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Dammit, yet another project integrating/promoting cryptocurrency (Filecoin in this case). I like and use F-Droid, and I'm really unhappy about how difficult it'

Dammit, yet another project integrating/promoting cryptocurrency (Filecoin in this case). I like and use F-Droid, and I'm really unhappy about how difficult it's becoming to avoid web3 crap turning everything into a financial instrument to fuel speculation, energy use and e-waste.

BLKNSLVR 5y ago
Don't let the cloud of BS surrounding web3 (and cryptocurrency as a whole) obscure your view of the potential gold that lies at its core. Your comment reminds me of Letterman ridiculing Bill Gates' description of (very) early internet potential by saying "have you ever heard of the radio?". Edit: (the following was added after a couple of upvotes were received, so the following isn't necessarily "agreed with" by anyone) Uneducated opinion: The financial instrumentalisation of some of these web3 things is required for these two sides of the same coin (pun unintended): 1. A barrier to entry against those who would seek to sabotage the system / network / <thing> 2. Incentive to participate and donate resources to the system / network / <thing> The speculation side of this financial instrumentalisation is, to a greater or lesser degree, unintended consequences (potentially inflammatory example: Bitcoin was intended as an uncensorable way to exchange value, ie. a currency, and has now turned into a store of value to 'hodl' long-term rather than regularly exchange for goods and services). I put this down to human nature rather than design.
- sinkholed 5y ago
  I looked up the Letterman video expecting to see someone confidently dismissive about the Internet. Letterman came across as fine: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gipL_CEw-fk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gipL_CEw-fk The radio quote is taken out of context. Letterman doesn't come across as well as Bowie though: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8tCC9yxUIdw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8tCC9yxUIdw
- giantrobot 5y ago
  > I put this down to human nature rather than design. The design of Bitcoin plays a larger part in "hodl" than human nature. The cost of mining growth with growth of the network pretty quickly eliminated Bitcoin's utility as a value exchange. It didn't take long for Bitcoin transactions to get more expensive than traditional payment methods. There's no sense in paying fees to transact in Bitcoin if they're higher than traditional payment. Bitcoin's "value" has also always been highly variable thanks in part to the fees so there's no good way to post prices in Bitcoin for vendors either. Shit the value can fluctuate wildly while your transaction is processing! Your agreed upon "price" is meaningless.
rpdillon 5y ago
I generally agree with this sentiment, but IPFS and Filecoin I view as quite different than the rest. I think the F-Droid team does as well: > Since the “decentralized web” includes all sorts of things, it is important to also mention things that we will not be doing with this grant. We are not looking at NFTs, blockchain, DAOs, smart contracts or related aspects of “Web3”. Filecoin is acceptable to me because it seems to be a currency tied to a real asset that folks need: drive space. I'm not an expert on this, but Wikipedia's entry mentions this aspect: > It is made by Protocol Labs and builds on top of InterPlanetary File System, allowing users to rent unused hard drive space. I don't think it's an arms race for energy usage and e-waste the way e.g. Bitcoin is, but if I'm getting this wrong, I'd be interested to hear about it from folks who have better context!
- wmf 5y ago
  Filecoin's deflationary "number go up" economics distract from its use for storage. It's true that Filecoin incentivizes miners to provide storage space, but the vast majority of that space is unused so it appears that the incentives are out of balance. In other words, Filecoin's "users" are just hodling Filecoin to get rich; they're not storing data. It's too soon to tell whether this situation is temporary or not. Also, Filecoin has fairly high non-storage hardware requirements so miners aren't just providing storage; they have to spend significant energy and capex to prove that they are providing storage.
  - hammyhavoc 5y ago
    I think it's becoming clear that they're trying to find uses for that storage, but it's the old "solution in search of a problem" chestnut, IMO.
  - rpdillon 5y ago
    Thanks for this insight...your explanation is very clear!
hanniabu 5y ago
> I'm really unhappy about how difficult it's becoming to avoid web3 crap turning everything into a financial instrument to fuel speculation Almost like it's not all speculation and it actually provides a utility....
- varnaud 5y ago
  What utility? In the Funded work section of the article, I don't see anything that web3 is making more useful or that could not be done without it. I hope they simply cash out the fund they received and implement none of the IPFS crap. On April 1, 2021, the date of the archive.org article mentioned in this f-droid article, FIL jumped literally to its all time high. The 50,000 FIL archive.org received was then worth $7,965,000. Today, the same 50,000 FIL are worth $919,500. It's almost like it's all about speculation and the actual utility is making early investor rich.
mishmosh 5y ago
Mosh from Protocol Labs here. Specifically on energy use, the Filecoin Green initiative is working to rigorously map and authenticate energy consumption on the network, and become the first carbon-neutral (and eventually carbon-negative) blockchain. Filecoin uses about the same energy as a comparably sized data center. Specifically, Filecoin provides about 0.77% of all data center storage capacity across the world and consumes about 0.62% of total data center electricity use. We're also ramping up our ability to help build new solar generation, including a $38M fund to build new solar projects in the US, to produce at least as much renewable energy for the grid as the network consumes. More on this here: - https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/12/02/filecoin-might-have-a-way-for-bitcoin-to-fight-its-energy-critics-if-miners-use-it/ https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/12/02/filecoin-might-have... - https://github.com/redransil/filecoin-energy-estimation/blob/main/methodology/filecoin-electricity-methodology-paper.pdf https://github.com/redransil/filecoin-energy-estimation/blob... - https://filecoin.energy/methodology https://filecoin.energy/methodology
- lucb1e 5y ago
  > to produce at least as much renewable energy for the grid as the network consumes So redirecting funds from investors/people and resources (production capacity) that could have gone to make everything renewable, to make your blockchain use renewable energy? Why not just not use a PoW blockchain but instead use DHT, IPFS, and other technologies for decentralization?
  - NoahKAndrews 5y ago
    As I understand it, they're not using PoW, and they definitely are using IPFS.
    - lucb1e 5y ago
      Then how is it a blockchain, or where does that power draw come from? Sounds more like git than like bitcoin if it doesn't have PoW, but git doesn't use a lot of energy. I'm confused. (I'm using git here as a bit of a hyperbole to indicate something we all know as being a cryptographically linked list of things while clearly not requiring miners, currencies, or power-hungry infrastructure. Feel free to replace git with a better example if there is one, I'm not sure how to better differentiate between blockchain with and without consensus mechanism than this.)
JeremyNT 5y ago
Yeah, sad to see this nonsense from a project I have a lot of respect for. They could just use bittorrent, if distribution were the issue.
- eighthave 5y ago
  I was also initially skeptical, but after looking into IPFS, I think the core ideas are real and useful. IPFS is inspired by bittorrent, and addresses some of the issues with bittorrent that keep torrenting a very manual process. Debian did experiments with bittorrent mirrors, they worked poorly. I think IPFS is worth trying since it could actually work.

