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> Decentralized trust could be great, but I wonder how much time actually needs to be spent talking about it vs. actually building it... And the order of opera

> Decentralized trust could be great, but I wonder how much time actually needs to be spent talking about it vs. actually building it... And the order of operations. Traditionally, you build something great (or an MVP) and market it. The crypto community has been putting the marketing before the building. It's probably uncontroversial to say although cryptocurrency -could- do great things, right now the bulk of trade in the first world is speculation. Meanwhile there are television ads in the US aimed at football fans telling them how they can trade cryptocurrency. WTF does the average football fan need with cryptocurrency?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
krrrh 5y ago
This is such a good point. "Web 2.0" didn't really emerge as a term of art until there was a need to describe the widespread adoption of UGC, REST, & AJAX and blockbuster web applications like gmail replacing desktop applications.
- pedalpete 5y ago
  I was actually thinking the opposite. I seem to recall talking about Web 2.0 and AJAX, SOAP, etc. before most apps were built using those technologies. We were using AJAX minimally, CSS was a thing, but UGC was still a few years away, from what I recall.
dathinab 5y ago
I read an article recently which claimed that the majority of transaction volume is not speculation, but scams, fraud and similar. Like e.g. pyramid schemes. And that is where an average football fan needs crypto, to provide more monetary volume for scams and speculators manipulating the marked to siphon of. Or at least that was the take of the article, I'm not completely sure in either direction.
- mediocregopher 5y ago
  The difference between "speculation" and "scams, fraud, and similar" is in the eye of the beholder. Lots of people find all crypto to be a giant scam, others find all of it to be a potential investment (hopefully with the understanding that the long-tail of individual investments in the space will go to zero).
  - acdha 5y ago
    > The difference between "speculation" and "scams, fraud, and similar" is in the eye of the beholder. The definitions of those terms really comes down to intention: a scammer is selling something they _know_ does not deliver what they're promising while a speculator should be making good-faith claims. This line gets blurry with optimism but most of the cryptocurrency speculation which called out is indeed misrepresentation of what a potential buyer would get, such as claiming that an NFT conveys ownership when it does not.
  - ShamelessC 5y ago
    Just FYI - that is a _deeply_ unconvincing argument where you are effectively saying "sure it's a scam (the one you know), but I have since updated _my_ definition of scam; and let me tell you - it sure did make me some money and avoid a lot of cognitive dissonance!" Like calling a pyramid scheme a reverse funnel system.
cercatrova 5y ago
> Traditionally, you build something great (or an MVP) and market it. I don't like the Web3 hype either but generally people say one should market their product first then build it if there's enough demand, through a landing page capturing emails or pre-payments, or other such ways of gauging demand. It just seems that Web3 fanatics took the marketing side too far that they've forgotten they actually have to build a product (that solves an actual problem, not yet another coin) for which the marketing will be used.
- aquateen 5y ago
  > generally people say one should market their product first then build it if there's enough demand I don't agree this is the common wisdom, and it's kind of a surprising take to see on this website specifically.
  - cercatrova 5y ago
    It's what I commonly see on startup fora including HN, reddit, IndieHackers etc. There's books about this method like Lean Startup, Mom Test and so on. The advice to build first and market later is actually advice that is much maligned in my experience, as there are too many stories of engineers who build and then find out they can't actually sell their product because they focused too much on the building and not enough on getting people to know about it.
    - lottin 5y ago
      > they can't actually sell their product because they focused too much on the building and not enough on getting people to know about it Or more likely, there was no demand for their product to begin with.
      - cercatrova 5y ago
        Indeed, the worst is when they don't actually solve any problems whatsoever, they treat it as a way to have fun building the product, using new technologies, new architectures etc. There's nothing wrong with building to learn but the problem arises when engineers think building automatically leads to business success; the two are often entirely disjointed. WordPress is maligned as well but it's wildly successful for Automattic.
ThomPete 5y ago
The crypto community does what every startup should do. They find the customers before they start building i.e. they build community first and in effect build products. To say that things aren't being build in the crypto community is simply flat out false. It's one of the fastest developing industries and more and more talent are leaving their previous jobs or industries.
- unicornmama 5y ago
  Talent is pouring in because free money is gushing out from the mother of all bubbles. Enjoy it while it lasts.
  - maybecrypto 5y ago
    Applies to me - leaving enterprise infrastructure for crypto. I think the tech is mostly useless, but the hype is real, the VC dollars are real. I want to try to capitalize on this.
    - ThomPete 5y ago
      if you believed it was a bubble you wouldn't leave your current job.
      - maybecrypto 5y ago
        I think the current token prices are a bubble, but I think the space itself is here to stay.
        unicornmama 5y ago
        Wish you luck on making piles of cash. It’s here to stay? Care to share your thoughts?
        ThomPete 5y ago
        if the space is here to stay so is the token price, in fact we haven't even begun seeing the gains as almost no one is in this field yet.
jrsj 5y ago
The reason you see this is that the entire “web3” landscape is controlled by VCs. Also the underlying infra this stuff is running on isn’t very decentralized at all and with proof of stake it likely never will be. If you want true decentralization you’re going to need a combination of Bitcoin/Lightning Network/side chains to recreate a lot of what has been built out on other more centralized platforms. But VCs don’t want to fund this because there’s way less potential upside for them.
- zhoujianfu 5y ago
  Or just bitcoin cash!
irrational 5y ago
Have you seen the one with Matt Damon hawking a crypto site? How much must it cost to get someone of his caliber to star in your commercial?
- ipaddr 5y ago
  To get George to do those expresso ads it costs 18 million. To get Matthew mcconaughey to drive 3 million. As for Matt Damon. cryto.com gave 1 million to water.org and Matt said any money he makes will go to water.org and that's worth millions. My guess 4-5 million on the highside but probably 3 to 4 million
devin 5y ago
To be fair, it's not a bad target market. Look at FanDuel and PokerStars and such. For many watching, it's just a new kind of gambling. The decision many are likely making is to throw their money at bitcoin instead of placing a bet at an online sportsbook. The feeling of "investing" in crypto versus outright gambling is a nice little story to tell oneself, even if it's not particularly true.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

