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Web 3.0 – The Great Con

• jokerru66 4y ago
  I also think cryptocurrency is hyped & bubble. But the author is also wrong here by calling "only for criminals". Cryptocurrency were supposed to mimic decentralized cash but there are still some problem that needs fixing. > Imagine, for example, a world where you're out at a restaurant, or something, and you accidentally drop your keys. Someone else picks them up off the floor, only instead of handing them back to you, they now legally own your house and car. You call the police, but they say they have no power to insist this person gives you back your property. It's their property now, because possession is ownership, access is authorization. Cryptocurrency should mimic cash, they don't have any intrinsic value just like cash. So correct example would be if you drop cash in restaurant not keys of your car. Just like cash whoever picks it up is there new owner & police can't do anything about it except for locking him in jail. > In October 2017, JP Morgan's CEO Jamie Dimon called the idea a fraud and said he would fire any employee trading Bitcoin for being "stupid". Ofcourse he will say that, JP Morgan creates money out of thin air by using fractional reserve, just like cryptocurrency. So basically bitcoin is taking away there business. Author also misses important use like voting where we want record to be public, accountable & certifiable. And about the criminal part. For criminals, CASH IS STILL THE KING.
  • only_human 4y ago
    >Just like cash whoever picks it up is there new owner & police can't do anything about it except for locking him in jail. I hear people saying this, the problem with this thinking is that there is no actual reason for a digital payment system to be like that. It's actually one of the main drawbacks of cash and one of the major reasons not to use it. Intentionally designing a system this way doesn't improve it, it causes it to have the disadvantages of physical money (easily and irreversibly stolen) as well as the disadvantages of electronic money (easily hacked by anyone on the planet). I argue this combination makes it uniquely suitable for cyber crime, and nothing else. Nobody actually wants this combination of properties in a legitimate payment system. And I should also state that these properties are policy choices and not really related to anything technical about Bitcoin or blockchains. Banks can also just refuse to give your money back if you get hacked, but doing so would obviously be very bad and make their customers angry. It makes no sense to condone this behavior in crypto. >Ofcourse he will say that, JP Morgan creates money out of thin air by using fractional reserve, just like cryptocurrency. So basically bitcoin is taking away there business. This doesn't make sense, you're going into conspiracy theories here. Yeah he said that but he also said numerous times he would take customers' money if they wanted to trade crypto, and that's exactly what he does. >Author also misses important use like voting where we want record to be public, accountable & certifiable. What you need there is laws, not blockchains. Electronic voting doesn't help with that and just gets in the way. Every blockchain voting system I've seen has been a total failure that's less secure and less accountable than simple paper ballots. On a more fundamental level, you can't have a voting system for ordinary people that requires them to understand how complicated microchips and algorithms and radio signals and network topologies work in order to trust the system. It's just not going to fly. >And about the criminal part. For criminals, CASH IS STILL THE KING. For small transactions, yes. Chalk up another failure for crypto. For large criminal transactions like ransomware and sanctions evasion, it's still crypto all the way. But this also is not for any technical reason, it's because of various policy choices to avoid applying any kind of increased scrutiny to large transactions, and also because of crypto enthusiasts having some kind of weird fixation with helping thugs and autocrats: https://news.yahoo.com/virgil-griffith-us-expert-jailed-075956706.html https://news.yahoo.com/virgil-griffith-us-expert-jailed-0759...
• sneak 4y ago
  > Blockchain is the greatest technological fraud of the last decade. A fraud so simple, so ridiculous and yet so brilliant, it's taken in even some genuine experts in its thrall of empty hype and false promises. On top of this fraud sits the even greater fraud of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, which are nothing more than unregulated, unlicensed, wild west securities. They are functionally useless as currencies outside the realms of criminal activity and a Ponzi scheme in effect if not name for everyone else. Literally every single statement in this opening paragraph is demonstrably objectively false, regardless of where you stand on cryptocurrencies. It’s not worth abandoning objective reality to signal to your tribe.
  • doublepg23 4y ago
    I would go so far as to say it’s misinformation, surely there’s no payment processors that would fine them for that.
