[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What's Your Opinion on Web3?
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: What's Your Opinion on Web3?
My personal take is that there can be a lot of good usecases that
will come out of it but I don't believe in the toppling the world
order with people's revolution part of it. Also, NFTs are good
usecase for digital artists but is an extremely bad buy for a
normal consumer since most art is worthless in future unless you
get hands on something really unique and respected like Beeple's
art collection.
Author : kkcorps
Score : 25 points
Date : 2021-12-24 15:47 UTC (7 hours ago)
| m_ke wrote:
| It's a dystopian vision that would make the internet worse for
| 95% of its users. Only thing it would do is bring the worst
| attributes of the physical world into the digital one.
|
| People arguing that it could be a counter to the centralization
| of "web 2.0" should really be pushing for open source software
| that you can run locally on your computer and is free and
| abundant for everyone to use, instead of pushing for an
| inefficient distributed system that forces scarcity in the
| digital realm. Worst problem with the introduction of Ajax and
| Web 2.0 was the shift from owning and running desktop software to
| the "cloud" and Saas subscriptions where things you depend on
| could go away or be changed underneath you at any moment.
| JSONderulo wrote:
| Can't help but pay attention to the recent conversations over the
| last 3 days between Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, Chris Dixon, Marc
| Andreessen, and Balaji amongst others. True decentralization and
| blockchain enabled business models are fascinating.
| [deleted]
| ralston3 wrote:
| I feel like a lot of people use the term "web3" which in and of
| itself, doesn't convey too much information. I feel like this
| question should be asked within the context of web3's components:
|
| - The ability to login to many platforms without needing to
| create an account on that specific platform (universal login as
| mentioned by others)
|
| - Being able to use the decentralized ledger as a database --
| this is currently only done with art NFTs - but could literally
| be done with SO much else
|
| - Being able to create dApps that run on their own and are
| maintained by a community -- i.e., apps that don't pit the user
| incentives against the incentives for the company owning the apps
| (dating apps are a good example of this)
|
| - Decentralized storage. Not keeping everything in S3 -- not
| saying this is better for in-production, but just mentioning with
| web3 - people are finally open to this type of thing as opposed
| to just saying "let's just host it on S3".
|
| - Community. As corny and overused as this word is, I know. But
| specifically finding a project, hopping on their Discord,
| contributing, asking questions, etc.
|
| Web3 is as much an ethos as it is a "specific thing". It's a
| rejection of the walled-garden, data hoarding techniques of past
| platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Google, etc) and a recognition
| that there is enough pie for a lot of smaller, more niche teams
| to have a piece.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > - The ability to login to many platforms without needing to
| create an account on that specific platform (universal login as
| mentioned by others)
|
| Dude, how come no one is talking about this instead of
| cryptocurrency and NFT FOMO bullshit? That's actually useful.
| When do we get that?
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Is it actually useful?
|
| It saves people from needing to create passwords for each
| service if they don't use a password manager while also
| eliminating SSO as a data collection mechanism for major
| internet companies. That's not nothing, but the entirety of
| this is achieved by signature based authentication, which has
| existed for years and years but has achieved basically zero
| adoption.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| It is obviously useful, and indeed it could be implemented
| by readily available methods. If "Web3" was really about
| getting that done, making the adoption actually happen, I
| think I'd be a lot less inclined to think the whole thing
| is just hype-based scams.
| beardedetim wrote:
| Like IndieLogin/IndieAuth?
| kevincox wrote:
| I agree, Web3 is a buzzword with little meaning. The features I
| am most looking forward to are:
|
| 1. Self-owned storage. I would love it if I could make and use
| apps where the users owned the storage (in a convenient way).
| This means that running apps is basically free and you don't
| have the legal pain of controlling user data. It also means
| that users can export their data (the just need to figure out
| how to interpret it).
|
| 2. Decentralized hosting. I think it would be amazing if you
| could keep using sites even if the original host went offline.
