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People dismiss blockchain mainly because it's a solution looking for a problem, something that's not true for the other examples in your last paragraph. The fac

by caaqil 5y ago

People dismiss blockchain mainly because it's a solution looking for a problem, something that's not true for the other examples in your last paragraph. The fact that the people who are trying to sell it almost always seem to peddle some old scams in a trenchcoat doesn't help.

z3c0 5y ago
It isn't a "solution looking for a problem" anymore than any technology repeatedly shoehorned into unnecessary situations. NoSQL and AI were deployed in the same overzealous fashion, with the latter producing almost as much snake oil as the blockchain scene. If anything, it's the FOMO-ing developers of these techs that are looking for problems.
- shafyy 5y ago
  > NoSQL and AI were deployed in the same overzealous fashion, with the latter producing almost as much snake oil as the blockchain scene. You must be kidding when you say that AI produced as much snake oil as cryptos. Sure, there were/are startups using AI as a selling point when there is not much behind, but in most cases AI actually solves real world problems and adds value. Cryptos are stricly a negative-sum game and ponzi schemes.
  - moron4hire 5y ago
    I wouldn't say "in most cases", but I would also point out that AI has probably not been at the center of quite so many scams.
  - z3c0 5y ago
    I am not kidding. I work in the AI industry and I'd go so far as so say that less than half of deployed AI is properly tuned and not overfit. Tons of companies rushed to market half-baked "AI" solutions built by the cheapest "data scientist" they could find. Just because it's corporate snake-oil doesn't mean it isn't snake oil.
birracerveza 5y ago
No, it's a solution that solves the problem of centralization, stop with this "it's a solution looking for a problem" regurgitated rhetoric.
- moron4hire 5y ago
  Standardized APIs solve centralization. The use of Merkle trees to store way too much data and make a distributed computer slower than any individual node has nothing to do with that.
  - birracerveza 5y ago
    No, they don't. They still don't ensure data availability, consistency and you still have to trust the API provider, a third party. Web3 does away will all that. You just use the service.
    - moron4hire 5y ago
      Decentralization itself is what gets you availability, not the blockchain structure. A consensus algorithm is what gets you consistency, not a blockchain structure. There's no need to store your data in the most wasteful way to store data and perform compute to get these features. And "zero trust" is a myth. We can see that from the $7.7 BILLION in fraud that has been committed in crypto markets in just the last year. https://www.zdnet.com/article/scammers-grabbed-7-7-billion-worth-of-cryptocurrency-in-2021-say-researchers/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/scammers-grabbed-7-7-billion-w...
      - birracerveza 5y ago
        How does decentralization give you availability? You need a financial incentive to make data available, that's where the tokens come in. Also stop conflating all crypto with scams, it's a moot point and borders on arguing in bad faith. People use good old money to run scams and rob people all the time. The fact that people use the tool with malicious intents doesn't detract from the value of the tool itself.
rglullis 5y ago
Tell me how to solve decentralized consensus without having a blockchain, and I'll be the first to drop all my work with it. Tell me how someone living in a country with heavy capital controls can participate in the global economy on equal footing with someone from a more developed country without blockchain, and you might be a candidate for a Nobel Prize. Or tell me simply how someone can make a living with work that threatens the status quo without worrying about being ostracized. If you want to have any kind of hedge against the continuous, systemic institutional failures, you can not simply try to build another system that puts another institution at the top.
- espadrine 5y ago
  > Tell me how to solve decentralized consensus without having a blockchain, and I'll be the first to drop all my work with it. I doubt you will, but you asked, so: byzantine Paxos. The point of the person you are responding to is that solving decentralized consensus is only an academic exercise. If your country wants to prevent your from participating in an economy, it can; the only recourse is political.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    > byzantine Paxos. Okay, I should've added "permissionless" to the list of desired properties. If you can a priori choose who gets to participate you´d have a point. > If your country wants to prevent your from participating in an economy, it can I think that the eternally losing "War on Drugs" should be a lesson that shows this is simply not true. Also, consider how Black Markets are a thing in authoritarian places, not free ones. So, no, as much as a country can make it difficult for others, they can not outright stop anyone without significant cost to themselves.

