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I owned a pretty decent amount of crypto back in 2012, but sold all of it and own essentially none now. I think what you’re missing here is that there is actual

by mjdesa 5y ago

I owned a pretty decent amount of crypto back in 2012, but sold all of it and own essentially none now. I think what you’re missing here is that there is actually potential in the space and that there are a decent amount of people trying to solve real problems that exist today. The two big ones I can think of are payments and ownership. Payments has always been a difficult part of the web. Multi billion dollar companies have been created around this difficulty. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a native, protocol level way to handle payment? Similarly, digital ownership is totally fragmented. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a way that I could take my digital things with me between different services? I own a number of videos on Amazon, but why can’t I take that ownership right with me to view them on Hulu, or some other service.

hiq 5y ago
I've been commenting a few times about this already, but you're just arguing for interoperability, and blockchains don't help in that regard.
- mjdesa 5y ago
  Why has interoperability failed in the past? Why don’t we have it today?
  - hiq 5y ago
    Why would we get it thanks to blockchains?
    - mjdesa 5y ago
      Because they’re open ledgers. I think of blockchain like I do JavaScript / JSON. Are the perfect? No. But there’s a lot of time and energy being put into them and sometimes that’s all you really need to get things going.
      - hiq 5y ago
        > Because they’re open ledgers. As I explained in another comment in the same thread, it's a far cry from ensuring interoperability. The term "open ledger" is also misguiding since it's just an open ledger of whatever you want to put there, it doesn't necessarily reflect even a representative part of a whole system that would provide some kind of financial service. As another commenter explained regarding video ownership, there's also no incentive to move any old and non-interoperable system there to begin with.
  - oblio 5y ago
    Because the money and the interest is not in interoperability. It's in chunking everything in small bits and selling every small bit repeatedly.
- kybernetikos 5y ago
  I probably agree with a chunk of this, but there is a level at which blockchains, specifically smart contract platforms help enormously with interoperability - they force those using them to provide standard, transactionally interoperable APIs to their services. If someone provides a financial service on ethereum for example, then it will have an api that can be used by other services on ethereum. This is a shocking level of interoperability compared to what we had before, where even with government stepping in and making things like OpenBanking mandatory, it's still surprisingly painful for a normal developer to create services that interoperate with their own bank accounts.
  - hiq 5y ago
    > If someone provides a financial service on ethereum for example, then it will have an api that can be used by other services on ethereum. Not necessarily. You can have a smart contract that's completely controlled by one address, such that you need manual interaction with an external system to interact with the smart contract. You can even avoid transparency by storing information elsewhere, via an oracle. Nothing ensures that somebody providing a financial service on Ethereum will provide anything that could be considered an API. Other than that, for the same financial service, the same regulations will apply to both the Ethereum and traditional version. If it's legally possible to offer some kind of API on Ethereum and it does bring value, the same could be achieved outside of Ethereum. But IMHO the real reasons for the absence of such APIs are regulations and incentives, for which Ethereum doesn't help.
    - kybernetikos 5y ago
      > IMHO the real reasons for the absence of such APIs are regulations and incentives Sure, but smart contracts have totally different incentives and costs for creating interoperable services than e.g. mobile apps. I would say that Ethereum does help here.
      - hiq 5y ago
        > Sure, but smart contracts have totally different incentives and costs for creating interoperable services than e.g. mobile apps. I would say that Ethereum does help here. Why would you say that? For what reasons? To engage with your comment a bit more, regarding costs, it's very expensive to: * write secure smart contracts (if possible at all) * maintain a smart contract infrastructure (transaction fees) There's no solution in sight for either of these.
paulryanrogers 5y ago
> I own a number of videos on Amazon, but why can’t I take that ownership right with me to view them on Hulu, or some other service. Do you? Terms probably state you bought a license. The incentive is for producers and platforms to silo content to maximize sales. Why would they agree to use a less centralized platform unless forced by law or coordinated market demand?
badwolf 5y ago
Just a side note about your digital movies: You can connect your various accounts and share your library across services with Movies Anyhwhere: https://moviesanywhere.com https://moviesanywhere.com

by mjdesa 5y ago

hiq 5y ago

I've been commenting a few times about this already, but you're just arguing for interoperability, and blockchains don't help in that regard.

mjdesa 5y ago
Why has interoperability failed in the past? Why don’t we have it today?
- hiq 5y ago
  Why would we get it thanks to blockchains?
  - mjdesa 5y ago
    Because they’re open ledgers. I think of blockchain like I do JavaScript / JSON. Are the perfect? No. But there’s a lot of time and energy being put into them and sometimes that’s all you really need to get things going.
    - hiq 5y ago
      > Because they’re open ledgers. As I explained in another comment in the same thread, it's a far cry from ensuring interoperability. The term "open ledger" is also misguiding since it's just an open ledger of whatever you want to put there, it doesn't necessarily reflect even a representative part of a whole system that would provide some kind of financial service. As another commenter explained regarding video ownership, there's also no incentive to move any old and non-interoperable system there to begin with.
- oblio 5y ago
  Because the money and the interest is not in interoperability. It's in chunking everything in small bits and selling every small bit repeatedly.
kybernetikos 5y ago
I probably agree with a chunk of this, but there is a level at which blockchains, specifically smart contract platforms help enormously with interoperability - they force those using them to provide standard, transactionally interoperable APIs to their services. If someone provides a financial service on ethereum for example, then it will have an api that can be used by other services on ethereum. This is a shocking level of interoperability compared to what we had before, where even with government stepping in and making things like OpenBanking mandatory, it's still surprisingly painful for a normal developer to create services that interoperate with their own bank accounts.
- hiq 5y ago
  > If someone provides a financial service on ethereum for example, then it will have an api that can be used by other services on ethereum. Not necessarily. You can have a smart contract that's completely controlled by one address, such that you need manual interaction with an external system to interact with the smart contract. You can even avoid transparency by storing information elsewhere, via an oracle. Nothing ensures that somebody providing a financial service on Ethereum will provide anything that could be considered an API. Other than that, for the same financial service, the same regulations will apply to both the Ethereum and traditional version. If it's legally possible to offer some kind of API on Ethereum and it does bring value, the same could be achieved outside of Ethereum. But IMHO the real reasons for the absence of such APIs are regulations and incentives, for which Ethereum doesn't help.
  - kybernetikos 5y ago
    > IMHO the real reasons for the absence of such APIs are regulations and incentives Sure, but smart contracts have totally different incentives and costs for creating interoperable services than e.g. mobile apps. I would say that Ethereum does help here.
    - hiq 5y ago
      > Sure, but smart contracts have totally different incentives and costs for creating interoperable services than e.g. mobile apps. I would say that Ethereum does help here. Why would you say that? For what reasons? To engage with your comment a bit more, regarding costs, it's very expensive to: * write secure smart contracts (if possible at all) * maintain a smart contract infrastructure (transaction fees) There's no solution in sight for either of these.

paulryanrogers 5y ago

> I own a number of videos on Amazon, but why can’t I take that ownership right with me to view them on Hulu, or some other service. Do you? Terms probably state you bought a license. The incentive is for producers and platforms to silo content to maximize sales. Why would they agree to use a less centralized platform unless forced by law or coordinated market demand?

badwolf 5y ago

Just a side note about your digital movies: You can connect your various accounts and share your library across services with Movies Anyhwhere: https://moviesanywhere.com https://moviesanywhere.com