  • labrador 4y ago
    You forgot the second paragraph > That's one paragraph and already I can feel the simmering controversy, the reddening faces, the indignation and the angry accusations that I don't know what I'm talking about. What can I do with Web3 that I can't do or have trouble doing any other way?
    • yesbut 4y ago
      With Web3 you get the benefit of knowing that nobody will ever view your content again.
    • juunpp 4y ago
      A good question indeed.
    • jeroenhd 4y ago
      One thing cryptography solves in web3 that I haven't seen any recent alternatives for is decentralised identity. You don't need blockchains and other such cruft for a simple signature system, but there's nothing on the web that actually makes use of such a system except for some government systems or intranets. Currently, every website asks for an email address and a username, but for most people that email address can easily be taken from them. This is especially bad for services that work with "magic links". WebAuthn and now FIDO2 may soon fix this problem, tieing your base identity to a cryptographic key, either in hardware or software, with email as a mere recovery option if the worst were to happen. As for an answer to your question: use the core protocol to generate speculative value through hype and pyramid schemes and cash out big time in a bigger-sucker scheme before you're found out.
• earthboundkid 4y ago
  "Great" is hyperbole. The con was always obvious. A "great" con would be something that suckered people who aren't greedy or shortsighted.
  • JadeNB 4y ago
    > A "great" con would be something that suckered people who aren't greedy or shortsighted. Everyone's greedy or shortsighted if you hit the right cognitive levers, which is why cons work on everyone, especially on people who think cons don't work on them.
  • juunpp 4y ago
    Like a 401k?
    • yucatansunshine 4y ago
      Wait I might be out of the loop here, why's the 401(k) a con?
      • juunpp 4y ago
        Well, read up on what existed before the 401k in the US, and how retirement works in Europe for comparison. You're betting on stonks going up and then switching to bonds and safer investments closer to retirement, hoping that the caprices of capitalism won't wipe your savings when you need them. Except: https://nypost.com/2022/06/09/401ks-drop-amid-market-turmoil-rate-of-savings-increases/ https://nypost.com/2022/06/09/401ks-drop-amid-market-turmoil...
        • shadowgovt 4y ago
          If inflation is 10%, then most places you put your money won't hold value over time.
          • eatsyourtacos 4y ago
• syntheweave 4y ago
  Whomever wrote this is quite late to the anti-crypto "helpful PSA" grift.
  • version_five 4y ago
  • blacksmith_tb 4y ago
    Well late, yes clearly - but grift? What's he selling exactly?
  • labrador 4y ago
    This is happens a lot with Russia/Ukraine. Some expert will open a thread on Twitter and regurgitate common knowledge from 4 months ago.
  • dwgebler 4y ago
    I wrote it, it's just an opinion piece on my personal blog. No grift; what do you think I'm doing, selling the post as an NFT?
    • b1n 4y ago
      Would you be willing to write a "steel man"[1] argument for any of the technology that underpins web3? This could be just one of any of the tech or services written using it. I would be interested to read. Thanks. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man#Steelmanning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man#Steelmanning
• wppick 4y ago
  XMPP, bittorrent, now blockchain. All 3 have the same thing in common that they had high hopes of creating a distributed alternative future for their paradigm. The first 2 fizzled into mostly fringe usage. I guess we'll have to wait and see if blockchain follows the same path, but seems to be going that way
  • rippercushions 4y ago
    Torrents are still going strong and quite useful if you need (say) a movie or TV show that's legally unobtainable in your country.
    • radicalriddler 4y ago
      Or if I want an Ubuntu iso in less than 3 hours
      • d6e 4y ago
        Or if you want to download an offline version of wikipedia.
      • RockRobotRock 4y ago
        It's gotten better for me. I'm able to download from the closest mirror (University of Arizona) at 30 MB/s
    • jaimex2 4y ago
      Not just that, companies like Blizzard save millions in server costs.
      • Gigachad 4y ago
        Do they still use torrents though? I was under the impression that virtually all companies using torrents had discontinued it as disruption to users internet quality and possibly data usage caps meant it was easier to just pay the cost of distribution.
• pshc 4y ago
  > Do you have any problem buying airline tickets now? Do airlines have any problem selling them to you? Of course not; this process is already efficient and optimal. I don’t know about optimal, there are middlemen everywhere.
