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They would be useful for making agreements across a large imbalance of power. For example, if I am a one-person operation selling on Amazon, and they screw me o

They would be useful for making agreements across a large imbalance of power. For example, if I am a one-person operation selling on Amazon, and they screw me over in a clever way, I could not afford to fight them in court. Even if they would have lost, I might simply be incapable of pursuing the case to the end. I personally would much rather use smart contracts for making deals with employers, the overlords of the marketplaces, foreign clients, etc. Maybe it's just because I'm a programmer, but I would rather fail because of my own bug, than get screwed over and Nelson-laughed at by a bunch of powerful people. I can improve my contract-coding methodology, but I can't do much about other people's shadiness.

msbarnett 9y ago
Employers, "overlords", etc with considerably more power than you are practically by definition going to be able to spend more money finding exploitable bugs in your code than you would be able to put into bug-proofing it. The odds that you can improve your contract-coding methodology to such a degree that you write no bugs is most likely nil. You haven't been able to do that in your non-contract code, and the stakes there are much lower. Besides, how many mistakes will you be able to afford to learn from while avoiding complete financial ruin? Edit: you've also got the threat model wrong. With a traditional contract, your only concern is the other party (your employer, say). With a "smart" contract, you also have to worry about any 3rd party who can wander by, notice a bug in your contract, and use it to avail themselves to your income. You've got all the same second-party worries (my employer will use their resources to find a way to screw me) plus a whole new 3rd party attack surface.
mannykannot 9y ago
As it happens, there is currently an article near the top of the HN list concerning a buyer on Amazon who was scammed, but cannot convince Amazon of that fact [1] As a programmer, imagine the complexity of the smart contract required to make this sort of transaction work when things go smoothly (including getting information about what has happened in the physical world.) Now imagine proofing it against this scam. Now imagine proofing it against scams in general, including ones you have not thought of yet... Either you are going to spend a lot of time verifying the contracts you participate in, or you are going to take someone's word for it that it is OK. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14993216 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14993216

msbarnett 9y ago

Employers, "overlords", etc with considerably more power than you are practically by definition going to be able to spend more money finding exploitable bugs in your code than you would be able to put into bug-proofing it. The odds that you can improve your contract-coding methodology to such a degree that you write no bugs is most likely nil. You haven't been able to do that in your non-contract code, and the stakes there are much lower. Besides, how many mistakes will you be able to afford to learn from while avoiding complete financial ruin? Edit: you've also got the threat model wrong. With a traditional contract, your only concern is the other party (your employer, say). With a "smart" contract, you also have to worry about any 3rd party who can wander by, notice a bug in your contract, and use it to avail themselves to your income. You've got all the same second-party worries (my employer will use their resources to find a way to screw me) plus a whole new 3rd party attack surface.

mannykannot 9y ago

As it happens, there is currently an article near the top of the HN list concerning a buyer on Amazon who was scammed, but cannot convince Amazon of that fact [1] As a programmer, imagine the complexity of the smart contract required to make this sort of transaction work when things go smoothly (including getting information about what has happened in the physical world.) Now imagine proofing it against this scam. Now imagine proofing it against scams in general, including ones you have not thought of yet... Either you are going to spend a lot of time verifying the contracts you participate in, or you are going to take someone's word for it that it is OK. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14993216 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14993216