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Sure. A "free" internet. Not in terms of money, but in terms of freedom of speech without censorship and a controlling authority. With no authority that decid

Sure. A "free" internet. Not in terms of money, but in terms of freedom of speech without censorship and a controlling authority. With no authority that decides whether I can send money to/receive from someone. Especially living in a corrupt authoratarian system, even only those two outweight all the bad sides (tx fees, scalability, PoW environmental effects) for me. It does more good than it harms in the big picture.

samsonradu 5y ago
> With no authority that decides whether I can send money to/receive from someone. That’s actually a good point and Bitcoin/crypto solves this. Why doesn’t it stop there though, what does web3 solve?
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  Only somewhat I think; miners actually do have such control, and could be coerced into sanctions; it's just that no one has successfully done that (or kept quiet about it). You can imagine outlawing processing some crypto transactions in some area. Miners have no choice but to comply, leading to at least a fork and massive confusion, at most to actual enforcement of the rule. Blockchains may be censorship-resistant, but humans are not rubber hose resistant.
  - miracle2k 5y ago
    > You can imagine outlawing processing some crypto transactions in some area. Miners have no choice but to comply, leading to at least a fork and massive confusion, at most to actual enforcement of the rule. It is not a geo-location issue. The enforcement measures in question either manage to control 50% of the hashrate or they don't. If they don't, the protocol will ignore their censorship. Yes, they could continue mining a minority fork chain, but you would need to convince Bitcoin-users and services to use the fork instead of the uncensored version. You could imagine this being done by force: ISPs block the download of the software, exchanges no longer trade it etc. The point is merely: <50%, the power is not with the miners at all; it is the users that need to be controlled.
    - rich_sasha 5y ago
      Since China ban, 35% of mining happens on US soils: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/after-chinas-crypto-ban-who-leads-in-bitcoin-mining/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/after-chinas-crypto-ban-who... Not so far off 50+eps
- falcolas 5y ago
  > That’s actually a good point and Bitcoin/crypto solves this. For now. Governments are catching on, and since the transactions are public, they can (and are putting the building blocks in place now) easily apply the same regulations to international bitcoin transactions as they do traditional money transfers. Basically, folks today are taking advantage of a blind spot in government oversight. They're aware of it and are removing that blind spot. I heard an analogy at one point - governments are elephants. It's usually pretty easy to avoid being stomped on when you're small. But if you do get stomped on, you'll be utterly destroyed. Many governments have no problems with making examples of people.
  - samsonradu 5y ago
    Yes, that’s true but for the sake of the argument lets say it solves that problem. What do web3 and NFTs solve?
    - falcolas 5y ago
      IMO, nothing. NFTs are already centralized and primarily used as scams. If your non-scam NFT is blocked by OpenSea, it might as well not exist for the purposes of selling and re-selling. Where NFTs are not used for scams, they're being implemented in a proprietary blockchain and used as a method of extracting more money from customers with no new benefits (it's not like customers can re-sell their NFTs; see: proprietary blockchain). The only thing I potentially see as valuable from web3 is cryptographic customer identification - but this is something we've had for years (client certs), but which never took off. I don't see how "web3" will change that.
      - can16358p 5y ago
        I work for several NFT art projects. None of them are scams. I know many people who work on other NFT projects which aren't scam as well. They are all on public blockchains, perfectly functional with relatively healthy communities. I think you are cherry picking the scam projects by using the word "primarily". We hate scam projects just as much as you do, they damage the reputation and trust of whole ecosystem.
malermeister 5y ago
But with money being so unequally distributed, this will just result in an even more unfree internet. If participating in anything on this new internet requires money, the Bezoses and Musks will be able to do whatever they want while the normies will beg for scraps in this vision of the web. Instead of fixing a corrupt authoritarian system, we'll just end up implementing digital neofeudalism. This is already starting to happen with NFT games, where westerners keep Filipinos as indentured servants. [0] It'll only get worse from here if we don't stop it. [0] https://reason.com/2022/02/01/the-biggest-nft-video-games-economy-is-collapsing-because-nft-games-dont-work/ https://reason.com/2022/02/01/the-biggest-nft-video-games-ec...
UncleMeat 5y ago