  • jakelazaroff 4y ago
    Where are the middlemen? I buy most tickets directly from the airline website.
    • seltzered_ 4y ago
      Some of the middlemen disappeared. Remember hipmunk? Remember how searching for flights would show airlines that shared data but not all (e.g. Southwest)?
  • woodruffw 4y ago
    What middleman do you deal with when buying an airline ticket? I buy mine directly from the airline; when I search, the search engines I use directly link me to the airline for the sale. Airline ticketing itself is suboptimal for historic reasons (complicated fare class coding), but middlemen are no longer a major factor in that. Travel agents no longer dominate booking.
    • pshc 4y ago
      I typically don’t deal with the middlemen directly either (though most people use Booking or Expedia) but they’re underneath it all. Referral fees for search links, payment processors, the ticketing system, security fee, airport improvement fee (which is fine and good), customs fee, immigration fee, animal and plant inspection service, all of these take their cut on the way, and then surveillance ad tech companies mine and sell the data. And then there’s overbooking. Some of these are necessary middlemen but I would hardly call this optimal.
      • woodruffw 4y ago
• kodyo 4y ago
  Can I agree with him about everything with the exception of Bitcoin? It’s less illegitimate than central banking.
  • shadowgovt 4y ago
    I'm not sure I understand your meaning; I don't think I know what definition of "illegitimate" you're operating with.
    • Gigachad 4y ago
      Bitcoin advocates are angry about the fact that central banks create and destroy money regularly to control the market. And usually that there is some big doomsday financial event coming up that only “hard money” like bitcoin can avoid.
      • jeroenhd 4y ago
        I always wonder how crypto doomsayers are going to pay the power bills keeping their network alive once the financial doomsday finally arrives. If everything goes tits up as badly as they say, I wouldn't rely on digital currencies to still be viable, especially with the incredible energy and hardware costs associated with proof of work blockchains. Blockchain may be a good way to hide money (i.e. in a country with runaway inflation where the government has constrained access to banking and foreign currencies) but if the crash is global then nobody is safe.
        • ethanbond 4y ago
          You just put your InternetCoins on a thumb drive, label it with the amount (and the most recent known conversion rate) and then you try to pawn it off at the apocalypse general store by just saying “trust me as soon as the internet starts working again you’ll be super rich.”
          • shadowgovt 4y ago
• zdw 4y ago
  Something that only received a passing mention in this is that cryptocurrency and related web3 items are sold like a technical panacea to a whole host of other problems with the financial system, governments, corporations, and so on, some of which are real, some are definitely in the realm of fantasy. From my perspective it's just changing one set of monetary system problems for another set of technical and resource use problems, which IMO is not a step forward.
  • tern 4y ago
    Overwrought marketing language and idealism are definitely problems, but there's something significant to there now being a chance to create a new financial system, or meaningfully impact the current one. Specifically, there is energy and capital available, whereas previously it would have been impossible to work on this seriously absent a collapse or crisis in the current system. As for whether the technological changes imply net neutral outcomes, that seems hard to qualify.
    • only_human 4y ago
      Bitcoins and blockchains aren't giving anyone a chance to create a new financial system. It's the same system. Ever notice how the goal of every prominent crypto company is to just accumulate real hard dollars, not crypto? You still can't meaningfully buy anything legal with crypto without exchanging it for dollars first. There's no reason for this ever to change either. Bitcoin was never even intended to be anything beyond a payment system, that idea that it was going to be "a new form of money" was pushed later by people who didn't understand the system but were attracted to it for ideological reasons. It was pretty obvious by the early 2010s that it was going to fail as a payment system, so a host of new narratives were created and people just ran with it despite none of them making any sense.
• version_five 4y ago
  This is increasingly important because I've observed the "pull back" in hype has allowed a new breed of charlatans to pretend there is ever more legitimacy to this whole scam. Notably, Big 4 consulting firms have been embracing various Web3 stuff obviously without understanding it, but smelling that there is money to be made. So now legitimate businesses somehow get caught up on this scam based on some business translator misunderstanding of what it is, and have to double down on pretending it's legit. The whole thing needs a big bucket of cold water thrown on it
  • jiggawatts 4y ago
    An example of this is Azure jumping on board the Distributed Identity (DID) bandwagon. The only reason DID exists is to push crypto. Nobody wants their identity to be put on a public ledger. That's has identity theft built-in as a "feature"!
