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> 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 i

> 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
  The US government can also swoop in and ban or heavily tax ETH exchanges and that cuts off the majority of those would do transactions. There's no need to take down every node; I can't see how any of those translate to killer features for this reason. For PGP, I don't understand why the user isn't encrypting them on their own machine. That seems like an incredible waste to implement encryption in a smart contract. As far as sanctions go, the fact that criminals and ransomware and other fraudsters can't be stopped or sanctioned is an anti-feature if you ask me. Also I hope you can understand that leading the conversation with these "fight the government" sentiments really sours the debate on crypto, to me that only cements the idea that this stuff only appeals to other nation-state actors, activists, journalists, and scammers/criminals. Which I suppose is fine, except for the criminals, but at that point it's the same niche that Tor fits into.
  - selestify 5y ago
    > The US government can also swoop in and ban or heavily tax ETH exchanges and that cuts off the majority of those would do transactions. Yes, that would cut off most of the fiat on/off ramps, but your assets there are still untouched. You could still, if you wanted, go to another country that hasn't banned crypto and exchange it for other assets in those countries. That's far different from the US freezing your US bank account, in which case it doesn't matter which country you go to, your assets are still locked in the US bank. And even in the US, I'm sure there will still be people on the street willing to exchange cash for crypto, albeit obviously at a markup. Like I said elsewhere, we've been unable to stop the billion dollar drug trade. What makes you think we will be able to completely stop a trillion dollar crypto market from within our borders? > There's no need to take down every node; I can't see how any of those translate to killer features for this reason. Because you need to take down every node (or prevent anyone in your country from accessing any node) before the smart contracts stop executing. So long as that's the case, it's a killer feature for anyone who is concerned about traditional financial services shutting them off. You can't see how any of these are killer features because that is presumably not you. > For PGP, I don't understand why the user isn't encrypting them on their own machine. That seems like an incredible waste to implement encryption in a smart contract. I didn't mean that PGP would be implemented on the smart contracts, I meant that functionality wouldn't change from under you like they did with the darknet markets. The functionality you see in a smart contract is the functionality you get, and it'll stay that way forever unless you built your smart contract to allow for such change in the future. > As far as sanctions go, the fact that criminals and ransomware and other fraudsters can't be stopped or sanctioned is an anti-feature if you ask me. That's fine. It's a feature for others. In other words, it creates value for people who are not you. > but at that point it's the same niche that Tor fits into. Well yes, I do strongly believe this is the case. Which is why I make repeated references to Tor. Do you also think that Tor's strong anonymity guarantees protecting pedophiles is an anti-feature too?

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
The US government can also swoop in and ban or heavily tax ETH exchanges and that cuts off the majority of those would do transactions. There's no need to take down every node; I can't see how any of those translate to killer features for this reason. For PGP, I don't understand why the user isn't encrypting them on their own machine. That seems like an incredible waste to implement encryption in a smart contract. As far as sanctions go, the fact that criminals and ransomware and other fraudsters can't be stopped or sanctioned is an anti-feature if you ask me. Also I hope you can understand that leading the conversation with these "fight the government" sentiments really sours the debate on crypto, to me that only cements the idea that this stuff only appeals to other nation-state actors, activists, journalists, and scammers/criminals. Which I suppose is fine, except for the criminals, but at that point it's the same niche that Tor fits into.
- selestify 5y ago
  > The US government can also swoop in and ban or heavily tax ETH exchanges and that cuts off the majority of those would do transactions. Yes, that would cut off most of the fiat on/off ramps, but your assets there are still untouched. You could still, if you wanted, go to another country that hasn't banned crypto and exchange it for other assets in those countries. That's far different from the US freezing your US bank account, in which case it doesn't matter which country you go to, your assets are still locked in the US bank. And even in the US, I'm sure there will still be people on the street willing to exchange cash for crypto, albeit obviously at a markup. Like I said elsewhere, we've been unable to stop the billion dollar drug trade. What makes you think we will be able to completely stop a trillion dollar crypto market from within our borders? > There's no need to take down every node; I can't see how any of those translate to killer features for this reason. Because you need to take down every node (or prevent anyone in your country from accessing any node) before the smart contracts stop executing. So long as that's the case, it's a killer feature for anyone who is concerned about traditional financial services shutting them off. You can't see how any of these are killer features because that is presumably not you. > For PGP, I don't understand why the user isn't encrypting them on their own machine. That seems like an incredible waste to implement encryption in a smart contract. I didn't mean that PGP would be implemented on the smart contracts, I meant that functionality wouldn't change from under you like they did with the darknet markets. The functionality you see in a smart contract is the functionality you get, and it'll stay that way forever unless you built your smart contract to allow for such change in the future. > As far as sanctions go, the fact that criminals and ransomware and other fraudsters can't be stopped or sanctioned is an anti-feature if you ask me. That's fine. It's a feature for others. In other words, it creates value for people who are not you. > but at that point it's the same niche that Tor fits into. Well yes, I do strongly believe this is the case. Which is why I make repeated references to Tor. Do you also think that Tor's strong anonymity guarantees protecting pedophiles is an anti-feature too?