free. Who's paying for the service?
How does that retention strategy scale?
IPFS isn't Web3
It's in the Web3 picture in the article.
I met many Protocol Labs people on crypto conferences and they pretty much see themselves as one of the core web3 technologies.
They were very influential to Web3. That being said, it's like saying that BitTorrent is a Web3 protocol just because the general interests/end goals are shared between projects.
The creator of BitTorrent also sees himself and his technology as an important part of web3.
Which is a pretty solid proof that web3 isn’t a real thing.
Paying for things ONLINE with a crypto wallet is legitimately a far, far better experience than fumbling around with credit cards.
A seamless on-ramp from a bank account to a crypto wallet will really change the way we pay for things online. I believe this on-ramp is coming with CBDCs.
Edit: HN is hopelessly anti Wayne Gretzky when it comes to crypto :D
Edit 2: I should have mentioned 'online'
A seamless on-ramp from a bank account to a crypto wallet will really change the way we pay for things online. I believe this on-ramp is coming with CBDCs.
Edit: HN is hopelessly anti Wayne Gretzky when it comes to crypto :D
Edit 2: I should have mentioned 'online'
This is the standard US centric viewpoint driving this nonsense. Every other developed nation and a lot of lower developed nations solved this long enough ago that it's not even thought about.
I have to use my physical card maybe once every 2 months/once per quarter as an anti-fraud step. My phone contactless pays for everything, and anything it can't (like a car or whatever) I can do sub 2 hour but in practice instant bank to bank transfer.
Moving money instantly and without transaction costs is a decade plus ago solved problem
I have to use my physical card maybe once every 2 months/once per quarter as an anti-fraud step. My phone contactless pays for everything, and anything it can't (like a car or whatever) I can do sub 2 hour but in practice instant bank to bank transfer.
Moving money instantly and without transaction costs is a decade plus ago solved problem
> Moving money instantly and without transaction costs is a decade plus ago solved problem
Where? Having lived in various cities in Europe, Asia and Australia, I can assure you, Visa and Wise and Remitly is still taking from half to 3 percent of all your transactions.
Where? Having lived in various cities in Europe, Asia and Australia, I can assure you, Visa and Wise and Remitly is still taking from half to 3 percent of all your transactions.
You do know that international transactions are a thing, right, and that UPI doesn't work globally?
Yes, but the vast majority of people aren't sending money globally.
And the other commentor is right, using credit cards in any non-american country is super simple and completely without hassle. Same with sending money to anyone I know, I just need their email address or phone number. Happens in seconds, is completely safe and ensured and best of all, reversible if there is a mistake.
And the other commentor is right, using credit cards in any non-american country is super simple and completely without hassle. Same with sending money to anyone I know, I just need their email address or phone number. Happens in seconds, is completely safe and ensured and best of all, reversible if there is a mistake.
Uhhh...
For real, who has issues paying with a CC at a register? Or contactless payments?
Don't crypto payments like bitcoin take a bit to go through? Like longer than you'd want someone tying up a cashier line?
For real, who has issues paying with a CC at a register? Or contactless payments?
Don't crypto payments like bitcoin take a bit to go through? Like longer than you'd want someone tying up a cashier line?
What. Is this trolling?
Modern credit payments from a consumer standpoint is tap a card or a phone on a reader.
Modern credit payments from a consumer standpoint is tap a card or a phone on a reader.
With a 2.5% fee to Visa
Which, in the US, is paid by the vendor, and so invisible. And worth it, given the protections against fraud, etc.
If you're claiming that there are vendors giving a 2.5% discount for using crypto for anything, you've got some evidence to produce.
P.S. It's not always 2.5%, either. Could be 1.5% at scale.
If you're claiming that there are vendors giving a 2.5% discount for using crypto for anything, you've got some evidence to produce.
P.S. It's not always 2.5%, either. Could be 1.5% at scale.
> If you're claiming that there are vendors giving a 2.5% discount for using crypto for anything, you've got some evidence to produce.