    • djbusby 4y ago
      DID is for global-object-identity not identification of individual natural human persons.
      • jiggawatts 4y ago
        I feel like you're talking about something totally unrelated with the same acronym. DID is absolutely, first-and-foremost, about individual personal identity. One of the use-cases listed is that it could be used as a replacement for ID cards such as drivers licenses, passports, etc...
        • djbusby 4y ago
          I'm talking about https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/ https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/ "A DID refers to any subject (e.g., a person, organization, thing, data model, abstract entity, etc.) as determined by the controller of the DID." So, is for anything (where persons are in the set of anything)
• ThomPete 4y ago
  99% of Web3 is crap. 1% pure gold. Same thing with the first .com bubble. AI have been through this too and is now having a revival. Blockchain and Web 3 is not going anywhere it will just not be championed by the current generation. The coming will use this as it was the most normal in the world.
  • jiggawatts 4y ago
    > Same thing with the first .com bubble. The .com bubble ratio was more like 33% crap, 33% meh, and 33% gold. The "crash" was that people realised that the 33% crap was crap. The equivalent crash for Web3 would wipe it out completely, taking the 1% with it. Also, I don't agree that there is a 1% to begin with. I've never heard of any compelling use-case for Web3.
    • ThomPete 4y ago
      Just because you haven't heard of one doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There is plenty of use for it, it's just not the same as for Web2.
      • jiggawatts 4y ago
        Feel free to list even one successful Web3 site. Not as in "could be useful in the future", but useful now, and used by a significant number of people for activities that are not directly crypto-related. Keep in mind that "web 1.0" was immediately useful, to many people, at a large scale. The original web wasn't restricted to web developers doing web development things. It was used by industry, government, and academia at scale almost immediately.
        • ThomPete 4y ago
          If you don't see the value of what is fundamentally a public ledger database, then I am not sure what to tell you. It's being used by many people today. It's not for everyone. It will evolve and at one point we won't even know we are using it. The thing about blockchain isn't that it isn't that you couldn't build it with "web2" the thing is it would be unfeasible to do so and still maintaining the trust. By separating the "owners" of the database from what it gets used to verify, things that are a kind of wicked problem or at least a chicken and egg problem become possible. Here are a couple of examples from my perspective of what is technically doable but practically unfeasible with a proprietary. https://twitter.com/Hello_World/status/1465382119811784708 https://twitter.com/Hello_World/status/1465382119811784708 https://twitter.com/Hello_World/status/1463539727202754563 https://twitter.com/Hello_World/status/1463539727202754563 I am pretty convinced that the government will be using this sooner or later too, for things that require transparency, but they are not going to be early adopters (in contrast with the internet where they were) But I am fine with you not seeing this or agreeing. Time will tell, I put my money were my mouth is :)
• simple-thoughts 4y ago
  The author is correct in almost all his criticism. However, there is an emerging core of blockchain media that is providing real entertainment value to users. Bitcoin itself can be viewed as entertainment media rather than financial disruption. Bitcoin has an entertaining albeit misleading story generating a fan club that generates plenty of drama. Web3 takes the ability for blockchain media producers to service consumers further.
  • zdw 4y ago
    Treating cryptocurrency as being "for the lulz" is probably one of the healthier ways to engage with it.
  • cuteboy19 4y ago
    It provides more entertainment to non users!
• jaimex2 4y ago
  For a con, blockchain has served me extremely well. Its allowed me to pay when paypal/credit cards/my bank have decided they're going to not allow payment to a service. It's allowed me to get paid cash in hand without having to involve entities who its none of their business why that money has been paid to me. It's allowed me to bypass currency exchange issues and fleecing.