BLKNSLVR 5y ago

Don't let the cloud of BS surrounding web3 (and cryptocurrency as a whole) obscure your view of the potential gold that lies at its core. Your comment reminds me of Letterman ridiculing Bill Gates' description of (very) early internet potential by saying "have you ever heard of the radio?". Edit: (the following was added after a couple of upvotes were received, so the following isn't necessarily "agreed with" by anyone) Uneducated opinion: The financial instrumentalisation of some of these web3 things is required for these two sides of the same coin (pun unintended): 1. A barrier to entry against those who would seek to sabotage the system / network / <thing> 2. Incentive to participate and donate resources to the system / network / <thing> The speculation side of this financial instrumentalisation is, to a greater or lesser degree, unintended consequences (potentially inflammatory example: Bitcoin was intended as an uncensorable way to exchange value, ie. a currency, and has now turned into a store of value to 'hodl' long-term rather than regularly exchange for goods and services). I put this down to human nature rather than design.

sinkholed 5y ago
I looked up the Letterman video expecting to see someone confidently dismissive about the Internet. Letterman came across as fine: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gipL_CEw-fk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gipL_CEw-fk The radio quote is taken out of context. Letterman doesn't come across as well as Bowie though: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8tCC9yxUIdw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8tCC9yxUIdw
giantrobot 5y ago
> I put this down to human nature rather than design. The design of Bitcoin plays a larger part in "hodl" than human nature. The cost of mining growth with growth of the network pretty quickly eliminated Bitcoin's utility as a value exchange. It didn't take long for Bitcoin transactions to get more expensive than traditional payment methods. There's no sense in paying fees to transact in Bitcoin if they're higher than traditional payment. Bitcoin's "value" has also always been highly variable thanks in part to the fees so there's no good way to post prices in Bitcoin for vendors either. Shit the value can fluctuate wildly while your transaction is processing! Your agreed upon "price" is meaningless.