Or more, yes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OxtTGml564 that said technically Visa will punish you by removing you from their network for doing this.
Or more, yes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OxtTGml564 that said technically Visa will punish you by removing you from their network for doing this.
> A seamless on-ramp from a bank account to a crypto wallet will really change the way we pay for things online.
What? Why? Here in Europe, you can just pay with SEPA direct debit. You don't need credit cards or paper checks to pay for stuff, neither in the meatspace nor online. The only thing services like PayPal are good for is fraud protection (for both sides).
So much of what we see in the US financial industry and the workarounds created to bypass their bullshit - anything from "payday loan" places advancing money for a paycheck over paychecks or rent checks themselves to Bitcoin to bypass transaction fees - is just not an issue here. Our wages get automatically deposited into our bank accounts, rent gets either automatically sent by your bank or drafted by the lender's bank, and any kind of card transaction is capped at 0.2 (DC)/0.3%(CC) [1].
[1] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2015...
What? Why? Here in Europe, you can just pay with SEPA direct debit. You don't need credit cards or paper checks to pay for stuff, neither in the meatspace nor online. The only thing services like PayPal are good for is fraud protection (for both sides).
So much of what we see in the US financial industry and the workarounds created to bypass their bullshit - anything from "payday loan" places advancing money for a paycheck over paychecks or rent checks themselves to Bitcoin to bypass transaction fees - is just not an issue here. Our wages get automatically deposited into our bank accounts, rent gets either automatically sent by your bank or drafted by the lender's bank, and any kind of card transaction is capped at 0.2 (DC)/0.3%(CC) [1].
[1] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2015...
In the us the credit card option has very strong statutory consumer protections. As a rule people should be using credit cards, not debit cards.
I am fascinated by the ridiculous claims that this somehow makes things hard.
I am fascinated by the ridiculous claims that this somehow makes things hard.
> In the us the credit card option has very strong statutory consumer protections. As a rule people should be using credit cards, not debit cards.
... and pay a lot of interest to their banks as a result. Here in Europe, we don't need to pay interest for credit cards or worry about paying CC bills on time to avoid them, as we have strong consumer protection laws in general and SEPA direct debits can be clawed back no-questions-asked for three days.
... and pay a lot of interest to their banks as a result. Here in Europe, we don't need to pay interest for credit cards or worry about paying CC bills on time to avoid them, as we have strong consumer protection laws in general and SEPA direct debits can be clawed back no-questions-asked for three days.
That’s not how it works. If you pay it off in the month you pay $0. Maybe don’t be so confident.
> If you pay it off in the month you pay $0.
How many people have the financial discipline or the financial education? Banks are making a truckload of money on that not being the case.
How many people have the financial discipline or the financial education? Banks are making a truckload of money on that not being the case.
You’re comparing to debit cards where there is no float at all. You were mistaken in your first post. Just go with it.
>Paying for things with a crypto wallet is legitimately a far, far better experience than fumbling around with credit cards.
... and when you talk about "experience", what do you mean here? I doubt there's a much slicker payment experience than Apple Pay when a vendor supports that, and I'm also pretty sure that my disputing a transaction with Chase is better than an equivalent crypto experience.
... and when you talk about "experience", what do you mean here? I doubt there's a much slicker payment experience than Apple Pay when a vendor supports that, and I'm also pretty sure that my disputing a transaction with Chase is better than an equivalent crypto experience.
I mean paying for things online. Should have mentioned that.
I bought a subscription to a tool called Icy.tools a while back. The sign-up process was as follows:
- Click the "Sign-Up" button on the website - Click the "Sign" button on the web wallet pop-up. - Click "Pay" on the next screen - Click "Approve Transaction" on the web wallet pop up.
