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It’s not trying to solve an actual user problem, it’s trying to solve a blockchain investor problem because right now their investments are speculative without

by tapoxi 5y ago

It’s not trying to solve an actual user problem, it’s trying to solve a blockchain investor problem because right now their investments are speculative without any real-world use.

thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
Exactly. Making money on blockchain requires retrofitting the web to use blockchain to do what the web can mostly do already. In "Blockchains Are a Bad Idea", James Mickens gives several arguments against blockchain-based systems like Bitcoin: See his presentation here: https://youtu.be/15RTC22Z2xI https://youtu.be/15RTC22Z2xI 1. People have out-of-band trust relationships in real life which reduce the likelihood of malice. Bitcoin-style anonymous identities undermine trust relationships and are not needed for legitimate (not illegal) transactions. 2. Real life legal systems encourage good behaviors. If you have a dispute with someone, you can sue them. Bitcoin and related systems lack these protections. 3. Existing tools such as public-key cryptography and digital signatures can provide most of the functionality that applications need without the problems that blockchain-based systems have.
- rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
  I think you are missing the forest for the trees. 1. Zero trust is highly optimal for business. When it is systemically impossible to cheat your vendor/customer, nobody even tries. Happy path only. 2. Good luck suing someone in a foreign jurisdiction with incompatible legal systems. Maybe that sex toy would be embarrassing on ones credit card and tagged to ones identity. Cryptocurrency (especially private cryptocurrencies like Zcash and Monero) offers an alternative to doxing yourself. 3. You miss the great innovation of SN: Preventing Double Spends. You cannot enforce double spend without a source of truth -- which was traditionally central server/banks. It was the Proof of Work that made the ledger distributed and censorship resistant, and it is the ledger that prevents double spends. And with Bitcoin, you have a limit of 21 million coins, which addresses SN's concern that central bankers ALWAYS inflate currency. So, no, existing tools did not suffice. That is why we have Bitcoin today.
  - nuerow 5y ago
    > 1. Zero trust is highly optimal for business. When it is systemically impossible to cheat your vendor/customer, nobody even tries. Happy path only. I don't understand what point you tried to make, and frankly it sounds incoherent. Moreover, the weasel word "highly optimal" means nothing. You failed to present any value proposition, specially when discussing a solved problem. This is perhaps the main problem plaguing web3 proponents: they always fail to present any value proposition at all, and instead resort to all sorts of handwaving to try to distract away from that void > 2. Good luck suing someone in a foreign jurisdiction with incompatible legal systems. This statement fails to take into consideration the very notion of a jurisdiction, and somehow presumes that a shop in a country which chose to do trans-national business shouldn't have to deal with the legal implications of operating in another country. > 3. You miss the great innovation of SN: Preventing Double Spends. That is not innovation in commerce: it was already a solved problem before the inception of blockchain-based technologies.

by tapoxi 5y ago

It’s not trying to solve an actual user problem, it’s trying to solve a blockchain investor problem because right now their investments are speculative without any real-world use.

thesuperbigfrog 5y ago

Exactly. Making money on blockchain requires retrofitting the web to use blockchain to do what the web can mostly do already. In "Blockchains Are a Bad Idea", James Mickens gives several arguments against blockchain-based systems like Bitcoin: See his presentation here: https://youtu.be/15RTC22Z2xI https://youtu.be/15RTC22Z2xI 1. People have out-of-band trust relationships in real life which reduce the likelihood of malice. Bitcoin-style anonymous identities undermine trust relationships and are not needed for legitimate (not illegal) transactions. 2. Real life legal systems encourage good behaviors. If you have a dispute with someone, you can sue them. Bitcoin and related systems lack these protections. 3. Existing tools such as public-key cryptography and digital signatures can provide most of the functionality that applications need without the problems that blockchain-based systems have.

rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
I think you are missing the forest for the trees. 1. Zero trust is highly optimal for business. When it is systemically impossible to cheat your vendor/customer, nobody even tries. Happy path only. 2. Good luck suing someone in a foreign jurisdiction with incompatible legal systems. Maybe that sex toy would be embarrassing on ones credit card and tagged to ones identity. Cryptocurrency (especially private cryptocurrencies like Zcash and Monero) offers an alternative to doxing yourself. 3. You miss the great innovation of SN: Preventing Double Spends. You cannot enforce double spend without a source of truth -- which was traditionally central server/banks. It was the Proof of Work that made the ledger distributed and censorship resistant, and it is the ledger that prevents double spends. And with Bitcoin, you have a limit of 21 million coins, which addresses SN's concern that central bankers ALWAYS inflate currency. So, no, existing tools did not suffice. That is why we have Bitcoin today.
- nuerow 5y ago
  > 1. Zero trust is highly optimal for business. When it is systemically impossible to cheat your vendor/customer, nobody even tries. Happy path only. I don't understand what point you tried to make, and frankly it sounds incoherent. Moreover, the weasel word "highly optimal" means nothing. You failed to present any value proposition, specially when discussing a solved problem. This is perhaps the main problem plaguing web3 proponents: they always fail to present any value proposition at all, and instead resort to all sorts of handwaving to try to distract away from that void > 2. Good luck suing someone in a foreign jurisdiction with incompatible legal systems. This statement fails to take into consideration the very notion of a jurisdiction, and somehow presumes that a shop in a country which chose to do trans-national business shouldn't have to deal with the legal implications of operating in another country. > 3. You miss the great innovation of SN: Preventing Double Spends. That is not innovation in commerce: it was already a solved problem before the inception of blockchain-based technologies.