rpdillon 5y ago

I generally agree with this sentiment, but IPFS and Filecoin I view as quite different than the rest. I think the F-Droid team does as well: > Since the “decentralized web” includes all sorts of things, it is important to also mention things that we will not be doing with this grant. We are not looking at NFTs, blockchain, DAOs, smart contracts or related aspects of “Web3”. Filecoin is acceptable to me because it seems to be a currency tied to a real asset that folks need: drive space. I'm not an expert on this, but Wikipedia's entry mentions this aspect: > It is made by Protocol Labs and builds on top of InterPlanetary File System, allowing users to rent unused hard drive space. I don't think it's an arms race for energy usage and e-waste the way e.g. Bitcoin is, but if I'm getting this wrong, I'd be interested to hear about it from folks who have better context!

wmf 5y ago
Filecoin's deflationary "number go up" economics distract from its use for storage. It's true that Filecoin incentivizes miners to provide storage space, but the vast majority of that space is unused so it appears that the incentives are out of balance. In other words, Filecoin's "users" are just hodling Filecoin to get rich; they're not storing data. It's too soon to tell whether this situation is temporary or not. Also, Filecoin has fairly high non-storage hardware requirements so miners aren't just providing storage; they have to spend significant energy and capex to prove that they are providing storage.
- hammyhavoc 5y ago
  I think it's becoming clear that they're trying to find uses for that storage, but it's the old "solution in search of a problem" chestnut, IMO.
- rpdillon 5y ago
  Thanks for this insight...your explanation is very clear!

hanniabu 5y ago

> I'm really unhappy about how difficult it's becoming to avoid web3 crap turning everything into a financial instrument to fuel speculation Almost like it's not all speculation and it actually provides a utility....

varnaud 5y ago
What utility? In the Funded work section of the article, I don't see anything that web3 is making more useful or that could not be done without it. I hope they simply cash out the fund they received and implement none of the IPFS crap. On April 1, 2021, the date of the archive.org article mentioned in this f-droid article, FIL jumped literally to its all time high. The 50,000 FIL archive.org received was then worth $7,965,000. Today, the same 50,000 FIL are worth $919,500. It's almost like it's all about speculation and the actual utility is making early investor rich.

mishmosh 5y ago

Mosh from Protocol Labs here. Specifically on energy use, the Filecoin Green initiative is working to rigorously map and authenticate energy consumption on the network, and become the first carbon-neutral (and eventually carbon-negative) blockchain. Filecoin uses about the same energy as a comparably sized data center. Specifically, Filecoin provides about 0.77% of all data center storage capacity across the world and consumes about 0.62% of total data center electricity use. We're also ramping up our ability to help build new solar generation, including a $38M fund to build new solar projects in the US, to produce at least as much renewable energy for the grid as the network consumes. More on this here: - https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/12/02/filecoin-might-have-a-way-for-bitcoin-to-fight-its-energy-critics-if-miners-use-it/ https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2021/12/02/filecoin-might-have... - https://github.com/redransil/filecoin-energy-estimation/blob/main/methodology/filecoin-electricity-methodology-paper.pdf https://github.com/redransil/filecoin-energy-estimation/blob... - https://filecoin.energy/methodology https://filecoin.energy/methodology

lucb1e 5y ago
> to produce at least as much renewable energy for the grid as the network consumes So redirecting funds from investors/people and resources (production capacity) that could have gone to make everything renewable, to make your blockchain use renewable energy? Why not just not use a PoW blockchain but instead use DHT, IPFS, and other technologies for decentralization?
- NoahKAndrews 5y ago
  As I understand it, they're not using PoW, and they definitely are using IPFS.
  - lucb1e 5y ago
    Then how is it a blockchain, or where does that power draw come from? Sounds more like git than like bitcoin if it doesn't have PoW, but git doesn't use a lot of energy. I'm confused. (I'm using git here as a bit of a hyperbole to indicate something we all know as being a cryptographically linked list of things while clearly not requiring miners, currencies, or power-hungry infrastructure. Feel free to replace git with a better example if there is one, I'm not sure how to better differentiate between blockchain with and without consensus mechanism than this.)

JeremyNT 5y ago

Yeah, sad to see this nonsense from a project I have a lot of respect for. They could just use bittorrent, if distribution were the issue.

eighthave 5y ago
I was also initially skeptical, but after looking into IPFS, I think the core ideas are real and useful. IPFS is inspired by bittorrent, and addresses some of the issues with bittorrent that keep torrenting a very manual process. Debian did experiments with bittorrent mirrors, they worked poorly. I think IPFS is worth trying since it could actually work.