Elsewhere in this thread somebody is claiming that a Ticketmaster system could defeat scalpers by preventing resales to anybody who didn’t buy a band’s album. That sounds like an authority that decides whether I can send money to someone.
sidibe 5y ago
> With no authority that decides whether I can send money to/receive from someone. There's no technical reason fiat money doesn't have this property. But societies everywhere, democratic or authoritarian, have decided that's a bad idea and have money laundering laws.
- falcolas 5y ago
  AND have started the mechanisms to bring bitcoin transactions under these laws. It started (in the US) with the IRS taxing bitcoins as they would material wealth. And why wouldn't they?
  - can16358p 5y ago
    Well that's terrible and should be stopped. Digital assets shouldn't be controlled by authority as long as you aren't converting it to fiat. Then, (while I still don't support it, I get it) I understand if IRS takes a portion when you convert it to USD. But that should be all about it. Crypto "world" should have a separate line with fiat world and fiat-controlling authorities shouldn't have any power there as long as someone doesn't convert their crypto to fiat.
    - sidibe 5y ago
      Why should it? If crypto became popular there wouldn't be tax revenue
      - can16358p 5y ago
        Because crypto should stay crypto. The moment government controls something "in-crypto" then it's no longer decentralized, beating the whole purpose.
acdha 5y ago
> Especially living in a corrupt authoratarian system, even only those two outweight all the bad sides (tx fees, scalability, PoW environmental effects) for me. It does more good than it harms in the big picture. More accurately, it could if it actually worked but since it doesn't all you're doing is paying more for lower quality of service. A key concept to understand is that when blockchain sales people say “no authority” they mean “except the miners, software developers, exchange and oracle operators, and the governments which have jurisdiction over them”. Just as real-world censorship is far more often based on after the fact consequences rather than preventing someone from speaking first, consequences can be applied retroactively to anyone who participates in illegal transactions and blockchains very helpfully publish a full list of transactions so the authorities don't miss anyone. We're seeing this right now: technically, someone in Russia can make a Bitcoin transfer since the Russian government hasn't chosen to block the protocol at the network layer but when they do so they are finding that many companies won't participate in those transfers and since the history is public that can extend to any downstream transactions based on the transferred funds.
- miracle2k 5y ago
  > More accurately, it could if it actually worked but since it doesn't all you're doing is paying more for lower quality of service. A key concept to understand is that when blockchain sales people say “no authority” they mean “except the miners, software developers, exchange and oracle operators, and the governments which have jurisdiction over them”. Critics like to say "it doesn't work", then the next day complain about how it enables a ransomware plague. You can't have it both ways. The fact is it clearly works. This isn't to say it's magic; it doesn't protect you from bullets any more than it makes you coffee. It is not a magical unicorn; just finding a reason why there might still be censorship somewhere is not a valid argument. Free speech laws work even if Facebook deletes your post, or you a fired, or sometimes someone doesn't appeal their conviction. Your argument about "miners, developers or exchange operators" existing is not any more valid than this one is.
  - acdha 5y ago
    It worked as long as nobody was trying to go after it. That's been changing and as we've seen the parties involved have plenty of real-world presence which various authorities have been able to take advantage of. This is why the absolute claims about “free speech” are simply reflecting a deeper misunderstanding: it's true that nobody can stop you from making a Bitcoin transaction unless they block the protocol entirely but the retroactive consequences deter people quite effectively, very similarly to how to even very authoritarian states can't prevent you from saying something in public but can very effectively make it too risky for most people to do. > Free speech laws work even if Facebook deletes your post, or you a fired, or sometimes someone doesn't appeal their conviction. Your argument about "miners, developers or exchange operators" existing is not any more valid than this one is. Free speech laws generally don't apply to private companies like Facebook, who are generally given a high level discretion for how they choose to run their communities. The same is true of a blockchain network: the implementers and operators set the policies and since these systems are based on money that generally means that you're getting the rules which the major players either want or are required to implement by the governments with jurisdiction over them. That last part is key to understand: maybe a protocol allows you to make a transaction somewhere but the cost/risk shifts considerably if the recipient knows that they won't be able to use it in most places and every potential buyer can easily tell that it's on a list of tainted tokens.