  • nickchuck 4y ago
    amen
  • ajross 4y ago
    1. Are all crimes, right? Banks will take your consumer money (provider management does get more complicated) for gambling and porn these days. The stuff you can't get past them is almost exclusively criminal. If you don't like the fact that the government made something illegal, why are you blaming money? Also: crimes don't stop being crimes just because you paid in BTC, and those transactions aren't as anonymous as you think. 2. That part is true, largely. You do have to pay a (very large!) fee for the transaction, but it's not to anyone in particular and they don't know any more than the rest of us do about what you're paying for (which, again, is not completely anonymous!). 3. This part is laughably wrong. Even now, post-crash, transaction fees are measured in multiple dollars per. During the boom, it was routine to see entities paying more than $100 to get a transaction to post.
    • vikinghckr 4y ago
      > Are all crimes, right? Banks will take your consumer money (provider management does get more complicated) for gambling and porn these days Not necessarily. For example, PayPal has recently introduced "acceptable use policy" where they can freeze your account without you violating the law. Banks also have done the same for being "racist", "sexist", "anti-vaxx" etc. All of those things are perfectly legal in the US. So your assertion that only illegal activities require use of crypto is false. And that's before we get to the fact that just because something is "illegal" doesn't mean it's good to have this banned. Pretty sure the ongoing Iranian protests are illegal.
• welshwelsh 4y ago
  > They are functionally useless as currencies outside the realms of criminal activity I think this kind of misses the point. Cryptocurrency has already accomplished incredible things. For example, it's never been easier to buy LSD. DAOs make it simple to work remotely without needing to reside in a specific location. All the benefits of crypto come from their ability to circumvent regulations. It lets people do business peer-to-peer over the internet, out of sight from national governments and their laws. That's the point.
  • qeternity 4y ago
    > DAOs make it simple to work remotely without needing to reside in a specific location. What unique properties of a DAO accomplishes this?
  • ethanbond 4y ago
    I'm confused... > All the benefits of crypto come from their ability to circumvent regulations. is for all intents and purposes a rephrasing of > They are functionally useless as currencies outside the realms of criminal activity
  • esprehn 4y ago
    I think you're saying the same thing. The things you list are "criminal activities" because they "circumvent regulations".
  • carrja99 4y ago
    > DAOs make it simple to work remotely without needing to reside in a specific location. This doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve managed globally distributed remote teams for the better part of a decade and haven’t had any issues.
  • helf 4y ago
    Guys, I think they are being sarcastic. They just forgot /s. At least I hope so since they literally just rephrased the “criminal activity” bit.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• chrismarlow9 4y ago
  You might be entirely correct but my experience tells me that being logically right and the way the world works are two different things. Under a few of these points credit cards should not exist, yet here we are with our overlords.
  • qeternity 4y ago
    > Under a few of these points credit cards should not exist, yet here we are with our overlords. Such as? Credit cards provide huge UX improvements most notably convenience and security. I don't have to carry around lots of cash, and if I have an issue with a transaction, the payment processor can arbitrate the dispute.
    • chrismarlow9 4y ago
      Why can't your bank provide all these services direct to your checking account?
      • qeternity 4y ago
        Because when you move money from a checking account, it's gone. You might say "ok well just hold the money for a bit" or similar, and congratulations, you've just invented credit.
        • chrismarlow9 4y ago
          That doesn't answer the question though.
          • qeternity 4y ago
            It absolutely does. I presume you're talking about transaction security, since debit cards have long existed for convenience, and again: once you send money from a checking account, it's gone. If I have a dispute on a transaction, it's far more difficult to reverse. The very nature of credit makes dispute resolution much easier.
• fiddlerwoaroof 4y ago
  I’m still a little bit grumpy that crypto hijacker the Web 3.0 designation that originally referred to semantic web technologies
  • tapatio 4y ago
    Yup! It's annoying. Dolts should have called it Web 4.0.
• bo1024 4y ago
  This doesn't seem to cover any new ground or engage with anything interesting outside of finance. Is the author telling all of these researchers (Stanford, MIT, Columbia, etc) that there is nothing interesting or new in blockchain? https://adacrunch.medium.com/cryptocurrency-and-blockchain-research-at-american-universities-a56e257539c4 https://adacrunch.medium.com/cryptocurrency-and-blockchain-r... Disclaimer: I have a small grant from the Ethereum Foundation to research methods of voting and governance/decisionmaking in groups.