That's it. No forms to fill. No emails to share. No credit card info to fill up. An equivalent non-crypto experience would be Sign-up > Share email > Verify email > Fill payment details > Enter OTP on credit card website
I bought a subscription to a tool called Icy.tools a while back. The sign-up process was as follows:
- Click the "Sign-Up" button on the website - Click the "Sign" button on the web wallet pop-up. - Click "Pay" on the next screen - Click "Approve Transaction" on the web wallet pop up.
That's it. No forms to fill. No emails to share. No credit card info to fill up. An equivalent non-crypto experience would be Sign-up > Share email > Verify email > Fill payment details > Enter OTP on credit card website
So are you just so into crypto you've lost track of what real life is like?
I use Sign In with Apple[0], and it's literally a single click which hides my email, and one more click with biometric confirmation for payments. That's... one fewer click than crypto, and was easier to set up than your crypto wallet, without putting my funds at risk.
0. https://developer.apple.com/sign-in-with-apple/
I use Sign In with Apple[0], and it's literally a single click which hides my email, and one more click with biometric confirmation for payments. That's... one fewer click than crypto, and was easier to set up than your crypto wallet, without putting my funds at risk.
0. https://developer.apple.com/sign-in-with-apple/
Apple Pay online payment flow: on the checkout form, click the Apple Pay button. OS pops up a form confirming the payment card, amount, delivery address etc. Put finger on Touch ID sensor to confirm. n.b. the payment card details and address come from your Apple Pay wallet; you don't enter them onto the checkout form.
Apply Pay Express Transit payment flow for e.g. the subway: touch phone to sensor and go.
Apply Pay Express Transit payment flow for e.g. the subway: touch phone to sensor and go.
You can actually buy stuff with crypto? IBD - first you exchange your crypto for fiat then exchange the fiat for the thing you purchased. Noticed how long Tesla's experiment with direct crypto payment lasted. The dollars I received yesterday will still pretty much buy me what I bought the day before. My $60,000 bitcoin from last year not so much.
I don't know. To pay with google pay I unlock my phone and get it close to a pos. Even here in Chile is rare to find a business that doesn't have contactless payments. Even if I could't use the contactless payment system that uses the same bank that I already have I can pay using a QR code with one of the many wallets that can connect to my bank.
> The whole thing was a hijack by ponzi schemers or just another way to get someone to get their life savings into some crypto nonsense.
Speculating on 'crypto' can indeed be considered nonsense.
Owning your identity (instead of Google) and being able to communicate and send money directly to your peers for almost free (instead of Facebook / Twitter controlling who youcan communicate with, and Visa / Wise.com taking a chunk of all your transactions) is a MASSIVE deal.
Speculating on 'crypto' can indeed be considered nonsense.
Owning your identity (instead of Google) and being able to communicate and send money directly to your peers for almost free (instead of Facebook / Twitter controlling who youcan communicate with, and Visa / Wise.com taking a chunk of all your transactions) is a MASSIVE deal.
The solution to the first problem already exists (It's called having your own public/private key), and the solution to the second is to live in pretty much anywhere that's not the United States. Neither of which requires you to pay a cent to the early adopters of the token of the week.
The second isn't as much of a killer app as you think to normies, and neither is the first.
The second isn't as much of a killer app as you think to normies, and neither is the first.
Yes, wallets are essentially client side keypairs plus other tech. They’re way easier to use though as I’m sure anyone with experience in client side keypairs will tell you.
I don’t live in the US and I assure you Visa is still a very big part of daily life in all of Europe, Asia and Australia.
I don’t live in the US and I assure you Visa is still a very big part of daily life in all of Europe, Asia and Australia.
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It's all just marketing.
Web3 as decentralized services is the logical next step. Ethereum stealing the name and doing everything they can to be associated with it is a load of bs taking away the glamor from real decentralized services that I assure you are coming
What is the meaning of decentralized services ?
This is not a good faith question, Google it
This is not a good faith answer, it is however the type of thing that turns a lot of people off to cryptocurrency.
