6 ms·

My main concerns with Web3 are that it is "pay to play" in many aspects and it's less democratic than the existing Internet.

ThomPete 5y ago
Democracy isnt free. Pay to play is exactly what makes it democratic. Free is more like a benevolent dictatorship.
- onethought 5y ago
  Clarification? I can participate/play in my democracy with little to no cost. Unless you are arguing time (~20 minutes/year) commitments to vote?
  - ThomPete 5y ago
    How is it little to no cost? You pay through taxes, value creation, allegiance and a bunch of other areas.
    - onethought 5y ago
      No, tax is only required on income, not related to whether I can vote or not. Don’t need to create value either. Not sure what “allegiance” means.
reilly3000 5y ago
Agreed. The one dollar-one vote concept is fundamentally flawed, but has become the main model for crypto community governance. There aren’t a lot of viable alternatives, especially as there is no concept of a person, just free, infinite wallets and limited coins. As such, the interests of the wealthiest steer the entire community, and a bad actor could derail a project with malevolent use of voting powers. Democracy is messy at best, but where there are no ‘demos’ its nigh impossible.
- kibwen 5y ago
  Note that "one dollar, one vote" describes a plutocracy, not a democracy.
- littlestymaar 5y ago
  > There aren’t a lot of viable alternatives, especially as there is no concept of a person, just free, infinite wallets and limited coins. Sybil attack is the fundamental problem of the internet. (And proof of work was actually designed as a way to mitigate it)
- mattwilsonn888 5y ago
  That's an interesting point. I would make the refutation that a system where large 'voters' in a DAO are forced to lock up their tokens after votes proportional to their power would prevent them from sabotaging the project, but if they had even more money at stake in a competitor its easy to imagine scenarios where such foul play may happen. The interesting thing about governance is that it existed before the term: In Bitcoin the community governs the direction of the protocol by directing their hash power, perceived value, and simple use of the network towards their desired fork. You can't do this with contract tokens unless you want to fork the entire Ethereum Blockchain for the sake of one DAO. Despite this limitation, if DAO pay to vote schemes could be combined with 'vote with your feet' you could have the clean, efficient governance of a DAO with the fully actionable emergency escape (a fork) in case foul play is sniffed out.
chrisco255 5y ago
The existing internet is dominated by trillion dollar monopolies. How do you reconcile that Web3 is less democratic than a megacorp oligopoly than can unperson people at will? Web3 has decentralization, freedom of speech, anti-gatekeeping, permissionlessness and inclusiveness, at its core.
- systemsignal 5y ago
  Are you using any decentralized social networks significantly?
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    I've tried Mastadon and Matrix (using Element). I think they're two of the best examples. But I think for none of these have quite nailed the UX of existing social networks (Mastadon's not quite as good as Twitter and Element is not as feature-rich as Discord). I really think it's as much of a UX problem as a technology problem and not enough decentralized projects have top-tier UX and UI talent to compete. Mirror (https://mirror.xyz/ https://mirror.xyz/) is an interesting Web3 alternative to Medium. I think they have gotten a lot of the elements right. Blog posts are backed up to Arweave perma-storage and they have easy point and click integration for crypto donations (with automatic splitting for multiple authors), NFT auctions, and crowdfunding. At any rate, I think decentralized social networks are still nascent and we haven't yet seen a break out success on the level of Discord or Twitter or Facebook, but I remain optimistic that it will come.
- zaptheimpaler 5y ago
  For one, the author pointed out that Opensea NFTs are stored on the Google Cloud Platform, one of those trillion dollar monopolies. Proof of stake means the largest stakeholders can unilaterally reject transactions. Technically the chain could fork. Practically, convincing everyone to move to a new chain seems about as difficult as everyone moving off Facebook because a few people get banned. Proof of work means the richest people can afford more miners and completely control the chain. So where is the decentralization? The only realistic decentralization I can make out is that its possible to build alternative chains, but that very thing is possible today. Its possible to build an alternate payment processor or social network if Visa bans your business, the really hard part is building it and getting the entire ecosystem to actually use it.
JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
You pay now by paying with your privacy. Someone makes great money by tracking you and selling it but it isn’t you.
- nextaccountic 5y ago
  Web3 is even less private, since your stuff is stored in a public chain that can be deanonymized even years later.
  - mattwilsonn888 5y ago
    > Web3 is a grift. > I am openly ignorant of recent innovations and make statements demonstrating I believe they don't exist. Never change, HN.
    - nextaccountic 5y ago
      What do you mean?
- ridethebike 5y ago
  not sure how web3 would solve any of that
  - JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
    https://oarex.com/industry-news/basic-attention-token/ https://oarex.com/industry-news/basic-attention-token/
echelon 5y ago
> My main concerns with Web3 are that it is "pay to play" in many aspects and it's less democratic than the existing Internet. You could say that Web3 is WebBourgeoisie.
nicbou 5y ago
Not only that, but the price is not adjusted to the local cost of living, making it more expensive to poorer nations. The payment gate isn't as high for every one. I can't justify an internet that hinders the free flow of information.

