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I think the author makes the mistake of assuming that web3 is a meaningful, tangible term being used in good faith. In reality, web3 is a marketing buzzword th

I think the author makes the mistake of assuming that web3 is a meaningful, tangible term being used in good faith. In reality, web3 is a marketing buzzword that cryptocurrency boosters have started promoting in an attempt to legitimize their resource intensive and otherwise useless financial speculation.

ThalesX 5y ago
So if I just stop using web3 as a catch-all for the things I work on (i.e. IPFS, Crypto Wallets, Merkle Trees) and just start naming them one by one everything will be OK and it's not a marketing buzzword anymore? Or should I be aware that I am in fact only building marketing funnels even though I find value in the technology being built?
- shrimpx 5y ago
  The problem with "web3" is it implies/its proponents claim that it's a successor to web 2.0. How does it make sense for this crypto "assettech" stuff to replace/supersede the current www stack? Naming it "web3" just comes off as a cheap attention grab.
  - udbhavs 5y ago
    From what I've read web3 creates a new stack in the sense that ENS is used instead of traditional domain names, public key cryptography replaces traditional auth, smart contracts replace application backends and the blockchain acts as the database storing assets, user generated content and profiles (with large or volatile data stored on IPFS).
    - davidmurdoch 5y ago
      I find it so strange that connecting the dots you described here is so hard for so many people.
      - acdha 5y ago
        It’s more that technical people understand how this actually works and realize that, for example, all of these “web3” apps depend heavily on the real web and underlying internet protocols like TLS, IPFS is expensive and slow enough that it’s not suitable for most applications, and the proposed solution for the backend is both unusable for apps requiring privacy or access control and, even if it did work, much slower and far more expensive than hosting your app on a single iPhone. When you want to be paid up front for something which needs fundamental redesigns and many orders of magnitude improvements for scalability and performance, it’s reasonable to question your motives.
      - ThalesX 5y ago
        I feel like a lot of people are somehow angry that this new tech stack’s slug seems to have settled on the “web3” keyword, which they don’t like. I don’t know a single person in the space that cares enough for how its named. There’s also the armchair argument that this doesn’t work for ‘reasons’ which is what you also find in posts with research papers where a random commenter is lecturing on how they should have done it without actual involvement in the space. Most of us work on things we find interesting and feel like it could work (those lucky enough at least), which as some pointed out could just be us being dumb, but at the end of the day, if anything comes out of it, and it’s useful, no one is going to care how its named except the people that don’t like it.
      - shrimpx 5y ago
        I chuckled and was convinced you left out the "/s" but looking at your profile you probably do find it strange.
        ThalesX 5y ago
        You made me check out his profile. Do you even know what Truffle does before discrediting one of its developers?
        acdha 5y ago
        Flip your question around: how much money does he stand to gain from selling to new adopters? Even if you’re striving to be ethical, it’s hard to stay objective when you have a substantial financial win on the line.
- acdha 5y ago
  What’s named “web3” doesn’t improve on web technologies, making it odd to market it as a successor, and it’s hard to discuss when the term means whatever the sales person is currently selling. Listing a specific technology avoids allows claims to be discussed technically without the vagaries of marketing.
- cormacrelf 5y ago
  Yes, you should stop using it. Here's Wikipedia's definition of the web: > The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system where documents and other web resources are identified by Uniform Resource Locators (URLs, such as https://example.com/ https://example.com/), which may be interlinked by hyperlinks, and are accessible over the Internet. The only one of the three you referenced that has anything like that is IPFS, and it's missing large chunks of the web experience we know. Sorry, but a crypto wallet and a data structure simply have nothing to do with the web in any sense that word has ever known. People love the web. It has profoundly affected nearly everyone on Earth. The last time someone invented something like it was in 1440 in Germany. If you want to redefine it as something completely different, people will assume you're doing it in bad faith to co-opt goodwill for your product. If it's for your crypto wallet, they will be right.
  - ThalesX 5y ago
    Would it be better if we (the shill council for naming things) just renamed it to ‘net’? You seem to imply that ‘web’ is taken by our current stack Would the fact that ‘net’ is aiming to make content-addressing a first hand citizen give any weight into being some sort of web? (this seems to be what the paragraph you quoted seems to be mostly concerned with) Would being able to authenticate to websites with your crypto wallet in a frictionless way give any weight into being some sort of web? Would a data structure that allows us to content-address files and ensure content resilience give any weight into being some sort of web? I guess the answer to all my three questions is no because these are not covered in the narrow definition of the web that you provided. I’m not sure what people loving the web has anything to do with the fact that ‘web3’ seems to be the slug for this new stack shuffle. Do people love web1? web2? This is a non issue. People love being connected as simple as possible, they don’t love the web for using HTTP instead of IPFS…
    - cormacrelf 5y ago
      It seems you have understood. The web is a specific thing, in the same way a printing press is a specific thing. The folks who named the web didn’t call it “electronic printing press” in the same way they named email, because it is a unique and separate idea. The people who named Web 2.0 recognised it was not all that different from before, just a few less page reloads. All your suggestions are unique and separate ideas from the web, and that is great. It’s not that difficult to understand. Give them a different name.