  • dwgebler 4y ago
    I am saying there's nothing (or very little) interesting or novel in blockchain, yes. I mean that's literally in the article. a huge ecosystem built on what is in reality a simple data structure which is neither particularly novel nor interesting
    • bo1024 4y ago
      That's just ignorant of the large amount of interesting blockchain-related ideas and research going on (again, most of which you don't mention in the article).
• olah_1 4y ago
  Anecdotally, the only “Web 3” that has improved my life is Monero. It’s the best way I’ve found to send money to strangers on the internet. I’ve opened unofficial bounties and paid open source developers to implement them, as one example. It really “just works” in a way where other crypto currency doesn’t. I still support many other projects in this space, but Monero was the only one I felt comfortable actually using.
  • only_human 4y ago
    Software developers should universally reject payment in crypto, but especially monero. I know I would if you tried to pay me with that. It's the same situation as tornado cash. By using it you're providing cover for north korea and other sanctioned entities to launder money: https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2020/02/12/north-korea-is-expanding-its-monero-mining-operations-says-report/ https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2020/02/12/north-korea-is-e... It has no other real legal or legitimate use case, it otherwise works the same as other cryptos. You could just pay those developers in cash. Most developers I've known that aren't hardcore crypto zealots prefer to get paid in cash.
  • orwin 4y ago
    There is a lot of good ideas in the space. Even NFTs are a good idea overall, when you remove the human greed part. But you're totally right, only monero have a 'legitimate' usecase (bypass the taxation laws).
    • zeroclip 4y ago
      Another legitimate use case is financial privacy. There are several tools on other blockchains that achieve the same.
    • hrbf 4y ago
      > when you remove the human greed part So they are theoretically a good idea with no practical application in the real world.
      • 4y ago
• soheil 4y ago
  Couldn't agree more. Here is Marc Andreessen describing web 3.0 with Sam Harris, sigh.. https://youtu.be/ppgKMz-pqLM?t=1388 https://youtu.be/ppgKMz-pqLM?t=1388
• hirama 4y ago
• version_five 4y ago
  Looks like this got moved off the front page which is too bad, I would love to see it plastered everywhere for a few days I watched the discussion unfold a bit and it was instructive. Obviously there were a lot of upvotes on the story because I think the thesis is basically commonsense for most people that pay attention. Except for the actual active scammers (or chumps that have somehow been had) who are quickly voting down any comments supportive of the fact that crypto is a scam. It's the contrast between the upvotes of the story and the downvoted common sense comments that is interesting. It happens with political stories sometimes too
  • dwgebler 4y ago
    Tbh I'm kind of happy for my VPS it's off the front page now.
  • hn2017 4y ago
    Brigading. It's very common here on certain topics
  • bo1024 4y ago
    I like to read things on HN because they're interesting, not because they're right or wrong. Maybe most people were voting on this because they think it's right or wrong, not because it says anything new or interesting (I don't see that it does).
    • dwgebler 4y ago
      > Maybe most people were voting on this because they think it's right or wrong, not because it says anything new or interesting (I don't see that it does). There's probably some truth in this, in respect of the voting. I certainly never expected it to have a brief stint top of the front page when I submitted it. As the author I'd like to hope it was an interesting read, but I'll absolutely agree if you're much familiar with the crypto space, it's not new information or a new set of arguments. That doesn't matter to me because for me, for the position I take on this industry, I think what's important is for more people to speak out against crypto, to challenge the hype around blockchain and not be afraid to say it's simply not delivering.
• tern 4y ago
  I often read these posts to see if there's any perspective that can convince me I've wasted my time the past few years. Unfortunately this one didn't add any new information. It's just 'opinion' from someone very unfamiliar with the space. This is very much in the vein of the infamous Dropbox announcement. Indeed, these technologies in their current form require a leap of imagination to see working at scale. What's missing from this article is: (1) thoughts on anything specific happening in the space and (2) a sense of wonder about what new things have come from it. "Crypto" is in one reading a massive flurry of activity to see how cryptography might transform society. Most experiments will probably fail, but it seems untenable to argue that the answer is: it's a fraud. We can approach this with curiosity or with derision. The choice is yours.
