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I think the focus on specific technologies and buzzwords is the wrong approach to drive the web forward. Instead, we should focus on specific problems we want t

by imiric 5y ago

I think the focus on specific technologies and buzzwords is the wrong approach to drive the web forward. Instead, we should focus on specific problems we want to solve for users of the current iteration. A non-exhaustive list in no specific order: - Users should be in control of the data they produce and consume. No single centralized entity should have this right over its users, and regulations like the GDPR and cookie consent forms shouldn't exist. - Advertisements and adtech is hostile to the user experience. The web should have alternative monetization options that are easy to integrate for web developers, and establish a direct market between content consumers and content producers, with no middlemen. - Web services should be versioned and users should have the choice of which version they want to use. Companies shouldn't be given the freedom to e.g. change feed algorithms on a whim based on some obscure A/B test. Users shouldn't be forced to use the latest version of applications, and it should be easy for web developers to support several active versions in production. Opera made a step in the right direction by bundling a web server many years ago with Opera Unite, but that went nowhere and was quickly abandoned. BitTorrent, WebTorrent and WebRTC sort of feel like building blocks towards empowering the user, but despite of the prevalence and stability of the technologies, no big user friendly app is built on top of them. Brave Inc.'s Basic Attention Token is probably the best effort towards fixing the monetization aspect, but is tied to one specific browser, one specific currency, and built by a company that's done several missteps and has lost the trust of many users along the way. Then, of course, is the blockchain, the distributed utopia, and hype around "crypto" everyone seems to be discussing. There are good ideas here as well, muddled by many issues specific to these technologies that should be addressed. IMO, web3 should be some combination of all of these and new technologies that empower the user, and make the web friendlier for the current user base and welcoming to the other 40% of the world which is still not online. Otherwise corporations will continue to rule the web while people who can improve it are stuck in perpetual analysis paralysis.

badestrand 5y ago
> Users should be in control of the data they produce and consume. For me this is the most exciting promise of web3. But do blockchains really solve this? Where will user data be stored? Say, the comments we write here on HN, will they be stored on-chain? Or all things I publish on CryptoFacebook, are they all on-chain? Would be great to have that answered because I was not able to figure it out so far. Then I don't see the privacy problematic solved. As everything is tied to my wallet, this means that all my data is public. So after I send a friend a bit of lunch money he can see my wallet address and thus can check my subscriptions on CryptoOnlyFans, can see which words I am learning on CryptoDuoLingo and at which times of the day I am learning etc etc. Obviously this is horrific from a privacy aspect so how do we keep data private while it still being public?
- howinteresting 5y ago
  The first bit I'm not sure about: it may be on a chain or in a content-addressed store like IPFS. The second bit is what zkSNARKs and shielded transactions solve.

by imiric 5y ago

badestrand 5y ago

> Users should be in control of the data they produce and consume. For me this is the most exciting promise of web3. But do blockchains really solve this? Where will user data be stored? Say, the comments we write here on HN, will they be stored on-chain? Or all things I publish on CryptoFacebook, are they all on-chain? Would be great to have that answered because I was not able to figure it out so far. Then I don't see the privacy problematic solved. As everything is tied to my wallet, this means that all my data is public. So after I send a friend a bit of lunch money he can see my wallet address and thus can check my subscriptions on CryptoOnlyFans, can see which words I am learning on CryptoDuoLingo and at which times of the day I am learning etc etc. Obviously this is horrific from a privacy aspect so how do we keep data private while it still being public?

howinteresting 5y ago
The first bit I'm not sure about: it may be on a chain or in a content-addressed store like IPFS. The second bit is what zkSNARKs and shielded transactions solve.