5 ms·

I mean there were some blow ups. WeWork, Theranos, etc... But the era of cheap/free money is just starting to end, so I think the bubble is still ahead of us.

by ProAm 5y ago

gabereiser 5y ago
Wasn’t aware it was ending, just thought it came with more criteria (web3).
- blantonl 5y ago
  Don't forget more influencers and of course, crypto.
  - cinntaile 5y ago
    He didn't forget. Crypto is a fundamental part of web3. I'm not convinced this is where cheap money will go, it's too small to absorb all that capital.
    - chaxor 5y ago
      I'm not sure I understand this. Isn't web3 mostly just the use of decentralized systems? You don't need crypto for that. If your answer is incentive, I'm not so sure you need that either. For example, if you want to store something on the web, why not rely on a automated torrent protocol deamon in the browser that caches and seeds any datasets that you download? That solves a problem without crypto.
      - cinntaile 5y ago
        Web3 is just a marketing term for decentralized systems/applications using a blockchain.
      - antoniuschan99 5y ago
        I think they use crypto for monetization, whereas current or “web 2” mostly uses ads as the solution to monetization for a lot of web stuff. Eg. Sia File Transfer is a Technology for (Decentralized) File Sharing, while Sia Coin is the monetization side. Same as Helium Network, which is a LoRa Router whereas you get paid in Helium Tokens
        chaxor 4y ago
        Yeah there are plenty of these. Skycoin is a nice one as well. My point is that it isn't necessary (perhaps, simply a nice added feature for incentive).
      - jlokier 5y ago
        > Isn't web3 mostly just the use of decentralized systems? You don't need crypto for that. Maybe you do need crypto for that. One of the properties of large, decentralised systems with high stakes things running on them is that they are larger than any group of entities that can trust each other with such high stakes, so they need a mechanism to hold it together. Right now that mechanism looks like crypto of one sort or another.
        chaxor 4y ago
        Perhaps I was loose with my language. Most things need crypto - but they probably don't need cryptocurrency. Or really any currency at all. What's wrong with hosting a server from your house? What's wrong with torrent? These are decentralized and don't need crypto currency.
        jlokier 4y ago
        > What's wrong with hosting a server from your house? Nothing, but if you're hosting just your own site, that's not what people mean by decentralised. If you're part of a swarm all hosting replicas of the same data or providing replicas of the same service, that's decentralised, but if you're operating a large server, you're highly incentivised to be selective which data you host, to save on costs among other things. The result of many people doing that is what we see with torrents. > What's wrong with torrent? Torrents are a great example of when cryptocurrency tokens can improve decentralisation. Torrents are notoriously unreliable. If you want a specific file, it's sometimes available, sometimes not, depending on the file's popularity. For things which are less popular, it's down to luck whether someone else is seeding at the moment. You may even download half of a large file, only to find the seeder takes themselves offline and you can't get the other half for weeks, or ever. When you depend on one or two seeders for a particular file, that's not decentralised. You can't build serious infrastructure on something that unreliable. Some cryptocurrency tokens are designed to change this. Through something called proof of data availability and cryptocurrency tokens specially designed to link to those proofs, they set up a balance of forces called cryptoeconomic incentive which ensures a lot more people are motivated to continuously make a large amount of torrent-like data available as a service, and it's hard to cheat that system. People don't waste bandwidth uploading the contents that nobody is currently requesting, but they are effectively paid a small amount to store data and keep it ready to upload, so the incentives promote continuous high-availability of large archives of data, including unpopular and obscure files that people struggle to find and download from ordinary torrent services.
moonchrome 5y ago
>But the era of cheap/free money is just starting to end Is it really ? Not really convinced by what I'm seeing.
- legulere 5y ago
  Interest rates for bonds are starting to rise, and will need to rise a lot more to fight inflation. They are walking a fine line between high inflation and killing off companies and governments that have grown dependent on super low interest rates.
ativzzz 5y ago
> But the era of cheap/free money is just starting to end Don't think so, there's an absurd amount of money in the world, mostly owned by a few rich people, and rich people aren't just going to let it sit idle without trying to invest it in something.
- pydry 5y ago
  If tech consolidates into 5 big corporate behemoths the same way the auto industry did for 60 years the VC easy money spigot could well dry up. Billionaires will find some other shiny baubles to throw money at. Maybe somebody will invent a new kind of real estate or biotech will explode.
  - sdevonoes 5y ago
    > Maybe somebody will invent a new kind of real estate or biotech will explode. Which would require tech behind the curtains in order to innovate (I would dare to say that any real state or biotech company would need a "high" amount of "good" tech in order to disrupt the market... so these companies would, in essence, become tech companies).
recuter 5y ago
Theranos was an outright scam. WeWork was just an overhyped real estate company, it is still around just with a normal valuation.
getaloadofthis0 5y ago
> WeWork Aren't a tech company....... Why they are considered as such by many on here (alongside AirBNB to mention another name) is either a source of puzzlement, or a triumph of marketing, depending who you ask.
paxys 5y ago
Every economy has boom and bust cycles, so "the bubble is still ahead of us" is a meaningless statement since it is true by default. Yes there will be a slowdown at some point, but can anyone can predict when and how big that will be.