by caaqil 5y ago

z3c0 5y ago

It isn't a "solution looking for a problem" anymore than any technology repeatedly shoehorned into unnecessary situations. NoSQL and AI were deployed in the same overzealous fashion, with the latter producing almost as much snake oil as the blockchain scene. If anything, it's the FOMO-ing developers of these techs that are looking for problems.

shafyy 5y ago
> NoSQL and AI were deployed in the same overzealous fashion, with the latter producing almost as much snake oil as the blockchain scene. You must be kidding when you say that AI produced as much snake oil as cryptos. Sure, there were/are startups using AI as a selling point when there is not much behind, but in most cases AI actually solves real world problems and adds value. Cryptos are stricly a negative-sum game and ponzi schemes.
- moron4hire 5y ago
  I wouldn't say "in most cases", but I would also point out that AI has probably not been at the center of quite so many scams.
- z3c0 5y ago
  I am not kidding. I work in the AI industry and I'd go so far as so say that less than half of deployed AI is properly tuned and not overfit. Tons of companies rushed to market half-baked "AI" solutions built by the cheapest "data scientist" they could find. Just because it's corporate snake-oil doesn't mean it isn't snake oil.

birracerveza 5y ago

No, it's a solution that solves the problem of centralization, stop with this "it's a solution looking for a problem" regurgitated rhetoric.

moron4hire 5y ago
Standardized APIs solve centralization. The use of Merkle trees to store way too much data and make a distributed computer slower than any individual node has nothing to do with that.
- birracerveza 5y ago
  No, they don't. They still don't ensure data availability, consistency and you still have to trust the API provider, a third party. Web3 does away will all that. You just use the service.
  - moron4hire 5y ago
    Decentralization itself is what gets you availability, not the blockchain structure. A consensus algorithm is what gets you consistency, not a blockchain structure. There's no need to store your data in the most wasteful way to store data and perform compute to get these features. And "zero trust" is a myth. We can see that from the $7.7 BILLION in fraud that has been committed in crypto markets in just the last year. https://www.zdnet.com/article/scammers-grabbed-7-7-billion-worth-of-cryptocurrency-in-2021-say-researchers/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/scammers-grabbed-7-7-billion-w...
    - birracerveza 5y ago
      How does decentralization give you availability? You need a financial incentive to make data available, that's where the tokens come in. Also stop conflating all crypto with scams, it's a moot point and borders on arguing in bad faith. People use good old money to run scams and rob people all the time. The fact that people use the tool with malicious intents doesn't detract from the value of the tool itself.

rglullis 5y ago

Tell me how to solve decentralized consensus without having a blockchain, and I'll be the first to drop all my work with it. Tell me how someone living in a country with heavy capital controls can participate in the global economy on equal footing with someone from a more developed country without blockchain, and you might be a candidate for a Nobel Prize. Or tell me simply how someone can make a living with work that threatens the status quo without worrying about being ostracized. If you want to have any kind of hedge against the continuous, systemic institutional failures, you can not simply try to build another system that puts another institution at the top.

espadrine 5y ago
> Tell me how to solve decentralized consensus without having a blockchain, and I'll be the first to drop all my work with it. I doubt you will, but you asked, so: byzantine Paxos. The point of the person you are responding to is that solving decentralized consensus is only an academic exercise. If your country wants to prevent your from participating in an economy, it can; the only recourse is political.
- rglullis 5y ago
  > byzantine Paxos. Okay, I should've added "permissionless" to the list of desired properties. If you can a priori choose who gets to participate you´d have a point. > If your country wants to prevent your from participating in an economy, it can I think that the eternally losing "War on Drugs" should be a lesson that shows this is simply not true. Also, consider how Black Markets are a thing in authoritarian places, not free ones. So, no, as much as a country can make it difficult for others, they can not outright stop anyone without significant cost to themselves.