samsonradu 5y ago

> With no authority that decides whether I can send money to/receive from someone. That’s actually a good point and Bitcoin/crypto solves this. Why doesn’t it stop there though, what does web3 solve?

rich_sasha 5y ago
Only somewhat I think; miners actually do have such control, and could be coerced into sanctions; it's just that no one has successfully done that (or kept quiet about it). You can imagine outlawing processing some crypto transactions in some area. Miners have no choice but to comply, leading to at least a fork and massive confusion, at most to actual enforcement of the rule. Blockchains may be censorship-resistant, but humans are not rubber hose resistant.
- miracle2k 5y ago
  > You can imagine outlawing processing some crypto transactions in some area. Miners have no choice but to comply, leading to at least a fork and massive confusion, at most to actual enforcement of the rule. It is not a geo-location issue. The enforcement measures in question either manage to control 50% of the hashrate or they don't. If they don't, the protocol will ignore their censorship. Yes, they could continue mining a minority fork chain, but you would need to convince Bitcoin-users and services to use the fork instead of the uncensored version. You could imagine this being done by force: ISPs block the download of the software, exchanges no longer trade it etc. The point is merely: <50%, the power is not with the miners at all; it is the users that need to be controlled.
  - rich_sasha 5y ago
    Since China ban, 35% of mining happens on US soils: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/after-chinas-crypto-ban-who-leads-in-bitcoin-mining/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/after-chinas-crypto-ban-who... Not so far off 50+eps
falcolas 5y ago
> That’s actually a good point and Bitcoin/crypto solves this. For now. Governments are catching on, and since the transactions are public, they can (and are putting the building blocks in place now) easily apply the same regulations to international bitcoin transactions as they do traditional money transfers. Basically, folks today are taking advantage of a blind spot in government oversight. They're aware of it and are removing that blind spot. I heard an analogy at one point - governments are elephants. It's usually pretty easy to avoid being stomped on when you're small. But if you do get stomped on, you'll be utterly destroyed. Many governments have no problems with making examples of people.
- samsonradu 5y ago
  Yes, that’s true but for the sake of the argument lets say it solves that problem. What do web3 and NFTs solve?
  - falcolas 5y ago
    IMO, nothing. NFTs are already centralized and primarily used as scams. If your non-scam NFT is blocked by OpenSea, it might as well not exist for the purposes of selling and re-selling. Where NFTs are not used for scams, they're being implemented in a proprietary blockchain and used as a method of extracting more money from customers with no new benefits (it's not like customers can re-sell their NFTs; see: proprietary blockchain). The only thing I potentially see as valuable from web3 is cryptographic customer identification - but this is something we've had for years (client certs), but which never took off. I don't see how "web3" will change that.
    - can16358p 5y ago
      I work for several NFT art projects. None of them are scams. I know many people who work on other NFT projects which aren't scam as well. They are all on public blockchains, perfectly functional with relatively healthy communities. I think you are cherry picking the scam projects by using the word "primarily". We hate scam projects just as much as you do, they damage the reputation and trust of whole ecosystem.

malermeister 5y ago

But with money being so unequally distributed, this will just result in an even more unfree internet. If participating in anything on this new internet requires money, the Bezoses and Musks will be able to do whatever they want while the normies will beg for scraps in this vision of the web. Instead of fixing a corrupt authoritarian system, we'll just end up implementing digital neofeudalism. This is already starting to happen with NFT games, where westerners keep Filipinos as indentured servants. [0] It'll only get worse from here if we don't stop it. [0] https://reason.com/2022/02/01/the-biggest-nft-video-games-economy-is-collapsing-because-nft-games-dont-work/ https://reason.com/2022/02/01/the-biggest-nft-video-games-ec...