  • qeternity 4y ago
    > This is very much in the vein of the infamous Dropbox announcement. Dropbox was released a year before Bitcoin, and quickly went on to completely change file storage for the average person (alongside its many clones). Why has Bitcoin not achieved anything similar?
    • tern 4y ago
      Bitcoin went on to create an entirely new industry employing tens if not hundreds of thousands of people, fund thousands of research projects and startups, create financial independence for thousands of people, allow thousands of people to transmit money in situations where it would have been difficult or impossible otherwise, and probably other things. It's a massive cultural phenomenon with global reach and real consequences. The adoption looks different because it's not an apples to apples comparison. The appropriate comparison would be between "blockchain/crypto" and "cloud." In that comparison, the Dropbox equivalent likely hasn't been released yet. And even still, the technologies are different enough that I'd expect different timelines. The inherent difficulty of implementing cryptographic systems to the highest standards, and the regulatory hurdle implied by the fact that any token is arguably a security, matter. Also, for what it's worth, you can send money to anyone in the world instantly now. My personal opinion is that interesting things will start to happen after we realize there's an architectural sleight of hand in the "web3" vision and it doesn't really make sense. Projects that recognize this are already gaining traction.
• maxisrelaxed 4y ago
  One of the worst facets of the whole web3 movement is the "thought leaders" and community talking very confidently about how blockchain will replace very well established ways of doing business (FTA "airlines selling tickets"). The author takes a very dim view of the whole blockchain space, and uses the worst possible interpretation of parts of it to make their case, but I don't disagree on this point. Whether web3 becomes a mainstream "thing" is anyone's guess, but if it makes any headway, it won't be large enterprises leading the charge. Exactly like the author states; "Do airlines have any problem selling [tickets] to you? Of course not; this process is already efficient and optimal." Where it potentially could be used is by smaller entities that don't have well established processes, and don't necessarily have the means to build out some of the required systems. If I want to build any kind of digital asset (an item in a game*, access to a forum, etc) and I want to allow it to be traded, I have to build that trading platform. If I want it to be traded outside of my platform, then I have to deal with endless integrations. If I'm a multi-billion dollar enterprise that's fine, I can do that. If I'm a small company, that may not be feasible. If I use a blockchain to store that asset (or at least to track who owns it) then I only need to integrate to that blockchain, that is, check that a user owns the asset before I allow them to use it in my system. I'm not saying this is simple, or even currently desirable for most people or companies, but what I am saying is that it is something that is feasible and potentially of value to an end user. Where this will struggle in the short-term is in the end-user experience. Wallets are awful, most people don't want self-custody, and honestly, the space is filled with slimy individuals that don't exactly inspire trust. I could write for hours about all the things that I view as wrong with with web3 (some of them are technical, the majority are about the people), but to outright dismiss it as a scam/only for criminals/the worst thing on Earth is blindly emotive and is (almost) as bad as the fanatics that are just as emotional about promoting it. * I'm only referring to tracking ownership, not interoperability across different games. That can go in the "unrealistic things web3 people say" basket.
  • mmcnl 4y ago
    No one doubts that platforms can be powerful. At least I fully agree with that. But what is the benefit of a decentralized platform powered by blockchain? Spotify is a very successful platform for artists. No blockchain involved.
• ddggdd 4y ago
  we don't know what's the next step to organize our society, I can see a possibility with blockchain. getting older and went a lot places and knew quite a few people from different backgrounds and countries, one thing is clear, nothing is as sound/optimal/firm/truth as it should be, if you have a slightest insight of airline industry or any industry, you'll know current arrangement is only the get-by solution, majority of people did not care, not smart or believe strange things, borderline delusional, that's the human condition. We as humans need a new enlightenment movement, if we are lucky, we will go into a new era of understanding human nature or the reality we can construct, including a blockchain centered society.
• mclightning 4y ago
  Don't you agree it is easier to set up a business through blockchain, and get paid for running some service? I am building a side-project that runs on Google Cloud. I think most tricky part for me, will be setting up the payment system without breaking any tax laws...Should I just put a Paypal pay button? I could easily get paid through a smart-contract, verify transaction and run the given CloudRun job all without any 3rd-party involvement, or any worries about tax/business account setup.