ThalesX 5y ago

So if I just stop using web3 as a catch-all for the things I work on (i.e. IPFS, Crypto Wallets, Merkle Trees) and just start naming them one by one everything will be OK and it's not a marketing buzzword anymore? Or should I be aware that I am in fact only building marketing funnels even though I find value in the technology being built?

shrimpx 5y ago
The problem with "web3" is it implies/its proponents claim that it's a successor to web 2.0. How does it make sense for this crypto "assettech" stuff to replace/supersede the current www stack? Naming it "web3" just comes off as a cheap attention grab.
- udbhavs 5y ago
  From what I've read web3 creates a new stack in the sense that ENS is used instead of traditional domain names, public key cryptography replaces traditional auth, smart contracts replace application backends and the blockchain acts as the database storing assets, user generated content and profiles (with large or volatile data stored on IPFS).
  - davidmurdoch 5y ago
    I find it so strange that connecting the dots you described here is so hard for so many people.
    - acdha 5y ago
      It’s more that technical people understand how this actually works and realize that, for example, all of these “web3” apps depend heavily on the real web and underlying internet protocols like TLS, IPFS is expensive and slow enough that it’s not suitable for most applications, and the proposed solution for the backend is both unusable for apps requiring privacy or access control and, even if it did work, much slower and far more expensive than hosting your app on a single iPhone. When you want to be paid up front for something which needs fundamental redesigns and many orders of magnitude improvements for scalability and performance, it’s reasonable to question your motives.
    - ThalesX 5y ago
      I feel like a lot of people are somehow angry that this new tech stack’s slug seems to have settled on the “web3” keyword, which they don’t like. I don’t know a single person in the space that cares enough for how its named. There’s also the armchair argument that this doesn’t work for ‘reasons’ which is what you also find in posts with research papers where a random commenter is lecturing on how they should have done it without actual involvement in the space. Most of us work on things we find interesting and feel like it could work (those lucky enough at least), which as some pointed out could just be us being dumb, but at the end of the day, if anything comes out of it, and it’s useful, no one is going to care how its named except the people that don’t like it.
    - shrimpx 5y ago
      I chuckled and was convinced you left out the "/s" but looking at your profile you probably do find it strange.
      - ThalesX 5y ago
        You made me check out his profile. Do you even know what Truffle does before discrediting one of its developers?
        acdha 5y ago
        Flip your question around: how much money does he stand to gain from selling to new adopters? Even if you’re striving to be ethical, it’s hard to stay objective when you have a substantial financial win on the line.
acdha 5y ago
What’s named “web3” doesn’t improve on web technologies, making it odd to market it as a successor, and it’s hard to discuss when the term means whatever the sales person is currently selling. Listing a specific technology avoids allows claims to be discussed technically without the vagaries of marketing.
cormacrelf 5y ago
Yes, you should stop using it. Here's Wikipedia's definition of the web: > The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system where documents and other web resources are identified by Uniform Resource Locators (URLs, such as https://example.com/ https://example.com/), which may be interlinked by hyperlinks, and are accessible over the Internet. The only one of the three you referenced that has anything like that is IPFS, and it's missing large chunks of the web experience we know. Sorry, but a crypto wallet and a data structure simply have nothing to do with the web in any sense that word has ever known. People love the web. It has profoundly affected nearly everyone on Earth. The last time someone invented something like it was in 1440 in Germany. If you want to redefine it as something completely different, people will assume you're doing it in bad faith to co-opt goodwill for your product. If it's for your crypto wallet, they will be right.
- ThalesX 5y ago
  Would it be better if we (the shill council for naming things) just renamed it to ‘net’? You seem to imply that ‘web’ is taken by our current stack Would the fact that ‘net’ is aiming to make content-addressing a first hand citizen give any weight into being some sort of web? (this seems to be what the paragraph you quoted seems to be mostly concerned with) Would being able to authenticate to websites with your crypto wallet in a frictionless way give any weight into being some sort of web? Would a data structure that allows us to content-address files and ensure content resilience give any weight into being some sort of web? I guess the answer to all my three questions is no because these are not covered in the narrow definition of the web that you provided. I’m not sure what people loving the web has anything to do with the fact that ‘web3’ seems to be the slug for this new stack shuffle. Do people love web1? web2? This is a non issue. People love being connected as simple as possible, they don’t love the web for using HTTP instead of IPFS…
  - cormacrelf 5y ago
    It seems you have understood. The web is a specific thing, in the same way a printing press is a specific thing. The folks who named the web didn’t call it “electronic printing press” in the same way they named email, because it is a unique and separate idea. The people who named Web 2.0 recognised it was not all that different from before, just a few less page reloads. All your suggestions are unique and separate ideas from the web, and that is great. It’s not that difficult to understand. Give them a different name.