I mean there were some blow ups. WeWork, Theranos, etc... But the era of cheap/free money is just starting to end, so I think the bubble is still ahead of us.

by ProAm 5y ago

I mean there were some blow ups. WeWork, Theranos, etc... But the era of cheap/free money is just starting to end, so I think the bubble is still ahead of us.

gabereiser 5y ago

Wasn’t aware it was ending, just thought it came with more criteria (web3).

blantonl 5y ago
Don't forget more influencers and of course, crypto.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  He didn't forget. Crypto is a fundamental part of web3. I'm not convinced this is where cheap money will go, it's too small to absorb all that capital.
  - chaxor 5y ago
    I'm not sure I understand this. Isn't web3 mostly just the use of decentralized systems? You don't need crypto for that. If your answer is incentive, I'm not so sure you need that either. For example, if you want to store something on the web, why not rely on a automated torrent protocol deamon in the browser that caches and seeds any datasets that you download? That solves a problem without crypto.
    - cinntaile 5y ago
      Web3 is just a marketing term for decentralized systems/applications using a blockchain.
    - antoniuschan99 5y ago
      I think they use crypto for monetization, whereas current or “web 2” mostly uses ads as the solution to monetization for a lot of web stuff. Eg. Sia File Transfer is a Technology for (Decentralized) File Sharing, while Sia Coin is the monetization side. Same as Helium Network, which is a LoRa Router whereas you get paid in Helium Tokens
      - chaxor 4y ago
        Yeah there are plenty of these. Skycoin is a nice one as well. My point is that it isn't necessary (perhaps, simply a nice added feature for incentive).
    - jlokier 5y ago
      > Isn't web3 mostly just the use of decentralized systems? You don't need crypto for that. Maybe you do need crypto for that. One of the properties of large, decentralised systems with high stakes things running on them is that they are larger than any group of entities that can trust each other with such high stakes, so they need a mechanism to hold it together. Right now that mechanism looks like crypto of one sort or another.
      - chaxor 4y ago
        Perhaps I was loose with my language. Most things need crypto - but they probably don't need cryptocurrency. Or really any currency at all. What's wrong with hosting a server from your house? What's wrong with torrent? These are decentralized and don't need crypto currency.
        jlokier 4y ago
        > What's wrong with hosting a server from your house? Nothing, but if you're hosting just your own site, that's not what people mean by decentralised. If you're part of a swarm all hosting replicas of the same data or providing replicas of the same service, that's decentralised, but if you're operating a large server, you're highly incentivised to be selective which data you host, to save on costs among other things. The result of many people doing that is what we see with torrents. > What's wrong with torrent? Torrents are a great example of when cryptocurrency tokens can improve decentralisation. Torrents are notoriously unreliable. If you want a specific file, it's sometimes available, sometimes not, depending on the file's popularity. For things which are less popular, it's down to luck whether someone else is seeding at the moment. You may even download half of a large file, only to find the seeder takes themselves offline and you can't get the other half for weeks, or ever. When you depend on one or two seeders for a particular file, that's not decentralised. You can't build serious infrastructure on something that unreliable. Some cryptocurrency tokens are designed to change this. Through something called proof of data availability and cryptocurrency tokens specially designed to link to those proofs, they set up a balance of forces called cryptoeconomic incentive which ensures a lot more people are motivated to continuously make a large amount of torrent-like data available as a service, and it's hard to cheat that system. People don't waste bandwidth uploading the contents that nobody is currently requesting, but they are effectively paid a small amount to store data and keep it ready to upload, so the incentives promote continuous high-availability of large archives of data, including unpopular and obscure files that people struggle to find and download from ordinary torrent services.

moonchrome 5y ago

>But the era of cheap/free money is just starting to end Is it really ? Not really convinced by what I'm seeing.

legulere 5y ago
Interest rates for bonds are starting to rise, and will need to rise a lot more to fight inflation. They are walking a fine line between high inflation and killing off companies and governments that have grown dependent on super low interest rates.

ativzzz 5y ago

> But the era of cheap/free money is just starting to end Don't think so, there's an absurd amount of money in the world, mostly owned by a few rich people, and rich people aren't just going to let it sit idle without trying to invest it in something.

pydry 5y ago
If tech consolidates into 5 big corporate behemoths the same way the auto industry did for 60 years the VC easy money spigot could well dry up. Billionaires will find some other shiny baubles to throw money at. Maybe somebody will invent a new kind of real estate or biotech will explode.
- sdevonoes 5y ago
  > Maybe somebody will invent a new kind of real estate or biotech will explode. Which would require tech behind the curtains in order to innovate (I would dare to say that any real state or biotech company would need a "high" amount of "good" tech in order to disrupt the market... so these companies would, in essence, become tech companies).

recuter 5y ago

Theranos was an outright scam. WeWork was just an overhyped real estate company, it is still around just with a normal valuation.

getaloadofthis0 5y ago

> WeWork Aren't a tech company....... Why they are considered as such by many on here (alongside AirBNB to mention another name) is either a source of puzzlement, or a triumph of marketing, depending who you ask.

paxys 5y ago

Every economy has boom and bust cycles, so "the bubble is still ahead of us" is a meaningless statement since it is true by default. Yes there will be a slowdown at some point, but can anyone can predict when and how big that will be.