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In this latest round of defensive anti-web3 posts from established technologists, I've been looking for mention of Tezos, CleanNFTs, HEN, Cardano, Algorand, Hed

In this latest round of defensive anti-web3 posts from established technologists, I've been looking for mention of Tezos, CleanNFTs, HEN, Cardano, Algorand, Hedera, Harmony, Dragonchain, etc. but instead get tired critiques of BTC, ETH, and OpenSea that have been made over and over for years now. Yeah, Bitcoin/Dogecoin and Ethereum aren't viable, but what about the newer/better tech? http://blockchain.cs.ucl.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/UCL_CBT_DPS_Q32021_updated-2.pdf http://blockchain.cs.ucl.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/UC...

YorickPeterse 5y ago
> but what about the newer/better tech? But what about existing and proven technology that has been around for decades? This whole "web3" thing seemingly focuses on problems nobody has, cares for, or can be solved with what already exists in far more efficient ways.
- maxwell 5y ago
  The problem it solves is making money. Traditionally, many have solved for this by founding/working for government-registered companies and building proprietary software that's sold for government-issued notes. Now there's an alternative to that pattern.
  - shatteredgate 5y ago
    That doesn't follow though. Your thesis is "the problem it solves is making money" but then in the second paragraph you say the problem is already solved in other ways that don't involve any web3 or cryptocurrency. Maybe you could revise it to "The problem it solves is making money without the government knowing what you're doing" but that seems like the type of statement that would attract tax cheats, ransomware distributors, and other criminals, and it's also not really true of cryptocurrency anyway; most governments have already made moves to regulate cryptocurrency.
    - maxwell 5y ago
      If your problem is rodent infestation, yeah, you can use mouse traps. And people can make "better" mouse traps, depending on preferences around cruelty, from glue boards to Havaheart. But rat poison is cheaper, simpler, and more effective, specifically second-generation anticoagulants [1]. They're alternatives, with trade-offs. The problem with rat poison and most blockchains are the environmental externalities. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29527251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29527251
      - shatteredgate 5y ago
        To me the problem with blockchains is that they don't actually do anything except cause environmental externalities. That seems to be their entire purpose, done in the service of keeping the currency deflationary so the early investors continue getting richer off of new participants. I've read countless articles and technical papers about them and, aside from the whole ponzi scheme aspect, I still can't understand why anyone would choose it over any other distributed database that doesn't require transaction fees and a proof-of-something system to keep the system online.
- lukifer 5y ago
  > problems nobody has Depends on whether one sees the enclosure of social and digital Commons as a problem. Folks like Bruce Schneier [0] and Cory Doctorow [1] have been ringing alarm bells for years on "digital feudalism": despite FOSS and federated alternatives, 99% of us choose to pledge fealty over our digital lives to a small handful of centralized firms. These aren't always bad trades: tech giants tend to be very good at what they do, and I don't begrudge any consumer their individual choices. But the centralization of power, the "dark patterns" of user manipulation, the social externalities of engagement algorithms, the risk of one's digital identity vanishing for no reason at all: I don't think these are "problems nobody has". Insert the obvious caveats on techno-utopianism and con-artists: we should have healthy skepticism towards crypto-tokens and the "web3" buzzword-du-jour. But as we look back at the successes and failures of "web1", the notable absence of any form of user-sovereign (a) identity, or (b) value transfer, is a tragically glaring omission (if forgivable: they are non-trivial problems!). This vacuum opened up the space for private capture, from Google SSO to Venmo. It remains to be seen whether any of the players in "web3" can deliver the goods on actually out-competing Metcalfe monopolies [2]. But I'm glad the effort is being made (and not just as get-rich-quick schemes: there are a surprising number of left-anarchists and mutualists working in the DAO space). [0] http://en.collaboratory.de/w/Power_in_the_Age_of_the_Feudal_Internet http://en.collaboratory.de/w/Power_in_the_Age_of_the_Feudal_... [1] https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/ https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law
evergrande 5y ago
See also Polygon (MATIC), ZK-STARKs. And ETH 2.0 is due next year.
0x64 5y ago
What makes Ethereum not viable? If you refer to the article you linked, the PoW network will be merged to the PoS network launched last year by June 2022. The first public merge testnet actually launched today! [1] [1] https://hackmd.io/dFzKxB3ISWO8juUqPpJFfw https://hackmd.io/dFzKxB3ISWO8juUqPpJFfw
- maxwell 5y ago
  Yeah I should've signified ETH 1.x, I don't know much about 2.0, thanks for the info.
dmitriid 5y ago
> I've been looking for mention of <list of bullshit tech and fictional tokens that doesn't require blockchain or are outright scams> > but instead get tired critiques of <list of bullshit tech and fictional tokens that doesn't require blockchain or are outright scams>
pcthrowaway 5y ago
Not to derail the conversation, but Hedera really doesn't belong with the others because the foundation behind it can revert/censor transactions on the blockchain at will. I'm not saying it doesn't have a use case, or that it's not going to be successful, just that it doesn't really belong in this conversation.
- maxwell 5y ago
  Thanks for the info, I've never really looked into Hedera, but definitely prefer discussing tradeoffs with different systems over the same criticisms of BTC, ETH, and (dirty) NFTs.