krrrh 5y ago

This is such a good point. "Web 2.0" didn't really emerge as a term of art until there was a need to describe the widespread adoption of UGC, REST, & AJAX and blockbuster web applications like gmail replacing desktop applications.

pedalpete 5y ago
I was actually thinking the opposite. I seem to recall talking about Web 2.0 and AJAX, SOAP, etc. before most apps were built using those technologies. We were using AJAX minimally, CSS was a thing, but UGC was still a few years away, from what I recall.

dathinab 5y ago

I read an article recently which claimed that the majority of transaction volume is not speculation, but scams, fraud and similar. Like e.g. pyramid schemes. And that is where an average football fan needs crypto, to provide more monetary volume for scams and speculators manipulating the marked to siphon of. Or at least that was the take of the article, I'm not completely sure in either direction.

mediocregopher 5y ago
The difference between "speculation" and "scams, fraud, and similar" is in the eye of the beholder. Lots of people find all crypto to be a giant scam, others find all of it to be a potential investment (hopefully with the understanding that the long-tail of individual investments in the space will go to zero).
- acdha 5y ago
  > The difference between "speculation" and "scams, fraud, and similar" is in the eye of the beholder. The definitions of those terms really comes down to intention: a scammer is selling something they _know_ does not deliver what they're promising while a speculator should be making good-faith claims. This line gets blurry with optimism but most of the cryptocurrency speculation which called out is indeed misrepresentation of what a potential buyer would get, such as claiming that an NFT conveys ownership when it does not.
- ShamelessC 5y ago
  Just FYI - that is a _deeply_ unconvincing argument where you are effectively saying "sure it's a scam (the one you know), but I have since updated _my_ definition of scam; and let me tell you - it sure did make me some money and avoid a lot of cognitive dissonance!" Like calling a pyramid scheme a reverse funnel system.

