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Because even if web3 is a technological advancement and fulfills its stated purpose flawlessly, there are still negative externalities like the environmental co

Because even if web3 is a technological advancement and fulfills its stated purpose flawlessly, there are still negative externalities like the environmental cost. It's similar to building more data centers to house YouTube's "unlimited" storage for user-created videos. YouTube is one of the most successful platforms on the web with unprecedented societal impact, but will there ever be a time when we stop building more data centers, along with incrementing the total energy and environmental costs of running them all? And once a critical mass of people have adopted said technology, it becomes too easy for those in control to shift the blame onto the millions of functionally satisfied adopters when looking for solutions to the negative externalities that don't directly affect those adopters.

kranke155 5y ago
The only major blockchains using proof of work and having considerable environmental impact at this point are Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin has stalled in development so I don’t think it will ever change, Ethereum has been talking about moving to extremely low energy Proof of Stake for years (hopefully will happen soon). Almost all the other major blockchains available - Polkadot, algorand, Tezos, NEAR, Solana, Cardano - are proof of stake, or similar extremely low energy consumption blockchains. The environmental criticism of blockchain is therefore going the way of the dodo. There are many valid criticisms of blockchain but the energy consumption criticism is about to be technologically outdated. It will age like milk. The only significant project using it is really Ethereum, and like I said, they have long promised to move on but have apparently gotten into a lot of technical trouble doing it, but they are still dead set on doing it.
- bawolff 5y ago
  > It will age like milk. Maybe. But right now PoW block chains have most of the marketshare. The environment concern is not a new one, maybe it will become spoiled milk one day, but so far it seems like the milk has had an incredibly long shelf life.
  - kranke155 5y ago
    What market share? Market cap? Bitcoin is a failed experiment. It will go away eventually.

kranke155 5y ago

The only major blockchains using proof of work and having considerable environmental impact at this point are Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin has stalled in development so I don’t think it will ever change, Ethereum has been talking about moving to extremely low energy Proof of Stake for years (hopefully will happen soon). Almost all the other major blockchains available - Polkadot, algorand, Tezos, NEAR, Solana, Cardano - are proof of stake, or similar extremely low energy consumption blockchains. The environmental criticism of blockchain is therefore going the way of the dodo. There are many valid criticisms of blockchain but the energy consumption criticism is about to be technologically outdated. It will age like milk. The only significant project using it is really Ethereum, and like I said, they have long promised to move on but have apparently gotten into a lot of technical trouble doing it, but they are still dead set on doing it.

bawolff 5y ago
> It will age like milk. Maybe. But right now PoW block chains have most of the marketshare. The environment concern is not a new one, maybe it will become spoiled milk one day, but so far it seems like the milk has had an incredibly long shelf life.
- kranke155 5y ago
  What market share? Market cap? Bitcoin is a failed experiment. It will go away eventually.