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Is Web3 even a thing? Outside HackerNews, I only see it mentioned in crypto-circles, but on HN there’s another article at the top every day.

vmception 5y ago
Kinda? It’s under ridicule here because it’s quite contrived of a name and it adopts an ethos that is not put into practice by its developers and proponents. There is a popular library called web3.js as well, which is used to find and communicate with nearby nodes of distributed ledgers. It’s pretty clever and convenient. Since those kind of nodes store variables forever for free, developers dont need any other server side infrastructure and are able to make services extremely quickly, cheaply, and have a quick goto market strategy and it is extremely lucrative, and the users absorb all the costs of writing data. This is where things are 10x better than existing alternatives: revenue paths, overhead costs, speed. not the user experience or the performance of the underlying technology.
can16358p 5y ago
Interesting. For me it's all around pretty much everywhere, from TV ads to billboards. To be fair: Not necessarily web3 but generally crypto, but still.
- Semaphor 5y ago
  I neither see tv ads nor billboards, but I also don’t mean crypto in general. Specifically, all the Web3 posts feel like people arguing against something that’s actually just a minor blip no-one (outside of crypto) cares about at all. Essentially all the outrage being the only thing giving it publicity.
  - can16358p 5y ago
    I think it's one of those things that many don't realize that they need until they have it. We're so used to financially being controlled by authorities so it's deemed normal. Governments can tax you however they want and that is "normal". Coming from an extremely corrupted country/government I know how taking control of your assets is important, which web3 aims. To which extent it can succeed is another question though.
Yizahi 5y ago
HN is one of the last places where people are skeptical and reasonable about this whole charade, and now it feels like some people are trying to bruteforce "crypto is good" on us, just for the lulz.
rsynnott 5y ago
Only in the sense that it's a buzzword used to inflate crypto-things, really. If you mean "is it a thing that people use, in any significant numbers", then, no, of course not. Crypto people will, of course, attempt to excuse this with "it's like the Internet in the 90s", but it is important to bear in mind here that (a) hundreds of millions of people used the internet in the 90s and (b) they have been saying this about _Bitcoin_, and other assorted blockchain-y things, for at least a decade, and no-one really uses those for anything as yet. This is, essentially, the latest rebranding.

vmception 5y ago

Kinda? It’s under ridicule here because it’s quite contrived of a name and it adopts an ethos that is not put into practice by its developers and proponents. There is a popular library called web3.js as well, which is used to find and communicate with nearby nodes of distributed ledgers. It’s pretty clever and convenient. Since those kind of nodes store variables forever for free, developers dont need any other server side infrastructure and are able to make services extremely quickly, cheaply, and have a quick goto market strategy and it is extremely lucrative, and the users absorb all the costs of writing data. This is where things are 10x better than existing alternatives: revenue paths, overhead costs, speed. not the user experience or the performance of the underlying technology.

can16358p 5y ago

Interesting. For me it's all around pretty much everywhere, from TV ads to billboards. To be fair: Not necessarily web3 but generally crypto, but still.

Semaphor 5y ago
I neither see tv ads nor billboards, but I also don’t mean crypto in general. Specifically, all the Web3 posts feel like people arguing against something that’s actually just a minor blip no-one (outside of crypto) cares about at all. Essentially all the outrage being the only thing giving it publicity.
- can16358p 5y ago
  I think it's one of those things that many don't realize that they need until they have it. We're so used to financially being controlled by authorities so it's deemed normal. Governments can tax you however they want and that is "normal". Coming from an extremely corrupted country/government I know how taking control of your assets is important, which web3 aims. To which extent it can succeed is another question though.

Yizahi 5y ago

HN is one of the last places where people are skeptical and reasonable about this whole charade, and now it feels like some people are trying to bruteforce "crypto is good" on us, just for the lulz.

rsynnott 5y ago

Only in the sense that it's a buzzword used to inflate crypto-things, really. If you mean "is it a thing that people use, in any significant numbers", then, no, of course not. Crypto people will, of course, attempt to excuse this with "it's like the Internet in the 90s", but it is important to bear in mind here that (a) hundreds of millions of people used the internet in the 90s and (b) they have been saying this about _Bitcoin_, and other assorted blockchain-y things, for at least a decade, and no-one really uses those for anything as yet. This is, essentially, the latest rebranding.