6 ms·

Unless there is a killer feature it enables, it's an implementation detail and I don't care. And I will gladly compare other solutions against blockchain despit

Unless there is a killer feature it enables, it's an implementation detail and I don't care. And I will gladly compare other solutions against blockchain despite not having the same implementation detail you claim puts it above comparison. And so will everyone else that isn't blinded by fanaticism.

selestify 5y ago
Do you feel the same about Tor? That the anonymity is an implementation detail and you don't care?
- Misdicorl 5y ago
  Yes. Though Tor has demonstrated a far more killer (heh) capability set it enables than the blockchain has.
  - selestify 5y ago
    Well then, at least you are consistent about your beliefs/feelings. I respect that.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Tor has actual websites and functionality. Web3 has venture capital and some randomized apes.
  - selestify 5y ago
    One man's "venture capital" is another man's "actual websites and functionality." I would appreciate less subjective criticism of web3.
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      Okay, can you give me an example of some staple Web3 sites that exist today?
      - selestify 5y ago
        - Uniswap and Sushiswap allows you to trade different cryptos for one another. If you want to trade gold for some reason in a decentralized manner, you could do that by making trades between gold-pegged crypto and stablecoins - Aave allows you to lend and borrow different crypto assets. If you wish to short a crypto, or if you wish to borrow against your portfolio so that you're spending fiat rather than your portfolio (a feature offered by traditional assets as well), this lets you do both of those. - Tornado cash allows you to anonymize your Ethereum, because unfortunately Ethereum just doesn't have strong built-in privacy guarantees like Monero - All the gambling websites. If gambling is illegal in your jurisdiction, but you'd like to gamble anyway, it's hard to stop you from doing so. Depending on your political sensibilities, this could be a good or bad thing. Personally, I say let adults do what they want, including making dumb decisions for themselves. (Of course, if you want to hide your tracks well, you'd probably want to use the aforementioned Tornado Cash.)
        smoldesu 5y ago
        Where's your "Google"? Where's your "YouTube"? Where's your killer app? Everything you've listed is just different ways to throw away cryptocurrency. The average Joe is going to look at that list, chuckle, and go back to browsing Twitter on their iPhone. There's no main attraction here.
        selestify 5y ago
        > Where's your "YouTube"? Where's your killer app? Where's the "Youtube" of the dark web? The famed red rooms don't even exist. What's the "killer app" of the dark web? Doesn't even exist, unless maybe you count the drug markets. I'd hazard a guess that they're by far the most popular. > Everything you've listed is just different ways to throw away cryptocurrency. I literally gave as an example how you could use fiat-backed crypto to buy gold-backed crypto. These assets literally track their real-world equivalents. Or do you have an issue with modern banking and the stock market too, because it's "just different ways to throw away" fake fiat money? > The average Joe is going to look at that list, chuckle, and go back to browsing Twitter on their iPhone. Good. The average Joe has no business using Tor. Hell, the average Joe doesn't even care enough about privacy to stop using Facebook. The average Joe doesn't need a lot of things. Who cares what the average Joe wants or doesn't want, unless you're trying specifically to market a product to the average Joe? Crypto exists for those who actually find a use for it. You seem either unable or unwilling to acknowledge this fact. Which is it?
- wokwokwok 5y ago
  > Unless there is a killer feature it enables... ... anonymity isn't a killer feature for me personally, but it is for some. Anyway, the parent post's point is just that it's not clear what the 'killer feature' that web3 is offering is. Without that, it's just expensive and pathetically underpowered compared to other platforms. You can use it to do crypto. hm... ok. I don't have crypto, and I don't have piles I money lying around I want to throw away gambling or turning into crypto. That doesn't seem to leave any 'Killer features' for me to care about.
  - selestify 5y ago
    To copy paste other comments of mine: > Assuming you live in the US, the government can swoop in at any time (provided they have a legal reason to do so) and demand that AWS or whoever's hosting your servers shuts them down. If you're hosting them yourself, they can raid the physical locations where you host them. If you're not in the US, I'm sure your country has equivalent security forces that would be more than capable of doing the same should the government find a reason to. > Good luck raiding every single Ethereum node in the world to take down a smart contract. > Also, you didn't address code immutability guarantees. You can change your server code at any time and your users would be none the wiser. The darknet markets, once compromised by federal agents, did exactly this, and stopped actually encrypting user messages with PGP while continuing to pretend to do so. A smart contract, unless it has upgradeability built in, offers just this sort of guarantee to its users. > Oh, and if your app deals with finance, and the US government (or your own) wants you to stop letting John Doe use your app because they just placed new sanctions on Mr. Doe? You'd better code that compliance feature up real quick or see yourself getting heavily fined or even imprisoned. Tough luck doing that sort of censorship on the blockchain -- as long as a single miner is willing to include that user's transaction, they're basically in. And when it comes to "That doesn't seem to leave any 'Killer features' for me to care about", I'll also say what I said to somebody else: Good for you. These are not killer features you'd care about. They are, however, killer features that some others care out. Why is it a bad thing that an option exists for those that do care about these features?
