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Partially agree - but people have been excited about e.g. smart contracts for the last ~5 years, yet which consumer or B2B apps are using them now? When Web2 ca

Partially agree - but people have been excited about e.g. smart contracts for the last ~5 years, yet which consumer or B2B apps are using them now? When Web2 came along, Gmail, Maps and Facebook were immediately exciting and obviously better than what came before. How much longer do we need to wait for those Web3 killer apps, that appeal to users who aren't purely in it for token price speculation?

MrPatan 5y ago
When Gmail came along, like a decade after the web started getting popular, there were countless people, very much like you now, telling everybody how much better their desktop email app was. Nfts may or may not be the blockchain's killer app (I think they are), but the average person's track record identifying a technology's killer app is a tad less than perfect
- blueski 5y ago
  I'd argue the exponential growth curves for Gmail, Maps, and Facebook (with no financial reward for the user) suggests there was a good appreciation of the utility. When will get an equivalent Web3 app that isn't predominantly driven by price speculation? What will this look like?
  - kranke155 5y ago
    That’s not here yet but dapps do have millions of users already.
    - blueski 5y ago
      Which stand the best chance of going mainstream, with those who don't care about the underlying technology or price speculation?
      - kranke155 5y ago
        NFTs. Gaming seems to be it.
        blueski 5y ago
        But do digital goods in games really justify the Web2 -> Web3 iteration? Compared to Web2 bringing us Gmail, Maps, Facebook etc, feels a little anemic so far.
        kranke155 5y ago
        Yeah it’s pretty terrible so far I agree. My hunch is that crypto is focusing on the wrong things. I suspect we’ll never have land registers in blockchain (dumb idea anyway). In NFTs crypto kind of stumbled upon something important, because digital art didn’t have a way to be authenticated by artists themselves, they had to use galleries, it was a mess. Now a digital artist can just drop his stuff onto the world and authenticate it. This was a Real Problem, if you make physical art you can just go to the local arts and crafts or Etsy and charge money for it. But digital art was really hard to monetise. So crypto came in a bit sideways and solved a Real Problem People Had. Curiously they seem to really focus on “real world” problems, like banks or land registry or whatever, when I’m starting to think this is the entirely wrong way to see crypto. I think it needs to focus on problems that exist in the digital arena Only IE data ownership, data portability. But the obsessions of the original conceptions around crypto are hard to kill, and I feel like right now there’s a lot of resistance to leaving the Nick Szabo idea of “smart contracts will replace lawyers”, same as it was before with a lot of Nakamoto’s ideas. But I think the “crypto will replace lawyers” and “crypto will replace banks” folks will be sorely disappointed. I see a very low percent chance crypto will change that much about banking just due to the security issues.
        majewsky 5y ago
        > But digital art was really hard to monetise. Is it though? Honest question since I'm not an artist. But looking from the outside: For ongoing support, Patreon/Flattr/etc. are a common solution. For specific work, you can commission a piece and pay for it through whatever channel, even with cash.
- grumple 5y ago
  > Nfts may or may not be the blockchain's killer app (I think they are) How is a bit of data on a blockchain pointing to a URI a breakthrough? It's utterly ineffective at proving ownership of anything, since the data at the uri can be changed, or more likely - the entire server will disappear at some point in time. And then what about uris on the blockchain pointing to illegal material (things that are actually copyrighted by someone through the legal system, CP, etc)? Obviously storing actual data on-chain is too costly as well (both financially on the large chains, and practically/environmentally on any of them). Everyone I know who's into NFTs and crypto was a con artist before blockchain and they'll be con artists after. Wait until I tell you about the drug addict scammers I know that started a crypto coin of their own and got a friend who knows literally nothing about crypto to write their whitepaper.

MrPatan 5y ago

When Gmail came along, like a decade after the web started getting popular, there were countless people, very much like you now, telling everybody how much better their desktop email app was. Nfts may or may not be the blockchain's killer app (I think they are), but the average person's track record identifying a technology's killer app is a tad less than perfect

blueski 5y ago
I'd argue the exponential growth curves for Gmail, Maps, and Facebook (with no financial reward for the user) suggests there was a good appreciation of the utility. When will get an equivalent Web3 app that isn't predominantly driven by price speculation? What will this look like?
- kranke155 5y ago
  That’s not here yet but dapps do have millions of users already.
  - blueski 5y ago
    Which stand the best chance of going mainstream, with those who don't care about the underlying technology or price speculation?
    - kranke155 5y ago
      NFTs. Gaming seems to be it.
      - blueski 5y ago
        But do digital goods in games really justify the Web2 -> Web3 iteration? Compared to Web2 bringing us Gmail, Maps, Facebook etc, feels a little anemic so far.
        kranke155 5y ago
        Yeah it’s pretty terrible so far I agree. My hunch is that crypto is focusing on the wrong things. I suspect we’ll never have land registers in blockchain (dumb idea anyway). In NFTs crypto kind of stumbled upon something important, because digital art didn’t have a way to be authenticated by artists themselves, they had to use galleries, it was a mess. Now a digital artist can just drop his stuff onto the world and authenticate it. This was a Real Problem, if you make physical art you can just go to the local arts and crafts or Etsy and charge money for it. But digital art was really hard to monetise. So crypto came in a bit sideways and solved a Real Problem People Had. Curiously they seem to really focus on “real world” problems, like banks or land registry or whatever, when I’m starting to think this is the entirely wrong way to see crypto. I think it needs to focus on problems that exist in the digital arena Only IE data ownership, data portability. But the obsessions of the original conceptions around crypto are hard to kill, and I feel like right now there’s a lot of resistance to leaving the Nick Szabo idea of “smart contracts will replace lawyers”, same as it was before with a lot of Nakamoto’s ideas. But I think the “crypto will replace lawyers” and “crypto will replace banks” folks will be sorely disappointed. I see a very low percent chance crypto will change that much about banking just due to the security issues.
        majewsky 5y ago
        > But digital art was really hard to monetise. Is it though? Honest question since I'm not an artist. But looking from the outside: For ongoing support, Patreon/Flattr/etc. are a common solution. For specific work, you can commission a piece and pay for it through whatever channel, even with cash.
grumple 5y ago
> Nfts may or may not be the blockchain's killer app (I think they are) How is a bit of data on a blockchain pointing to a URI a breakthrough? It's utterly ineffective at proving ownership of anything, since the data at the uri can be changed, or more likely - the entire server will disappear at some point in time. And then what about uris on the blockchain pointing to illegal material (things that are actually copyrighted by someone through the legal system, CP, etc)? Obviously storing actual data on-chain is too costly as well (both financially on the large chains, and practically/environmentally on any of them). Everyone I know who's into NFTs and crypto was a con artist before blockchain and they'll be con artists after. Wait until I tell you about the drug addict scammers I know that started a crypto coin of their own and got a friend who knows literally nothing about crypto to write their whitepaper.