4 ms·

Can't anyone still share information using the normal internet? You don't need the blockchain in order to set up a website and start sharing information. Few

Can't anyone still share information using the normal internet? You don't need the blockchain in order to set up a website and start sharing information. Few choose to do this because it is more work than using a centralized system. Using Facebook or twitter is much easier to use. What does the blockchain really change? So far, it doesn't seem to be any easier than sharing information the traditional way.

swiley 6y ago
IMO it's not more work, there just aren't teams of psychologists designing flashy signup forms and apps to make you want to do it.
roenxi 6y ago
I don't know if that strictly goes to what the article was talking about, but nevertheless: Blockchains can prove that two parties once agreed on something, cheaply. That is remarkably valuable information (of such bricks economies are built). And it is truly remarkable that there is nothing in the blockchain that a government can do about it. Ditto anyone else. I believe it is financial information and preference data that is difficult to share at the moment and that the article alludes to liberating. For example, donating to Wikileaks was extremely challenging via Paypal and other traditional money handlers. That obviously has both up and downsides. This is new. I live in an age where my cooperation might be strictly necessary for somebody else to tax me. The practicalities haven't changed much, but the theoretical change is quite profound.
- chii 6y ago
  > Blockchains can prove that two parties once agreed on something, cheaply. it's not as cheap as trusting a third party. The evidence for this is that block chain as a form of financial payment system is still way outstripped by commercial credit card providers. And it's not just existing/legacy momentum either, because if you look at china, the advent of digital payment systems on the mobile _could've_ been using the block chain, but it hasn't. > nothing in the blockchain that a government can do about it. And unless the entire transaction _only_ occurs on the blockchain, a gov't can always do something about it using the rubber-hose law of security.
  - skitout 6y ago
    Blockchain (sometime) can replace third party by some open source code. For example on decentralized Exchange platform you directly exchange your assets ; no trust, no third party needed. And it is cheaper than third party based exchange. Of course, blockchain does not make sense in all the cases. But third party does represent a cost, and can sometime represent a risk (eg becoming dominant thanks to network effect, then extracting rent), or slow innovation (are you are dependent of this third party). Please keep in mind that blockchain is not only about cryptomoney.
- ay 6y ago
  1. Click != agreement. Cf: phishing. 2. https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/ - applies for any sufficiently large entities and certainly governments.
  - ay 6y ago
    Sorry can’t edit, but a perfect exhibit for (2) is on HN right now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24545236 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24545236
- zozbot234 6y ago
  > ... cheaply ... For some values of "cheaply", of course. Reliance on a mutually-trusted third party, where feasible, is a lot cheaper than any blockchain.
  - skitout 6y ago
    - often you need to rely on multiple mutually-trusted third party (eg transferring money from your bank account, to a a bank account in another continent) and that have a cost - Blockchain sometime bring a higher level of automation, reducing cost - And more importantly, there are many cases where the "mutually-trusted third party" becomes a "dominant power" in its area and extract rent from it. App stores come to mind, but that the case of most "platforms"... Decentralization + open source + token to incentivize the system seems to be able to have cheaper, better and more transparent stuff.
- zby 6y ago
  "Blockchains can prove that two parties once agreed on something, cheaply." - well actually you can do that with electronic signatures, much cheaper than with blockchains. The problem that blockchain solves is a very specific timestamping of messages between many participants. For two participants just signing a date is enough - the problem is if A singes two checks to B and C and you want to know which one was first.
FriendlyNormie 6y ago
You, top comment: “Using Facebook or twitter is much easier to use.” (“to use”?) Subtitle from OP: “Combining blockchain and open protocols can create a Web 3.0 free from the power of centralized mega-corporations like Amazon, Google, and Facebook is within grasp” (“is within grasp”?) Is it Type Like A Retard day? How are you both forgetting what you’re typing mid-sentence and tacking something onto the end that doesn’t belong? You’re both performing worse than GPT-2. This is embarrassing and depressing to witness. I just woke up and you’ve already made this day unbearable. Please try to fuck up less.
dalbasal 6y ago
I agree, but I think "more profitable" is the underlying reason, not "easy." Facebook/twitter/Whatsapp/etc. could be a lot more distributed, open, etc. It wouldn't be harder. As you said, this is what the internet and www were designed to do. You don't need blockchain, but this is just another example of good decentralization tech that exists. It wouldn't have been hard to make whatsapp open, and/or distributed. It wouldn't have been harder to make it interoperate with other clients, and it would have been more useful that way. It just wouldn't have been worth as much money. Centralization, monopolisation and such are the value, when you go to sell your app to Facebook. Email is distributed because it was invented before centralizing and monopolizing became so valuable. It's easy because there are lots of easy to use clients available. It's open and decentralized because it reached decisive adoption before the dotcom boom. "Easy" to the end user is, by and large, a byproduct. I don't think it's ingenuous to point to a html file, apache and say "there's your decentralized solution."
- zepto 6y ago
  It isn’t so obvious to me that you can make say, WhatsApp be distributed as easily as making it centralized. It seems like all kinds of things like identity, message routing, nat-traversal etc, are harder in the distributed case a compared with a centralized server farm. It’s also not clear to me that email is a good example of ‘distributed’. For a start most users actually do use centralized email services like gmail because it’s easier, and secondly even in the days before that, email has always relied on DNS, which is at best only partially distributed - i.e. although the participants are in a federation distributed across the network, there are still centralized authorities governing the root servers, the issuing of IP addresses, and of domain names.
noxer 6y ago
Today no one will find the information you share on your website without centralized search engines. A more decentralized internet could change that. "Blockchain" better named DLT however is not needed for that, but it may push the desire to decentralization. If people can have a "de-central bank account" that no one can delete they maybe start to think that all other online accounts you have should work that way too. No more questionable suspended twitter account and deleted YouTube channels.