UncleMeat 5y ago

Elsewhere in this thread somebody is claiming that a Ticketmaster system could defeat scalpers by preventing resales to anybody who didn’t buy a band’s album. That sounds like an authority that decides whether I can send money to someone.

sidibe 5y ago

> With no authority that decides whether I can send money to/receive from someone. There's no technical reason fiat money doesn't have this property. But societies everywhere, democratic or authoritarian, have decided that's a bad idea and have money laundering laws.

falcolas 5y ago
AND have started the mechanisms to bring bitcoin transactions under these laws. It started (in the US) with the IRS taxing bitcoins as they would material wealth. And why wouldn't they?
- can16358p 5y ago
  Well that's terrible and should be stopped. Digital assets shouldn't be controlled by authority as long as you aren't converting it to fiat. Then, (while I still don't support it, I get it) I understand if IRS takes a portion when you convert it to USD. But that should be all about it. Crypto "world" should have a separate line with fiat world and fiat-controlling authorities shouldn't have any power there as long as someone doesn't convert their crypto to fiat.
  - sidibe 5y ago
    Why should it? If crypto became popular there wouldn't be tax revenue
    - can16358p 5y ago
      Because crypto should stay crypto. The moment government controls something "in-crypto" then it's no longer decentralized, beating the whole purpose.

acdha 5y ago

> Especially living in a corrupt authoratarian system, even only those two outweight all the bad sides (tx fees, scalability, PoW environmental effects) for me. It does more good than it harms in the big picture. More accurately, it could if it actually worked but since it doesn't all you're doing is paying more for lower quality of service. A key concept to understand is that when blockchain sales people say “no authority” they mean “except the miners, software developers, exchange and oracle operators, and the governments which have jurisdiction over them”. Just as real-world censorship is far more often based on after the fact consequences rather than preventing someone from speaking first, consequences can be applied retroactively to anyone who participates in illegal transactions and blockchains very helpfully publish a full list of transactions so the authorities don't miss anyone. We're seeing this right now: technically, someone in Russia can make a Bitcoin transfer since the Russian government hasn't chosen to block the protocol at the network layer but when they do so they are finding that many companies won't participate in those transfers and since the history is public that can extend to any downstream transactions based on the transferred funds.

miracle2k 5y ago
> More accurately, it could if it actually worked but since it doesn't all you're doing is paying more for lower quality of service. A key concept to understand is that when blockchain sales people say “no authority” they mean “except the miners, software developers, exchange and oracle operators, and the governments which have jurisdiction over them”. Critics like to say "it doesn't work", then the next day complain about how it enables a ransomware plague. You can't have it both ways. The fact is it clearly works. This isn't to say it's magic; it doesn't protect you from bullets any more than it makes you coffee. It is not a magical unicorn; just finding a reason why there might still be censorship somewhere is not a valid argument. Free speech laws work even if Facebook deletes your post, or you a fired, or sometimes someone doesn't appeal their conviction. Your argument about "miners, developers or exchange operators" existing is not any more valid than this one is.
- acdha 5y ago
  It worked as long as nobody was trying to go after it. That's been changing and as we've seen the parties involved have plenty of real-world presence which various authorities have been able to take advantage of. This is why the absolute claims about “free speech” are simply reflecting a deeper misunderstanding: it's true that nobody can stop you from making a Bitcoin transaction unless they block the protocol entirely but the retroactive consequences deter people quite effectively, very similarly to how to even very authoritarian states can't prevent you from saying something in public but can very effectively make it too risky for most people to do. > Free speech laws work even if Facebook deletes your post, or you a fired, or sometimes someone doesn't appeal their conviction. Your argument about "miners, developers or exchange operators" existing is not any more valid than this one is. Free speech laws generally don't apply to private companies like Facebook, who are generally given a high level discretion for how they choose to run their communities. The same is true of a blockchain network: the implementers and operators set the policies and since these systems are based on money that generally means that you're getting the rules which the major players either want or are required to implement by the governments with jurisdiction over them. That last part is key to understand: maybe a protocol allows you to make a transaction somewhere but the cost/risk shifts considerably if the recipient knows that they won't be able to use it in most places and every potential buyer can easily tell that it's on a list of tainted tokens.