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> What is actually going on? Nobody actually knows yet. > Is this a pivotal moment unfolding right in front of our eyes without us seeing it? Yes I think so.

> What is actually going on? Nobody actually knows yet. > Is this a pivotal moment unfolding right in front of our eyes without us seeing it? Yes I think so. I see parallels with the early days of the dotcom boom (mid to late 90s) when there was a mad gold rush by "entrepreneurs" for anything Internet or Web based, and a bunch of nerds (including me!) were scoffed at for twiddling with some computer and network based nonsense that was just glorified letters and phone calls and bulletin boards. I think the current web3 craze needs its version of the dotcom bust for the fundamentals of the tech to be truly allowed to shine through, away from the current blaring foghorns of the snake-oil peddlers and scam artists and rug pulls. At present, all web3 offers is various communities that come together around some sort of a totem (monkey pictures, lion pictures, "buy an old document", "play an mmorpg", "have a cryptocurrency-based TLD", whatever), but all these sound quite un-compelling to me personally. I have no idea what form the core of this "web3" stuff will ultimately take, and I don't think the nascent Google or Facebook or Netflix or Amazon of this space exists yet, but I truly believe there's something in the works, that is being obscured by an unfortunate amount of noise. Edited to add: I own exactly 0 of any cryptocurrency or NFT or ICO and don't even participate in those communities, and am in actual fact quite more anti-web3 (in whatever its current form is) than my tone above would indicate.

sanderjd 5y ago
Responding to your edited-to-add: This is pretty much where I'm coming from now (except I did buy into Ethereum and a few PoS chains to see what the fuss is about, finding nothing of any interest to do there besides just hold onto the tokens, like glorified angel investments). But responding to your "but I truly believe there something in the works, being obscured by an unfortunate amount of noise": One passage of the article that really struck me was this one: > When an engineer looks into a problem, they will at first gather the requirements. What does the system they need to build need to do and how and for whom etc. Afterwards they will look at existing technologies and see which technology and platform fits best to the requirements. Notice how that implies the availability of "existing technologies" such that the engineer can choose whichever "technology and platform fits best to the requirements". There is a circularity to this argument! How do any of those existing technologies come to exist if all engineers are merely choosing existing technologies upon which to build the thing that meets their requirements? I'm still incredibly unsure about this, but I think the scriptable blockchains (ie. the ones that aren't Bitcoin) could well be the "existing technology" for some set of requirements (either in the future or in the present but in a way that is unclear) that I lack the vision to see.

sanderjd 5y ago

Responding to your edited-to-add: This is pretty much where I'm coming from now (except I did buy into Ethereum and a few PoS chains to see what the fuss is about, finding nothing of any interest to do there besides just hold onto the tokens, like glorified angel investments). But responding to your "but I truly believe there something in the works, being obscured by an unfortunate amount of noise": One passage of the article that really struck me was this one: > When an engineer looks into a problem, they will at first gather the requirements. What does the system they need to build need to do and how and for whom etc. Afterwards they will look at existing technologies and see which technology and platform fits best to the requirements. Notice how that implies the availability of "existing technologies" such that the engineer can choose whichever "technology and platform fits best to the requirements". There is a circularity to this argument! How do any of those existing technologies come to exist if all engineers are merely choosing existing technologies upon which to build the thing that meets their requirements? I'm still incredibly unsure about this, but I think the scriptable blockchains (ie. the ones that aren't Bitcoin) could well be the "existing technology" for some set of requirements (either in the future or in the present but in a way that is unclear) that I lack the vision to see.