swiley 6y ago

IMO it's not more work, there just aren't teams of psychologists designing flashy signup forms and apps to make you want to do it.

roenxi 6y ago

I don't know if that strictly goes to what the article was talking about, but nevertheless: Blockchains can prove that two parties once agreed on something, cheaply. That is remarkably valuable information (of such bricks economies are built). And it is truly remarkable that there is nothing in the blockchain that a government can do about it. Ditto anyone else. I believe it is financial information and preference data that is difficult to share at the moment and that the article alludes to liberating. For example, donating to Wikileaks was extremely challenging via Paypal and other traditional money handlers. That obviously has both up and downsides. This is new. I live in an age where my cooperation might be strictly necessary for somebody else to tax me. The practicalities haven't changed much, but the theoretical change is quite profound.

chii 6y ago
> Blockchains can prove that two parties once agreed on something, cheaply. it's not as cheap as trusting a third party. The evidence for this is that block chain as a form of financial payment system is still way outstripped by commercial credit card providers. And it's not just existing/legacy momentum either, because if you look at china, the advent of digital payment systems on the mobile _could've_ been using the block chain, but it hasn't. > nothing in the blockchain that a government can do about it. And unless the entire transaction _only_ occurs on the blockchain, a gov't can always do something about it using the rubber-hose law of security.
- skitout 6y ago
  Blockchain (sometime) can replace third party by some open source code. For example on decentralized Exchange platform you directly exchange your assets ; no trust, no third party needed. And it is cheaper than third party based exchange. Of course, blockchain does not make sense in all the cases. But third party does represent a cost, and can sometime represent a risk (eg becoming dominant thanks to network effect, then extracting rent), or slow innovation (are you are dependent of this third party). Please keep in mind that blockchain is not only about cryptomoney.
ay 6y ago
1. Click != agreement. Cf: phishing. 2. https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/ - applies for any sufficiently large entities and certainly governments.
- ay 6y ago
  Sorry can’t edit, but a perfect exhibit for (2) is on HN right now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24545236 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24545236
zozbot234 6y ago
> ... cheaply ... For some values of "cheaply", of course. Reliance on a mutually-trusted third party, where feasible, is a lot cheaper than any blockchain.
- skitout 6y ago
  - often you need to rely on multiple mutually-trusted third party (eg transferring money from your bank account, to a a bank account in another continent) and that have a cost - Blockchain sometime bring a higher level of automation, reducing cost - And more importantly, there are many cases where the "mutually-trusted third party" becomes a "dominant power" in its area and extract rent from it. App stores come to mind, but that the case of most "platforms"... Decentralization + open source + token to incentivize the system seems to be able to have cheaper, better and more transparent stuff.
zby 6y ago
"Blockchains can prove that two parties once agreed on something, cheaply." - well actually you can do that with electronic signatures, much cheaper than with blockchains. The problem that blockchain solves is a very specific timestamping of messages between many participants. For two participants just signing a date is enough - the problem is if A singes two checks to B and C and you want to know which one was first.

FriendlyNormie 6y ago

You, top comment: “Using Facebook or twitter is much easier to use.” (“to use”?) Subtitle from OP: “Combining blockchain and open protocols can create a Web 3.0 free from the power of centralized mega-corporations like Amazon, Google, and Facebook is within grasp” (“is within grasp”?) Is it Type Like A Retard day? How are you both forgetting what you’re typing mid-sentence and tacking something onto the end that doesn’t belong? You’re both performing worse than GPT-2. This is embarrassing and depressing to witness. I just woke up and you’ve already made this day unbearable. Please try to fuck up less.

dalbasal 6y ago

I agree, but I think "more profitable" is the underlying reason, not "easy." Facebook/twitter/Whatsapp/etc. could be a lot more distributed, open, etc. It wouldn't be harder. As you said, this is what the internet and www were designed to do. You don't need blockchain, but this is just another example of good decentralization tech that exists. It wouldn't have been hard to make whatsapp open, and/or distributed. It wouldn't have been harder to make it interoperate with other clients, and it would have been more useful that way. It just wouldn't have been worth as much money. Centralization, monopolisation and such are the value, when you go to sell your app to Facebook. Email is distributed because it was invented before centralizing and monopolizing became so valuable. It's easy because there are lots of easy to use clients available. It's open and decentralized because it reached decisive adoption before the dotcom boom. "Easy" to the end user is, by and large, a byproduct. I don't think it's ingenuous to point to a html file, apache and say "there's your decentralized solution."

zepto 6y ago
It isn’t so obvious to me that you can make say, WhatsApp be distributed as easily as making it centralized. It seems like all kinds of things like identity, message routing, nat-traversal etc, are harder in the distributed case a compared with a centralized server farm. It’s also not clear to me that email is a good example of ‘distributed’. For a start most users actually do use centralized email services like gmail because it’s easier, and secondly even in the days before that, email has always relied on DNS, which is at best only partially distributed - i.e. although the participants are in a federation distributed across the network, there are still centralized authorities governing the root servers, the issuing of IP addresses, and of domain names.

noxer 6y ago

Today no one will find the information you share on your website without centralized search engines. A more decentralized internet could change that. "Blockchain" better named DLT however is not needed for that, but it may push the desire to decentralization. If people can have a "de-central bank account" that no one can delete they maybe start to think that all other online accounts you have should work that way too. No more questionable suspended twitter account and deleted YouTube channels.