| IPFS is making good strides here. For example if you like my
| first player chooser you can pin
| /ipfs/QmWBUag1ynHaZekVHyr1VfMgF6fh64PPP46oiNYCgCPCQK and use it
| forever. This combined with 1 means that you can keep using
| apps without any creator involvement.
|
| These two feel so close that they could be used today. There
| are efforts, but at least for 1 not much is really sticking.
|
| The above 2 are all about single-user data though. Combining
| data for multiple users like many of your other points
| reference would be super cool but is a much harder problem,
| particularly around security and privacy. I think that will be
| full "Web3" but I see us as a long way off.
| captainbland wrote:
| In my view it is likely to be a financial success at least over
| the medium term precisely because it will disempower everyone
| who's not a substantial capital owner and promises to put very
| strong ownership validation tools in the hands of those who are.
|
| If you want a distributed system that empowers end users, you're
| better off dusting off your favourite bittorrent client.
|
| NFTs in particular are essentially just distributed DRM. Though
| in practice it will likely be circumnavigable for all cases other
| than verifying ownership on a block chain just like contemporary
| DRM is today.
|
| But ultimately "Web3" looks to empower capital owners above
| anyone else, who are already massively empowered. So you have to
| wonder what the point is other than as a get rich quick scheme
| for delirious libertarians.
|
| The same forces of wealth based accumulation that exist in the
| current internet/web will come into fruition in the Web3 world
| precisely because it is the most powerful centralising force on
| the internet and does nothing to address this.
| aborsy wrote:
| What is web3 exactly? Is it about world wide web or crypto?
| streetcat1 wrote:
| Ask again when interest rates are at 4%.
| Skyy93 wrote:
| NFTs are just worthless garbage. The assumption here is that the
| piece of "art" is unique because of the Hash on a Chain. But
| thats simply a lie, I can simply copying the image. The
| difference to real world is that in the real world copying is not
| a 1:1 copy, its just a the same till a certain percentage.
|
| If you integrate it in some game or in the metaverse its still
| worthless, because you are just a consumer that participates in
| artifical shortage of a product thats copyable with a simple
| click.
| mclbdn wrote:
| Once, I've heard this pro-NFT argument: It's like if you would
| own the original of Mona Lisa. There are millions of copies,
| but you are the only one that actually owns the original.
|
| That said, I still cannot wrap my head around owning some "art"
| in the digital world.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| The only reasonable argument I've heard for this NFT nonsense
| actually goes something like this: Let's say there's an indie
| game developer who doesn't believe in DRM, and they sell you
| a game. What have you actually bought, given that you could
| have copied that game from anywhere? Why did you buy it?
|
| Answering these questions, then answering them for NFTs
| _almost_ makes it all makes sense. I say _almost_ because, of
| course, they don 't need a fucking blockchain to do any of
| this.
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| > Once, I've heard this pro-NFT argument: It's like if you
| would own the original of Mona Lisa.
|
| Except it isn't. That's just something someone says to get
| you to open your wallet.
|
| At the end of the day, you don't actually own the thing being
| named.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Once, I've heard this pro-NFT argument: It's like if you
| would own the original of Mona Lisa.
|
| It's more like if you would own a certificate (very likely of
| dubious provenance itself) saying that you owned the original
| of the Mona Lisa, which certificate also listed the address
| at which the actual original is stored, in case anyone wanted
| to see what you "owned".
|
| But that makes a less-enticing pro-NFT argument.
| shiohime wrote:
| I think it's a really neat space to explore and love the idea of
| provable digital ownership. There's a lot of projects in the
| space that are interesting ideas, and it is fascinating to see
| parts of the web stack increasingly decentralized. Whether or not
| it will be a long term success, who knows. It's a fascinating
| field to work in, and has given me motivation to run some
| creative independent ventures that I wouldn't have otherwise. For
| NFTs there's much more you can do with them than in the current
| model, and we'll see more increasingly complex and unique
| usecases from NFT projects in the coming year I'm certain.