    - shatteredgate 5y ago
nwah1 5y ago
APIs have versions. Facebook guarantees that the API for version X will perform the documented behavior. If it fails to, then it is probably a bug that they will have to fix. If the API were immutable, then the bug would not be possible to fix. The immutability is the exact opposite of a feature.
- DannyBee 5y ago
  Right. In addition to the issue you cite, folks seem to have confused things like immutability and things like compatibility. Immutability generally guarantees something like integrity. It does not, ever, guarantee compatibility. Often the opposite. IE things end up immutable and incompatible, immutable and broken, etc. Or even worse "immutable and vulnerable". (IE can interact enough to still kinda work, but often do things it should not). If you truly want to jump down the rabbit hole, it's true that immutability of this kind can provide great integrity. But you can get pretty darn good without it.
zer01 5y ago
Right, so what's happening right now is much more akin to the early days of the internet than anything else IMO. In the same ways we couldn't have ever predicted Facebook, Google, iPhones, etc, in the 90s it's hard to say exactly what impact crypto/web3 will have on the modern world. There's actually something truly new and tangible that crypto has spurred - the ability to drive consensus in a trustless manner automatically and the ability to execute computer programs that are deterministic, immutable, and will run forever. With those new tools in the global toolbox I suspect that some iteration of them will be in use somewhere in our future, but no-one exactly where. Are NFT game assets the ultimate expression of crypto? No, but Friendster and HotOrNot weren't the ultimate expression of the internet either. The ability to network 2 computers together was also new and tangible thing that the internet as a concept brought, but it wasn't before a huge amount of foundational work in the form of IETF protocols, router hardware design & production, software network stacks, and wireless communications before it really took off. Mass adoption was one of the last phases, and I still remember a day when people would call you crazy for putting your credit card anywhere near the internet. IMO that's the phase we're at, so for most people it's just not ready yet, but it doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of people out there trying new and novel things with these tools ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
- da-x 5y ago
  > a trustless manner automatically and the ability to execute computer programs that are deterministic, immutable, and will run forever. Let's try to think quite ahead, going sci-fi even: Maybe the only use case for such programs is valid if they are powerful AIs, or uploaded human minds. But for the blockchain to be able to run that? The compute and memory needed is astronomical. It also means that blockchain will be relevant technology only in the 22nd century and now we are just playing with it for no actual value whatsoever. Because, how else would I ensure that my uploaded mind from year 2060 henceforth runs forever in the cloud? I can't, the 22nd century equivalent AWS may be shutdown. Solution - blockchain...
  - zer01 5y ago
    Right now smart contracts are very crappy computer programs, but people are still building amazing things with them (like DAOs or decentralized exchanges). It’s hard to say what people will be building 20 years from now or what they’ll look like in the same way that the idea of end to end encrypted video calls through Signal was not even something people could dream up in a practical sense without the groundwork invention/innovation of things like public key cryptography, and a minimal level of ubiquitous computing power in the form of cell phones to make it usable and practical. Quantum computing is going through this too right now where we have the ability to compute with a handful of qbits, but the implications on a years time horizon are profound. You do bring up a valid point in that it’s unclear exactly how the “legacy software” story fits in here. Migrations to new blockchains and the blockchains themselves upgrading without contention (Tezos comes to mind with this as a core feature) seem like the natural response to this problem. Not unlike anything else though it’ll be hard to predict until it slaps us in the face lol.
mattwilsonn888 5y ago
Everyone that says "show me it doing its end goal and I'll buy," are simply the most risk off speculators. I don't think they even know what speculation means or why someone would do it.
splix 5y ago
It's an implementation detail, right. But in most cases, it's implemented as immutable. With some exceptions, but developers are very upfront about that in those cases. But even if developers implemented their contract with the possibility of updating, the most important detail here is that only those developers can do that. Not AWS, not Apple, not Google, etc.

selestify 5y ago

Do you feel the same about Tor? That the anonymity is an implementation detail and you don't care?