If you google decentralized service in an incognito tab you’ll see why people ask this. The rest of the world gets Wikipedia articles about engineering distributed systems (like database clusters) and distributed consensus (like raft). Since that’s (probably) not what you mean, I submit that as the person using a standard term in a non-standard way that it’s on you to define it.
If you google decentralized service in an incognito tab you’ll see why people ask this. The rest of the world gets Wikipedia articles about engineering distributed systems (like database clusters) and distributed consensus (like raft). Since that’s (probably) not what you mean, I submit that as the person using a standard term in a non-standard way that it’s on you to define it.
I specifically stated that I was not referring to cryptocurrency, I’m certainly not an advocate. Every engineer knows what a decentralized service is and any who doesn’t will Google the term.
You are asking it bad faith hoping I was a cryptobro. It’s an obvious red herring and I’m not feeding the troll.
You are asking it bad faith hoping I was a cryptobro. It’s an obvious red herring and I’m not feeding the troll.
That’s quite the chip you have on your shoulder, too bad. Could have been an interesting discussion. For instance, Web 1.0 was already a decentralized system, as was the DNS which came before it. Why the version change?
Questions have been asked, and vitriol has been your only response. Who’s actually the troll, one wonders.
Questions have been asked, and vitriol has been your only response. Who’s actually the troll, one wonders.
it is called 'web3'
It's worth noting that the title here confuses "web3" with "web 3.0". It means "web3".
Web3 is the crypto nonsense that the article talks about, which has almost nothing to do with the web. Web 3.0 is Tim Berners Lee's vision for a decentralized web:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/04/web-inventor-tim-berners-lee...
I think it's an important distinction to make. Web 3.0 is noble in its vision and intentions, while web3 has been the crypto industry's attempt to get folks interested in their tech with a buzzword that sounds like it's the next hot thing.
Web3 is the crypto nonsense that the article talks about, which has almost nothing to do with the web. Web 3.0 is Tim Berners Lee's vision for a decentralized web:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/04/web-inventor-tim-berners-lee...
I think it's an important distinction to make. Web 3.0 is noble in its vision and intentions, while web3 has been the crypto industry's attempt to get folks interested in their tech with a buzzword that sounds like it's the next hot thing.
The "web3" branding damage is done.
The Web 3.0 consortium will need to revive "Semantic Web", or some derivative, to distance themselves from crypto.
The Web 3.0 consortium will need to revive "Semantic Web", or some derivative, to distance themselves from crypto.
While I agree that Web3 != Web 3.0, as far as I can tell, the meaning/scope of Web 3.0 has changed as well. At one point, as I recall, it was pretty much a synonym for the Semantic Web (which really never took off broadly). However, it now seems to encompass some other stuff that Tim Berners-Lee has been working on more recently.
> Web3 is the crypto nonsense that the article talks about, which has almost nothing to do with the web. Web 3.0 is Tim Berners Lee's vision for a decentralized web
The web3, Web 3, Web 3.0 naming ship has already sailed and was successfully hijacked by the Ethereum crowd. The semantic web was close to non-existent to begin to take off with that name, hence the reason why it lost quickly.
Quite frankly, that is too bad and the damage is already done.
The web3, Web 3, Web 3.0 naming ship has already sailed and was successfully hijacked by the Ethereum crowd. The semantic web was close to non-existent to begin to take off with that name, hence the reason why it lost quickly.
Quite frankly, that is too bad and the damage is already done.
> Web 3.0 is Tim Berners Lee's vision for a decentralized web:
TBL is not the central arbiter of web 3, in much the same way he didn't have anything to do with the coining of web 2.0.
TBL is not the central arbiter of web 3, in much the same way he didn't have anything to do with the coining of web 2.0.
There's still an important distinction between "the semantic web" and "a bunch of cryptocurrency fuckery", both of which have been termed "Web 3" at times.
Web3 isn't about cryptocurrency, it's about owning your own identity instead of Google, Apple, Facebook.
I find that a shifting squiggly goal. I have not yet seen a "web3" without block chain / crypto.
