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> But there's also so much weird, non-commercialized crypto stuff out there that shares a lot of the ethos of early web tinkerers. Bullshit. Without miners the

> But there's also so much weird, non-commercialized crypto stuff out there that shares a lot of the ethos of early web tinkerers. Bullshit. Without miners there's no "crypto" and without payouts there's no miners. So "web3" can only exist where there's some financial incentive to run miners. Users can't spend real money to access this system so they need to convert their money to Geoffrey dollars to even access "web3" content. This is 180° from the "old web". End users needed no more investment than their computer and Internet connection. They didn't have to prop up some asshole's upline to check out the Unofficial X-Files Fan Page.

scyclow 4y ago
> So "web3" can only exist where there's some financial incentive to run miners. I can say the same about anything else on the internet. Keeping the servers running costs money > Users can't spend real money to access this system so they need to convert their money to Geoffrey dollars to even access "web3" content. You can actually access most web3 content without spending Geoffrey dollars, or US Dollars. If we're talking about public blockchains like Ethereum, it's all out in the open. By definition, it's a public ledger. IPFS data (which has nothing to do with crypto) is also very public. > End users needed no more investment than their computer and Internet connection. I guess some web3 websites require you to connect with a wallet, but downloading a browser extension doesn't seem very prohibitive.
- DebtDeflation 4y ago
  What problem is web3 even trying to solve? As it stands today I can conduct commerce over the web, pay for access to content directly, or have free content that is advertising supported. Having to connect with a wallet and spend some specialized cryptocurrency to access a website provides what benefit? It seems like a solution chasing a problem like literally everything else crypto related.
  - scyclow 4y ago
    I think the main class of problems it solves is it lets multiple applications, which may be developed by completely different entities at different times, share data with very strong guarantees. So in the context of the Web Revivalist movement, how do you build stateful applications? It's great when individuals host their own DIY servers, but that doesn't really give you much stability. And in aggregate, it's even more difficult to build rich, stateful ecosystems of applications. How do you handle servers going down and APIs changing? Link rot for stateless websites is a hard enough as it is.
    - duskwuff 4y ago
      > I think the main class of problems it solves is it lets multiple applications, which may be developed by completely different entities at different times, share data with very strong guarantees. It doesn't, though. That's bullshit. Sharing data between web applications is not some sort of grand challenge that required new technology to solve.
      - scyclow 4y ago
        I'm not trying to swindle you. I'm trying to have an intelligent conversation. You don't need to call all my points bullshit :) It depends on the level of guarantees you want for that data. If we're communicating, and you're okay with me changing my APIs, or even changing the data itself in ways we didn't previously agree upon, then you 100% don't need a blockchain. And if you don't have a lot of entities that need to coordinate on the data, then there might be an easier solution.
        duskwuff 4y ago
        And introducing a blockchain to the equation changes nothing about that! It doesn't magically make applications interoperate with each other, or make them consume each other's data, or force them to maintain API compatibility. At most, it provides a shared, public location for them to store data -- and even that has some very awkward limitations associated with it. A lot of the blockchain boosterism I see online comes from a place of assuming that the blockchain represents a solution to a problem, and trying to work backwards from there. Avoid that.
hypertele-Xii 4y ago
> Without miners there's no "crypto" and without payouts there's no miners. So "web3" can only exist where there's some financial incentive to run miners. People have motivations besides financial incentive. I've got a website. I'm paying for it. I make no money from it. The web exists. A miner is just a spare computer in service of a network. Like a closet web server, or a seeder in a public torrent swarm.
- giantrobot 4y ago
  A closet web server or torrent seeder can perform its task on its own. It only requires Internet access and some electricity and it's good to go. Unless you're paying by the byte to your ISP the costs of running the server is electricity costs. A single miner can't do anything on its own so blockchain transactions require the aggregate waste of a whole network of miners to accomplish anything. For DApps to run the network of miners runs them. They demand payment for doing so. You can run a web server in your closet free of charge, a DApp that doesn't offer incentive to miners will never run. If you foot the bill for some DApp it'll cost you orders of magnitude more than a Raspberry Pi in your closet.

scyclow 4y ago

> So "web3" can only exist where there's some financial incentive to run miners. I can say the same about anything else on the internet. Keeping the servers running costs money > Users can't spend real money to access this system so they need to convert their money to Geoffrey dollars to even access "web3" content. You can actually access most web3 content without spending Geoffrey dollars, or US Dollars. If we're talking about public blockchains like Ethereum, it's all out in the open. By definition, it's a public ledger. IPFS data (which has nothing to do with crypto) is also very public. > End users needed no more investment than their computer and Internet connection. I guess some web3 websites require you to connect with a wallet, but downloading a browser extension doesn't seem very prohibitive.

DebtDeflation 4y ago
What problem is web3 even trying to solve? As it stands today I can conduct commerce over the web, pay for access to content directly, or have free content that is advertising supported. Having to connect with a wallet and spend some specialized cryptocurrency to access a website provides what benefit? It seems like a solution chasing a problem like literally everything else crypto related.
- scyclow 4y ago
  I think the main class of problems it solves is it lets multiple applications, which may be developed by completely different entities at different times, share data with very strong guarantees. So in the context of the Web Revivalist movement, how do you build stateful applications? It's great when individuals host their own DIY servers, but that doesn't really give you much stability. And in aggregate, it's even more difficult to build rich, stateful ecosystems of applications. How do you handle servers going down and APIs changing? Link rot for stateless websites is a hard enough as it is.
  - duskwuff 4y ago
    > I think the main class of problems it solves is it lets multiple applications, which may be developed by completely different entities at different times, share data with very strong guarantees. It doesn't, though. That's bullshit. Sharing data between web applications is not some sort of grand challenge that required new technology to solve.
    - scyclow 4y ago
      I'm not trying to swindle you. I'm trying to have an intelligent conversation. You don't need to call all my points bullshit :) It depends on the level of guarantees you want for that data. If we're communicating, and you're okay with me changing my APIs, or even changing the data itself in ways we didn't previously agree upon, then you 100% don't need a blockchain. And if you don't have a lot of entities that need to coordinate on the data, then there might be an easier solution.
      - duskwuff 4y ago
        And introducing a blockchain to the equation changes nothing about that! It doesn't magically make applications interoperate with each other, or make them consume each other's data, or force them to maintain API compatibility. At most, it provides a shared, public location for them to store data -- and even that has some very awkward limitations associated with it. A lot of the blockchain boosterism I see online comes from a place of assuming that the blockchain represents a solution to a problem, and trying to work backwards from there. Avoid that.

hypertele-Xii 4y ago

> Without miners there's no "crypto" and without payouts there's no miners. So "web3" can only exist where there's some financial incentive to run miners. People have motivations besides financial incentive. I've got a website. I'm paying for it. I make no money from it. The web exists. A miner is just a spare computer in service of a network. Like a closet web server, or a seeder in a public torrent swarm.

giantrobot 4y ago
A closet web server or torrent seeder can perform its task on its own. It only requires Internet access and some electricity and it's good to go. Unless you're paying by the byte to your ISP the costs of running the server is electricity costs. A single miner can't do anything on its own so blockchain transactions require the aggregate waste of a whole network of miners to accomplish anything. For DApps to run the network of miners runs them. They demand payment for doing so. You can run a web server in your closet free of charge, a DApp that doesn't offer incentive to miners will never run. If you foot the bill for some DApp it'll cost you orders of magnitude more than a Raspberry Pi in your closet.