cercatrova 5y ago

> Traditionally, you build something great (or an MVP) and market it. I don't like the Web3 hype either but generally people say one should market their product first then build it if there's enough demand, through a landing page capturing emails or pre-payments, or other such ways of gauging demand. It just seems that Web3 fanatics took the marketing side too far that they've forgotten they actually have to build a product (that solves an actual problem, not yet another coin) for which the marketing will be used.

aquateen 5y ago
> generally people say one should market their product first then build it if there's enough demand I don't agree this is the common wisdom, and it's kind of a surprising take to see on this website specifically.
- cercatrova 5y ago
  It's what I commonly see on startup fora including HN, reddit, IndieHackers etc. There's books about this method like Lean Startup, Mom Test and so on. The advice to build first and market later is actually advice that is much maligned in my experience, as there are too many stories of engineers who build and then find out they can't actually sell their product because they focused too much on the building and not enough on getting people to know about it.
  - lottin 5y ago
    > they can't actually sell their product because they focused too much on the building and not enough on getting people to know about it Or more likely, there was no demand for their product to begin with.
    - cercatrova 5y ago
      Indeed, the worst is when they don't actually solve any problems whatsoever, they treat it as a way to have fun building the product, using new technologies, new architectures etc. There's nothing wrong with building to learn but the problem arises when engineers think building automatically leads to business success; the two are often entirely disjointed. WordPress is maligned as well but it's wildly successful for Automattic.

ThomPete 5y ago

The crypto community does what every startup should do. They find the customers before they start building i.e. they build community first and in effect build products. To say that things aren't being build in the crypto community is simply flat out false. It's one of the fastest developing industries and more and more talent are leaving their previous jobs or industries.

unicornmama 5y ago
Talent is pouring in because free money is gushing out from the mother of all bubbles. Enjoy it while it lasts.
- maybecrypto 5y ago
  Applies to me - leaving enterprise infrastructure for crypto. I think the tech is mostly useless, but the hype is real, the VC dollars are real. I want to try to capitalize on this.
  - ThomPete 5y ago
    if you believed it was a bubble you wouldn't leave your current job.
    - maybecrypto 5y ago
      I think the current token prices are a bubble, but I think the space itself is here to stay.
      - unicornmama 5y ago
        Wish you luck on making piles of cash. It’s here to stay? Care to share your thoughts?
      - ThomPete 5y ago
        if the space is here to stay so is the token price, in fact we haven't even begun seeing the gains as almost no one is in this field yet.

jrsj 5y ago

The reason you see this is that the entire “web3” landscape is controlled by VCs. Also the underlying infra this stuff is running on isn’t very decentralized at all and with proof of stake it likely never will be. If you want true decentralization you’re going to need a combination of Bitcoin/Lightning Network/side chains to recreate a lot of what has been built out on other more centralized platforms. But VCs don’t want to fund this because there’s way less potential upside for them.

zhoujianfu 5y ago
Or just bitcoin cash!

irrational 5y ago

Have you seen the one with Matt Damon hawking a crypto site? How much must it cost to get someone of his caliber to star in your commercial?

ipaddr 5y ago
To get George to do those expresso ads it costs 18 million. To get Matthew mcconaughey to drive 3 million. As for Matt Damon. cryto.com gave 1 million to water.org and Matt said any money he makes will go to water.org and that's worth millions. My guess 4-5 million on the highside but probably 3 to 4 million

devin 5y ago

To be fair, it's not a bad target market. Look at FanDuel and PokerStars and such. For many watching, it's just a new kind of gambling. The decision many are likely making is to throw their money at bitcoin instead of placing a bet at an online sportsbook. The feeling of "investing" in crypto versus outright gambling is a nice little story to tell oneself, even if it's not particularly true.