|
| Although it is fascinating to see more parts of the webstack
| increasingly decentralized, I also do not fully buy into the
| "decentralize everything" ideology that some people in the space
| have. Some people may not call projects "web3" if they run on
| traditional infra like AWS, but there is absolutely value in a
| hybrid model in my mind that leverages a decentralized ledger for
| proof of digital ownership on top of more traditional infra. I
| don't think for instance that making a platform to replace
| existing web2 websites like twitter / FB / your favorite website
| is the way to look at it, but rather to figure out new ideas and
| products, maybe fully decentralized, maybe not. To me it doesn't
| matter, I just want unique, streamlined user experiences that
| provide value to users who want to participate in the ecosystem.
| Even if it is just a small community, it's fun.
| thumbcore wrote:
| I still haven't heard a _good_ reason.
|
| I hear ideas from gamers and anti-big-tech folks, but none of it
| really sounds all that useful. But I'm also the kind of person
| who prints off their boarding pass at the airport because I
| prefer having a reliable piece of paper to get me on the plane.
|
| Cryptocurrency and blockchains aside, I feel like if folks really
| cared about public authentication and proof of identity, then
| something like Keybase would be far more popular than it is. So
| idk, I've not been convinced yet.
| [deleted]
| PretzelPirate wrote:
| I like NFTs, but not art NFTs. Having NFTs represent actual in-
| game assets with unique stats that can be used across different
| games in a permissionless way, seems like a way to empower gamers
| as we buy more and more digital-only items.
|
| I also like the idea of NFTs as game licenses. If the XBOX uses
| something like an Ethereum address as your XBOX account, it can
| verify what games you own by checking if you own the NFT that
| represents that game's license. At that point, even if XBOX live
| shuts down support for XBOX 360 games in 20 years, my 360 will
| still be able to play any game I have the media for (ex: digital
| game copy on a USB drive).
|
| I also like the idea of universal login using Ethereum addresses.
| I don't want my identity to be owned by Microsoft, Google, Apple,
| of Facebook. I'd rather it be something I own (a public/private
| key pair) along with some known place to store attestations about
| who I am and what I can do (a blockchain). Those attestations
| could be stored off-chain, but that becomes difficult for users
| to maintain and program.
| bytebln wrote:
| Why is it a good idea that your logins hinge on a regulation-
| free bank account? What happens if you lose your key?
| ziml77 wrote:
| I know there are some people who genuinely believe that's a
| perfectly fine risk and that it's entirely your fault to live
| with the consequences if you lose the key.
| shiohime wrote:
| You can easily create as many wallets as you'd like, and keep
| your funds isolated from a wallet you use as an identity, if
| you wanted. There are multi-key wallets out there as well to
| retain control of your wallet in the event that one of the
| keys are compromised. I haven't used any of those personally
| myself so I can't really elaborate more on those types of
| wallets, but it feels like being able to lower risk is a
| solvable problem.
| yyyk wrote:
| >Having NFTs represent actual in-game assets with unique stats
|
| That's a private blockchain in hiding, since the relation of
| the NFT to the asset must be mediated by modifiable game code,
| at which point the dev could practically reassign ownership
| within their game world.
|
| Private blockchains of course make no sense. But trying to find
| new ways to exploit gamers with microtransactions is always
| popular with some companies.
|
| >I also like the idea of NFTs as game licenses.
|
| Ultimately, the issue is that Xbox Live might _want_ to shut
| down support, and could do that rather directly even with NFTs.
| If there was enough commercial pressure to not do that, this
| problem is trivial to solve with a permanent licence.
|
| >I also like the idea of universal login using Ethereum
| addresses. I don't want my identity to be owned by Microsoft,
| Google, Apple, of Facebook.
|
| The various federated solutions achieve this without a
| blockchain. It's possible though to see blockchain 'winning'
| here - it won't be because of any technical advantage, but
| rather because it was made more available than other solutions.
