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>Wait, what you’re telling me is that crypto is unrestricted and unchangeable, but companies can choose to control what happens within their ecosystems based on

>Wait, what you’re telling me is that crypto is unrestricted and unchangeable, but companies can choose to control what happens within their ecosystems based on their judgment? I am sad I can upvote this article only once. Ledgers may be public, but the systems guided, configured, and controlled by them sure are not. Whoever has the root password to these servers can decide on a whim that whats on the blorkchain no longer matters.

aeternum 5y ago
If the early internet were set up like the banking system currently is with pay-to-play rules and relationships, we would probably still be using AOL, Yahoo and Excite to search the web. The key change with the internet was that the open access to information fostered competition. So yeah maybe OpenSea makes some questionable governance choices, but at least the underlying information is accessible via the public blockchain making it easy for competitors to emerge. New ideas can be tried in parallel without complex business arrangements. of course if the NFT you're buying is ultimately just an opensea URL, well then I think there's a saying about fools and money.
- usrbinbash 5y ago
  > we would probably still be using AOL, Yahoo and Excite to search the web. There is always a pay-to-play system, the only difference is what we pay with. The early internet harvested money directly, the current one our personal data, and an blorkchain based system again harvests money directly from people buying virtual tokens. There is no such thing as a free lunch in business. > the underlying information is accessible The underlying information is a ledger of who has which non-fungible, or how much of fungible tokens. The actual information and value that keeps a business afloat; code, knowledge, connections, servers, contracts, machines, employees, finances, is not on the blorkchain. Sure, in theory, someone else could build a competing business on top of the available information. In practice, displacing an already existing business is next to impossible unless the competitor offers features the competitor doesn't. This is true even if the competitor has vast financial resources; just ask Google how well google+ went.
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    Your final point is true however having vast financial resources is an advantage when your competitor doesn’t have that. Which wasn’t the case for Facebook. Sure Google had a lot more money back then. But Facebook still had billions. I still agree with the point though of course.

aeternum 5y ago

If the early internet were set up like the banking system currently is with pay-to-play rules and relationships, we would probably still be using AOL, Yahoo and Excite to search the web. The key change with the internet was that the open access to information fostered competition. So yeah maybe OpenSea makes some questionable governance choices, but at least the underlying information is accessible via the public blockchain making it easy for competitors to emerge. New ideas can be tried in parallel without complex business arrangements. of course if the NFT you're buying is ultimately just an opensea URL, well then I think there's a saying about fools and money.

usrbinbash 5y ago
> we would probably still be using AOL, Yahoo and Excite to search the web. There is always a pay-to-play system, the only difference is what we pay with. The early internet harvested money directly, the current one our personal data, and an blorkchain based system again harvests money directly from people buying virtual tokens. There is no such thing as a free lunch in business. > the underlying information is accessible The underlying information is a ledger of who has which non-fungible, or how much of fungible tokens. The actual information and value that keeps a business afloat; code, knowledge, connections, servers, contracts, machines, employees, finances, is not on the blorkchain. Sure, in theory, someone else could build a competing business on top of the available information. In practice, displacing an already existing business is next to impossible unless the competitor offers features the competitor doesn't. This is true even if the competitor has vast financial resources; just ask Google how well google+ went.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  Your final point is true however having vast financial resources is an advantage when your competitor doesn’t have that. Which wasn’t the case for Facebook. Sure Google had a lot more money back then. But Facebook still had billions. I still agree with the point though of course.