Misdicorl 5y ago
Yes. Though Tor has demonstrated a far more killer (heh) capability set it enables than the blockchain has.
- selestify 5y ago
  Well then, at least you are consistent about your beliefs/feelings. I respect that.
smoldesu 5y ago
Tor has actual websites and functionality. Web3 has venture capital and some randomized apes.
- selestify 5y ago
  One man's "venture capital" is another man's "actual websites and functionality." I would appreciate less subjective criticism of web3.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    Okay, can you give me an example of some staple Web3 sites that exist today?
    - selestify 5y ago
      - Uniswap and Sushiswap allows you to trade different cryptos for one another. If you want to trade gold for some reason in a decentralized manner, you could do that by making trades between gold-pegged crypto and stablecoins - Aave allows you to lend and borrow different crypto assets. If you wish to short a crypto, or if you wish to borrow against your portfolio so that you're spending fiat rather than your portfolio (a feature offered by traditional assets as well), this lets you do both of those. - Tornado cash allows you to anonymize your Ethereum, because unfortunately Ethereum just doesn't have strong built-in privacy guarantees like Monero - All the gambling websites. If gambling is illegal in your jurisdiction, but you'd like to gamble anyway, it's hard to stop you from doing so. Depending on your political sensibilities, this could be a good or bad thing. Personally, I say let adults do what they want, including making dumb decisions for themselves. (Of course, if you want to hide your tracks well, you'd probably want to use the aforementioned Tornado Cash.)
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        Where's your "Google"? Where's your "YouTube"? Where's your killer app? Everything you've listed is just different ways to throw away cryptocurrency. The average Joe is going to look at that list, chuckle, and go back to browsing Twitter on their iPhone. There's no main attraction here.
        selestify 5y ago
        > Where's your "YouTube"? Where's your killer app? Where's the "Youtube" of the dark web? The famed red rooms don't even exist. What's the "killer app" of the dark web? Doesn't even exist, unless maybe you count the drug markets. I'd hazard a guess that they're by far the most popular. > Everything you've listed is just different ways to throw away cryptocurrency. I literally gave as an example how you could use fiat-backed crypto to buy gold-backed crypto. These assets literally track their real-world equivalents. Or do you have an issue with modern banking and the stock market too, because it's "just different ways to throw away" fake fiat money? > The average Joe is going to look at that list, chuckle, and go back to browsing Twitter on their iPhone. Good. The average Joe has no business using Tor. Hell, the average Joe doesn't even care enough about privacy to stop using Facebook. The average Joe doesn't need a lot of things. Who cares what the average Joe wants or doesn't want, unless you're trying specifically to market a product to the average Joe? Crypto exists for those who actually find a use for it. You seem either unable or unwilling to acknowledge this fact. Which is it?
wokwokwok 5y ago
> Unless there is a killer feature it enables... ... anonymity isn't a killer feature for me personally, but it is for some. Anyway, the parent post's point is just that it's not clear what the 'killer feature' that web3 is offering is. Without that, it's just expensive and pathetically underpowered compared to other platforms. You can use it to do crypto. hm... ok. I don't have crypto, and I don't have piles I money lying around I want to throw away gambling or turning into crypto. That doesn't seem to leave any 'Killer features' for me to care about.
- selestify 5y ago
  To copy paste other comments of mine: > Assuming you live in the US, the government can swoop in at any time (provided they have a legal reason to do so) and demand that AWS or whoever's hosting your servers shuts them down. If you're hosting them yourself, they can raid the physical locations where you host them. If you're not in the US, I'm sure your country has equivalent security forces that would be more than capable of doing the same should the government find a reason to. > Good luck raiding every single Ethereum node in the world to take down a smart contract. > Also, you didn't address code immutability guarantees. You can change your server code at any time and your users would be none the wiser. The darknet markets, once compromised by federal agents, did exactly this, and stopped actually encrypting user messages with PGP while continuing to pretend to do so. A smart contract, unless it has upgradeability built in, offers just this sort of guarantee to its users. > Oh, and if your app deals with finance, and the US government (or your own) wants you to stop letting John Doe use your app because they just placed new sanctions on Mr. Doe? You'd better code that compliance feature up real quick or see yourself getting heavily fined or even imprisoned. Tough luck doing that sort of censorship on the blockchain -- as long as a single miner is willing to include that user's transaction, they're basically in. And when it comes to "That doesn't seem to leave any 'Killer features' for me to care about", I'll also say what I said to somebody else: Good for you. These are not killer features you'd care about. They are, however, killer features that some others care out. Why is it a bad thing that an option exists for those that do care about these features?
  - shatteredgate 5y ago