ThomPete 5y ago

Democracy isnt free. Pay to play is exactly what makes it democratic. Free is more like a benevolent dictatorship.

onethought 5y ago
Clarification? I can participate/play in my democracy with little to no cost. Unless you are arguing time (~20 minutes/year) commitments to vote?
- ThomPete 5y ago
  How is it little to no cost? You pay through taxes, value creation, allegiance and a bunch of other areas.
  - onethought 5y ago
    No, tax is only required on income, not related to whether I can vote or not. Don’t need to create value either. Not sure what “allegiance” means.

reilly3000 5y ago

Agreed. The one dollar-one vote concept is fundamentally flawed, but has become the main model for crypto community governance. There aren’t a lot of viable alternatives, especially as there is no concept of a person, just free, infinite wallets and limited coins. As such, the interests of the wealthiest steer the entire community, and a bad actor could derail a project with malevolent use of voting powers. Democracy is messy at best, but where there are no ‘demos’ its nigh impossible.

kibwen 5y ago
Note that "one dollar, one vote" describes a plutocracy, not a democracy.
littlestymaar 5y ago
> There aren’t a lot of viable alternatives, especially as there is no concept of a person, just free, infinite wallets and limited coins. Sybil attack is the fundamental problem of the internet. (And proof of work was actually designed as a way to mitigate it)
mattwilsonn888 5y ago
That's an interesting point. I would make the refutation that a system where large 'voters' in a DAO are forced to lock up their tokens after votes proportional to their power would prevent them from sabotaging the project, but if they had even more money at stake in a competitor its easy to imagine scenarios where such foul play may happen. The interesting thing about governance is that it existed before the term: In Bitcoin the community governs the direction of the protocol by directing their hash power, perceived value, and simple use of the network towards their desired fork. You can't do this with contract tokens unless you want to fork the entire Ethereum Blockchain for the sake of one DAO. Despite this limitation, if DAO pay to vote schemes could be combined with 'vote with your feet' you could have the clean, efficient governance of a DAO with the fully actionable emergency escape (a fork) in case foul play is sniffed out.

chrisco255 5y ago

The existing internet is dominated by trillion dollar monopolies. How do you reconcile that Web3 is less democratic than a megacorp oligopoly than can unperson people at will? Web3 has decentralization, freedom of speech, anti-gatekeeping, permissionlessness and inclusiveness, at its core.

systemsignal 5y ago
Are you using any decentralized social networks significantly?
- chrisco255 5y ago
  I've tried Mastadon and Matrix (using Element). I think they're two of the best examples. But I think for none of these have quite nailed the UX of existing social networks (Mastadon's not quite as good as Twitter and Element is not as feature-rich as Discord). I really think it's as much of a UX problem as a technology problem and not enough decentralized projects have top-tier UX and UI talent to compete. Mirror (https://mirror.xyz/ https://mirror.xyz/) is an interesting Web3 alternative to Medium. I think they have gotten a lot of the elements right. Blog posts are backed up to Arweave perma-storage and they have easy point and click integration for crypto donations (with automatic splitting for multiple authors), NFT auctions, and crowdfunding. At any rate, I think decentralized social networks are still nascent and we haven't yet seen a break out success on the level of Discord or Twitter or Facebook, but I remain optimistic that it will come.
zaptheimpaler 5y ago
For one, the author pointed out that Opensea NFTs are stored on the Google Cloud Platform, one of those trillion dollar monopolies. Proof of stake means the largest stakeholders can unilaterally reject transactions. Technically the chain could fork. Practically, convincing everyone to move to a new chain seems about as difficult as everyone moving off Facebook because a few people get banned. Proof of work means the richest people can afford more miners and completely control the chain. So where is the decentralization? The only realistic decentralization I can make out is that its possible to build alternative chains, but that very thing is possible today. Its possible to build an alternate payment processor or social network if Visa bans your business, the really hard part is building it and getting the entire ecosystem to actually use it.

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago

You pay now by paying with your privacy. Someone makes great money by tracking you and selling it but it isn’t you.

nextaccountic 5y ago
Web3 is even less private, since your stuff is stored in a public chain that can be deanonymized even years later.
- mattwilsonn888 5y ago
  > Web3 is a grift. > I am openly ignorant of recent innovations and make statements demonstrating I believe they don't exist. Never change, HN.
  - nextaccountic 5y ago
    What do you mean?
ridethebike 5y ago
not sure how web3 would solve any of that
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  https://oarex.com/industry-news/basic-attention-token/ https://oarex.com/industry-news/basic-attention-token/

echelon 5y ago

> My main concerns with Web3 are that it is "pay to play" in many aspects and it's less democratic than the existing Internet. You could say that Web3 is WebBourgeoisie.

nicbou 5y ago

Not only that, but the price is not adjusted to the local cost of living, making it more expensive to poorer nations. The payment gate isn't as high for every one. I can't justify an internet that hinders the free flow of information.