| fbrncci wrote:
| I constantly wonder whether there is something I am missing about
| Web3. Am just too old and perhaps out of touch to understand the
| hype? Sometime between 2015-2019 I probably made upwards of
| 20.000+ manual trades with smart contracts, and even build my own
| dapps. I felt like a ETH/Decentralization and Web3 apostle. But
| everything just felt so useless to me in the end (except the easy
| money I was making). Nowadays, web3 feels even more useless, and
| even more scammy. The "use-cases" and "scarity" to me sound like
| some exotic products that are packaged for the gullible to waste
| their money in a unregulated, hyper gambling echo chamber of the
| internet. But of course, perhaps I am still missing the point.
| ziml77 wrote:
| You seem to have nailed it. The Web3 stuff is about making easy
| money by extracting it from people who think that they're also
| going to get easy money.
| badrabbit wrote:
| It will be 5+ years before we can tell it was just a fad or
| something real. Web 2 was also a flash based hype in it's time
| like this. However, the architectural and incentive changes are
| very big with web 3.
|
| Like ipv4 to ipv6, I think small and meaningful feature additions
| compounding over time are practical whereas resteucturing entire
| ecosystems has a risk of a slow and inefficient adoption rate
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| > It will be 5+ years before we can tell it was just a fad or
| something real.
|
| Have you ever said this about something, and then five years
| later, it wasn't a fad?
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| Sure! At least for me, this applied to the original web,
| mobile computing, Linux, Twitter, VR, Bitcoin, etc, etc,
| etc...
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Web3 is basically synonymous with defi right now, but I agree,
| there's a lot of potential in the next few years/decades.
|
| I'm fed up with institutions like Facebook having unchecked
| control over who uses their platform when so much digital
| infrastructure is built on it. I realize it's not a popular idea
| with the HN crowd, but I think a revolution is coming, with
| decentralized tech at the forefront. Like it or not, most
| decentralized tech has seen very limited adoption, and an
| inability to compensate nodes seems to be a contributor to that.
|
| Greed is a really good motivator for people to step out of their
| comfort zones a little bit, and has clearly been driving adoption
| of technology that previously was hard to get people to adopt
| tracyhenry wrote:
| if the major motivator is greed but not the intrinsic value of
| the tech, don't you think this is terribly broken?
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| When has adoption of anything ever been driven by the general
| audience's interest in technology?
|
| edit: I misunderstood your post to be addressing the lack of
| interest in the tech, not suggesting it wasn't valuable. I
| wasn't suggesting there's no value to crypto and web3 tech
| though (I think there is... a lot), just that people are
| typically reluctant to embrace tech that might offer benefits
| (such as movement away from gated monopolies who don't face
| repercussions for abusing their power) when there is a
| significant learning curve. Being motivated by potential
| profit seems to have motivated people to learn more about
| decentralized technology than typically would.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| Artificial scarcity is artificial.
|
| Nothing prevents someone from making copies or selling copies
| that they don't own / have copyright rights over.
| [deleted]
| 3np wrote:
| You're talking about the current iteration of art NFTs; not
| Web3.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| The rest of web3 are solutions in search of problems.
|
| web3 runs on top of web2 and is therefore subject to all of
| the forces that affect and control web2 plus the "get rich
| quick" elements of web3.
| 3np wrote:
| I'm aware there's no shortage of snake-oil marketing that
| will tell you otherwise but if it runs on top of web2 it
| doesn't classify as web3 in my book.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> if it runs on top of web2 it doesn't classify as web3
| in my book.
|
| Then web3 providers need to buy their own hardware and
| data centers instead of using web2 cloud infrastructure:
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxdnxy/amazons-server-
| outage...
|
| https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/coinbase-
| down-a...
|
| https://decrypt.co/44321/70-of-ethereum-nodes-are-hosted-
| on-...
| yyyk wrote:
| NFTs are like art collection, without the exclusivity or actual
| ownership. It's a good deal for artists (yay, money for nothing!)
| but an extremely bad buy for customers, who will probably
| eventually grow out of it.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > NFTs are like art collection, without the exclusivity or
| actual ownership.
|
| NFTs are art certification of ownership collection without
| tying to exclusivity of possession of the art. Or,
| unfortunately, particularly trustworthy certification.
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| > NFTs are art certification of ownership collection
|
| Not really, no
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-12-24 23:02 UTC)