YorickPeterse 5y ago

> but what about the newer/better tech? But what about existing and proven technology that has been around for decades? This whole "web3" thing seemingly focuses on problems nobody has, cares for, or can be solved with what already exists in far more efficient ways.

maxwell 5y ago
The problem it solves is making money. Traditionally, many have solved for this by founding/working for government-registered companies and building proprietary software that's sold for government-issued notes. Now there's an alternative to that pattern.
- shatteredgate 5y ago
  That doesn't follow though. Your thesis is "the problem it solves is making money" but then in the second paragraph you say the problem is already solved in other ways that don't involve any web3 or cryptocurrency. Maybe you could revise it to "The problem it solves is making money without the government knowing what you're doing" but that seems like the type of statement that would attract tax cheats, ransomware distributors, and other criminals, and it's also not really true of cryptocurrency anyway; most governments have already made moves to regulate cryptocurrency.
  - maxwell 5y ago
    If your problem is rodent infestation, yeah, you can use mouse traps. And people can make "better" mouse traps, depending on preferences around cruelty, from glue boards to Havaheart. But rat poison is cheaper, simpler, and more effective, specifically second-generation anticoagulants [1]. They're alternatives, with trade-offs. The problem with rat poison and most blockchains are the environmental externalities. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29527251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29527251
    - shatteredgate 5y ago
      To me the problem with blockchains is that they don't actually do anything except cause environmental externalities. That seems to be their entire purpose, done in the service of keeping the currency deflationary so the early investors continue getting richer off of new participants. I've read countless articles and technical papers about them and, aside from the whole ponzi scheme aspect, I still can't understand why anyone would choose it over any other distributed database that doesn't require transaction fees and a proof-of-something system to keep the system online.
lukifer 5y ago
> problems nobody has Depends on whether one sees the enclosure of social and digital Commons as a problem. Folks like Bruce Schneier [0] and Cory Doctorow [1] have been ringing alarm bells for years on "digital feudalism": despite FOSS and federated alternatives, 99% of us choose to pledge fealty over our digital lives to a small handful of centralized firms. These aren't always bad trades: tech giants tend to be very good at what they do, and I don't begrudge any consumer their individual choices. But the centralization of power, the "dark patterns" of user manipulation, the social externalities of engagement algorithms, the risk of one's digital identity vanishing for no reason at all: I don't think these are "problems nobody has". Insert the obvious caveats on techno-utopianism and con-artists: we should have healthy skepticism towards crypto-tokens and the "web3" buzzword-du-jour. But as we look back at the successes and failures of "web1", the notable absence of any form of user-sovereign (a) identity, or (b) value transfer, is a tragically glaring omission (if forgivable: they are non-trivial problems!). This vacuum opened up the space for private capture, from Google SSO to Venmo. It remains to be seen whether any of the players in "web3" can deliver the goods on actually out-competing Metcalfe monopolies [2]. But I'm glad the effort is being made (and not just as get-rich-quick schemes: there are a surprising number of left-anarchists and mutualists working in the DAO space). [0] http://en.collaboratory.de/w/Power_in_the_Age_of_the_Feudal_Internet http://en.collaboratory.de/w/Power_in_the_Age_of_the_Feudal_... [1] https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/ https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law

evergrande 5y ago

See also Polygon (MATIC), ZK-STARKs. And ETH 2.0 is due next year.

0x64 5y ago

What makes Ethereum not viable? If you refer to the article you linked, the PoW network will be merged to the PoS network launched last year by June 2022. The first public merge testnet actually launched today! [1] [1] https://hackmd.io/dFzKxB3ISWO8juUqPpJFfw https://hackmd.io/dFzKxB3ISWO8juUqPpJFfw

maxwell 5y ago
Yeah I should've signified ETH 1.x, I don't know much about 2.0, thanks for the info.

dmitriid 5y ago

> I've been looking for mention of <list of bullshit tech and fictional tokens that doesn't require blockchain or are outright scams> > but instead get tired critiques of <list of bullshit tech and fictional tokens that doesn't require blockchain or are outright scams>

pcthrowaway 5y ago

Not to derail the conversation, but Hedera really doesn't belong with the others because the foundation behind it can revert/censor transactions on the blockchain at will. I'm not saying it doesn't have a use case, or that it's not going to be successful, just that it doesn't really belong in this conversation.

maxwell 5y ago
Thanks for the info, I've never really looked into Hedera, but definitely prefer discussing tradeoffs with different systems over the same criticisms of BTC, ETH, and (dirty) NFTs.