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
You are free to think that, but most folks' use of the term relates strongly to cryptocurrency.
You are free to think that, but most folks' use of the term relates strongly to cryptocurrency.
> You are free to think that, but most folks' use of the term relates strongly to cryptocurrency.
Most people have no idea what web3 or web 2.0 is. But yes, the common definition is the decentralised web. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web3
Most people have no idea what web3 or web 2.0 is. But yes, the common definition is the decentralised web. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web3
What "web3" project doesn't involve a cryptocurrency concept as a technological underpinning?
With a zero balance, identity. Identity is simply connecting to a wallet and reading a signed DID - the wallet could have zero balance and it still works. Boom you just signed into something without Google / Facebook / Apple.
With close to a zero balance (but not quite zero) to pay transaction fees, you can do peer to peer encrypted messaging without central arbiters.
With close to a zero balance (but not quite zero) to pay transaction fees, you can send vast quantities of stablecoins to the otherside of the world - that said a web3 skeptic may consider stablecoins to be a cryptocurrency (there's arguments either way, they're tokens but not minted via proof of stake) and capitalisation is an issue.
Edit: reply to peoplefromibiza, who made some good points, due to rate limit:
> wallets are a cryptocurrency concept
yes, agreed. But they do a lot more than let you speculate on cryptocurrencies. Right now I'm working on wallet for people who have zero interest in speculating on cryptocurrencies.
> you can do the same thing with a client certificate
yes agreed. You can think of web3 as a better PKI. I do.
With close to a zero balance (but not quite zero) to pay transaction fees, you can do peer to peer encrypted messaging without central arbiters.
With close to a zero balance (but not quite zero) to pay transaction fees, you can send vast quantities of stablecoins to the otherside of the world - that said a web3 skeptic may consider stablecoins to be a cryptocurrency (there's arguments either way, they're tokens but not minted via proof of stake) and capitalisation is an issue.
Edit: reply to peoplefromibiza, who made some good points, due to rate limit:
> wallets are a cryptocurrency concept
yes, agreed. But they do a lot more than let you speculate on cryptocurrencies. Right now I'm working on wallet for people who have zero interest in speculating on cryptocurrencies.
> you can do the same thing with a client certificate
yes agreed. You can think of web3 as a better PKI. I do.
wallets are a crtptocurrency concept.
you can do the same thing with a client certificate, boom, you are who the cert says you are.
you can do the same thing with a client certificate, boom, you are who the cert says you are.
> wallets are a cryptocurrency concept
yes, agreed. But they do a lot more than let you speculate on cryptocurrencies. Right now I'm working on wallet for people who have zero interest in speculating on cryptocurrencies.
> you can do the same thing with a client certificate
yes agreed. You can think of web3 as a better PKI. I do.
yes, agreed. But they do a lot more than let you speculate on cryptocurrencies. Right now I'm working on wallet for people who have zero interest in speculating on cryptocurrencies.
> you can do the same thing with a client certificate
yes agreed. You can think of web3 as a better PKI. I do.
> yes agreed. You can think of web3 as a better PKI. I do.
interesting point.
from a UI perspective, it's kinda true.
could have been their killer app, if the whole ecosystem thought about it, but in the end it's been just a byproduct of something that proved zero usefulness and even the "better PKI" argument it's been somewhat replicated by letsencrypt for HTTPS and it will for everything else when a sufficient number of users will show interest for it.
interesting point.
from a UI perspective, it's kinda true.
could have been their killer app, if the whole ecosystem thought about it, but in the end it's been just a byproduct of something that proved zero usefulness and even the "better PKI" argument it's been somewhat replicated by letsencrypt for HTTPS and it will for everything else when a sufficient number of users will show interest for it.
This.
The distinction is that "the semantic web" went nowhere and "a bunch of crypto currency fuckery" has millions of users globally.
I'm with you on the success (or lack thereof) of the semantic web.
I don't consider gambling a good thing just because there are millions of gamblers. I feel the same about cryptocurrency.