nwah1 5y ago

APIs have versions. Facebook guarantees that the API for version X will perform the documented behavior. If it fails to, then it is probably a bug that they will have to fix. If the API were immutable, then the bug would not be possible to fix. The immutability is the exact opposite of a feature.

DannyBee 5y ago
Right. In addition to the issue you cite, folks seem to have confused things like immutability and things like compatibility. Immutability generally guarantees something like integrity. It does not, ever, guarantee compatibility. Often the opposite. IE things end up immutable and incompatible, immutable and broken, etc. Or even worse "immutable and vulnerable". (IE can interact enough to still kinda work, but often do things it should not). If you truly want to jump down the rabbit hole, it's true that immutability of this kind can provide great integrity. But you can get pretty darn good without it.

zer01 5y ago

Right, so what's happening right now is much more akin to the early days of the internet than anything else IMO. In the same ways we couldn't have ever predicted Facebook, Google, iPhones, etc, in the 90s it's hard to say exactly what impact crypto/web3 will have on the modern world. There's actually something truly new and tangible that crypto has spurred - the ability to drive consensus in a trustless manner automatically and the ability to execute computer programs that are deterministic, immutable, and will run forever. With those new tools in the global toolbox I suspect that some iteration of them will be in use somewhere in our future, but no-one exactly where. Are NFT game assets the ultimate expression of crypto? No, but Friendster and HotOrNot weren't the ultimate expression of the internet either. The ability to network 2 computers together was also new and tangible thing that the internet as a concept brought, but it wasn't before a huge amount of foundational work in the form of IETF protocols, router hardware design & production, software network stacks, and wireless communications before it really took off. Mass adoption was one of the last phases, and I still remember a day when people would call you crazy for putting your credit card anywhere near the internet. IMO that's the phase we're at, so for most people it's just not ready yet, but it doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of people out there trying new and novel things with these tools ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

da-x 5y ago
> a trustless manner automatically and the ability to execute computer programs that are deterministic, immutable, and will run forever. Let's try to think quite ahead, going sci-fi even: Maybe the only use case for such programs is valid if they are powerful AIs, or uploaded human minds. But for the blockchain to be able to run that? The compute and memory needed is astronomical. It also means that blockchain will be relevant technology only in the 22nd century and now we are just playing with it for no actual value whatsoever. Because, how else would I ensure that my uploaded mind from year 2060 henceforth runs forever in the cloud? I can't, the 22nd century equivalent AWS may be shutdown. Solution - blockchain...
- zer01 5y ago
  Right now smart contracts are very crappy computer programs, but people are still building amazing things with them (like DAOs or decentralized exchanges). It’s hard to say what people will be building 20 years from now or what they’ll look like in the same way that the idea of end to end encrypted video calls through Signal was not even something people could dream up in a practical sense without the groundwork invention/innovation of things like public key cryptography, and a minimal level of ubiquitous computing power in the form of cell phones to make it usable and practical. Quantum computing is going through this too right now where we have the ability to compute with a handful of qbits, but the implications on a years time horizon are profound. You do bring up a valid point in that it’s unclear exactly how the “legacy software” story fits in here. Migrations to new blockchains and the blockchains themselves upgrading without contention (Tezos comes to mind with this as a core feature) seem like the natural response to this problem. Not unlike anything else though it’ll be hard to predict until it slaps us in the face lol.

mattwilsonn888 5y ago

Everyone that says "show me it doing its end goal and I'll buy," are simply the most risk off speculators. I don't think they even know what speculation means or why someone would do it.

splix 5y ago

It's an implementation detail, right. But in most cases, it's implemented as immutable. With some exceptions, but developers are very upfront about that in those cases. But even if developers implemented their contract with the possibility of updating, the most important detail here is that only those developers can do that. Not AWS, not Apple, not Google, etc.