I don't consider gambling a good thing just because there are millions of gamblers. I feel the same about cryptocurrency.
How is using a decentralised Twitter alternative like Lens gambling?
How is using a decentralised Zoom alternative like Huddle01 gambling?
How is using a decentralised Pusher alternative like Push gambling?
I agree, that in the last years most web3 apps focused on financial/blockchain specific use-cases. I also agree, that many of them had quite dubious claims.
But that's not all there is and I think, that won't be the reason it will gain mainstream adoption.
How is using a decentralised Zoom alternative like Huddle01 gambling?
How is using a decentralised Pusher alternative like Push gambling?
I agree, that in the last years most web3 apps focused on financial/blockchain specific use-cases. I also agree, that many of them had quite dubious claims.
But that's not all there is and I think, that won't be the reason it will gain mainstream adoption.
Which of those have the "millions of users" the upthread comment referred to?
Good point. The ones I wrote probably just have a few 10k max.
Maybe, the Internet Archive is a better example millions of users?
Maybe, the Internet Archive is a better example millions of users?
The Internet Archive is a web3 project? It was founded in 1996. Web 2.0 didn't exist then.
Obviously it didn't start as one, but projects can transition, right?
Seemingly, the Internet Archive and Protocol Labs are bros.
https://blog.archive.org/2021/04/01/filecoin-foundation-gran...
Seemingly, the Internet Archive and Protocol Labs are bros.
https://blog.archive.org/2021/04/01/filecoin-foundation-gran...
s/user/sucker/g
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you obviously know nothing about crypto.
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Web3 is already making inroads piece by piece into the web.
It started with ssh. Once keys were exchanged, you did not have to trust the infrastructure providers anymore. You knew whom you are talking to and that the communication is not tampered with. Similar with https.
A recent development is that ActivityPub profiles have private keys and publish their public keys. So if you run your own Fediverse node, you already are in control of keys that identify you as you.
I think this trend will continue to slowly put the social graph into the hands of the people.
It started with ssh. Once keys were exchanged, you did not have to trust the infrastructure providers anymore. You knew whom you are talking to and that the communication is not tampered with. Similar with https.
A recent development is that ActivityPub profiles have private keys and publish their public keys. So if you run your own Fediverse node, you already are in control of keys that identify you as you.
I think this trend will continue to slowly put the social graph into the hands of the people.
That is a dishonest retcon giving the new buzzword credit for other people's existing work.
You can't just say "MyFoo stands for good things, look there's a good thing over there, therefore MyFoo is working".
You can't just say "MyFoo stands for good things, look there's a good thing over there, therefore MyFoo is working".
Both of the things you mentioned predate the "web3" marketing term and do not use any of the cryptocurrencies which that term is being used to market, and the ActivityPub people do not seem to be fans of cryptocurrencies. It's dishonest to try to claim credit for their work.
So connecting with TLS should be fine then.
With hindsight, the two technological breakthroughs that proved decentralized databases possible were Bitcoin and Zerocash. Bitcoin showed that state-machine replication (SMR) is solvable in a distributed, permissionless, partially synchronous setting with Byzantine fault tolerance. Zerocash showed that zero knowledge succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge can be used to ensure the confidentiality of transactions in this SMR setting.
The tech is improving rapidly and it’s pretty easy to see where things are going from here: soon we’ll have general purpose decentralized databases where data is open as open source code is open. In fact, state-of-the-art blockchains can be viewed as special (financial) purpose decentralized databases.
As to why decentralized databases are desirable: imagine if you could fork databases in a completely permission-less manner like you can fork code. This is how web development would look like:
You, the programmer, take a look at a public data schema (eg. a smart contract that implements the ERC-721 interface) and decide to build on top of it. Then, a user, who has already interacted with what you built on, decides that they like what you built and lets your app use their data. You, the programmer, can be sure that the data you built on remains available, and the user can be sure that they'll be able to port the data produced by your app into new apps.