  • dwgebler 4y ago
    Should I just put a Paypal pay button? Probably, yes. A lot of businesses big and small do this, and they're not in violation of any tax or other laws. Plus you get paid in actual money.
  • braingenious 4y ago
    >Don't you agree it is easier to set up a business through blockchain, and get paid for running some service? No. > I am building a side-project that runs on Google Cloud. I think most tricky part for me, will be setting up the payment system without breaking any tax laws...Should I just put a Paypal pay button? It’s a pretty easy option, yes (hence your phrasing of “just put a button”) There’s also Stripe or Square etc which are similarly simple. > I could easily get paid through a smart-contract, verify transaction and run the given CloudRun job all without any 3rd-party involvement, or any worries about tax/business account setup How do you handle taxes when cashing out or using crypto to buy things? Can you pay for food/rent/insurance with crypto?
    • dmantis 4y ago
      > There’s also Stripe or Square No, there aren't. That's not available for Chinese, Russians, Iranians, Argentinians, Nigerians, Thai, South Africans, which is more than 1/3 of the world population and you can't just forget about our existence, you know. Don't say that if you can handle some stuff in your particular country, that makes the whole technology useless worldwide speaking. We are human beings and deserve to sell our stuff in the internet as much as you do.
• jdmg94 4y ago
  I mostly agree with this critique but OP is coming from a privileged 1st world perspective. I think we should be looking at low trust societies which have different challenges than what you might expect in the "developed" world
  • bdcravens 4y ago
    True, but the surface area of servicing the unbanked in the developing world is far smaller than the ambitions of "Web 3.0"
• tapatio 4y ago
  That's not what Web 3.0 is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web
• zeroclip 4y ago
  This post is mostly about Bitcoin and Proof of Work. Currently "Web3" tech is being built on Ethereum, Proof of Stake, zero-knowledge proofs, rollup sequencers, data availability sampling, and multi-party computation. The recent advances are not like the earliest iterations; a harsh critique of Bitcoin is not equivalent to the harsh critique of Web3. The post is riddled with fallacies. For example: > Imagine, for example, a world where you're out at a restaurant, or something, and you accidentally drop your keys. Someone else picks them up off the floor, only instead of handing them back to you, they now legally own your house and car. This framing is ridiculous and reveals either that the author has no idea what they are criticizing, or is being deliberately obtuse. Nobody in Web3 is suggesting you hold all of your assets in a single private key that you physically carry to a restaurant. The root of this blog post is this: > it's the sheer absence of any explanation or detail as to what problem [web3] advocates believe they are solving And this is the primary complaint. Web3 is too vague a term, and encompasses too many unrealistic hype ideas like houses-on-the-blockchain, and the author has not bothered to look further than these claims. Why not take aim at actual Web3 products that are live today: Uniswap, Aave, ENS. These all fit under the umbrella of Web3 and are able to secure billions of dollars worth of assets while meeting the promised goals: a set of trustless, permissionless, and decentralized tools for transferring and owning value on the internet.
  • bertman 4y ago
    >while meeting the promised goals: a set of trustless, permissionless, and decentralized tools for transferring and owning value on the internet. I'm sorry, I know this isn't reddit, but: fucking lol. What do you even mean? What does "owning value on the internet" mean? This is exactly the kind of handwaving the article is about.
    • zeroclip 4y ago
      “Value” in this context is a digital asset that is assigned to you and can be exchanged for some real world value. One example is PayPal. When you deposit fiat into a PayPal account, you get back an asset: a digital and virtual currency that PayPal holds custody over for you. Another example is a digital gift card, like a $50 voucher for Amazon. The key associated with this card holds value, and in some cases you can even gift and transfer this online. Another example is a domain name. If you own a valuable domain name like Meta.com, the asset isn’t “money” but it also isn’t worthless or valueless. Now take a DAI stablecoin, Aave position, or ENS domain. Very much the same as above assets, except that they align more closely with the three aforementioned properties: trustless, permissionless, and decentralized. In all of these cases we use the term “ownership” but the ownership of dollars in a PayPal account and ownership of DAI tokens in a wallet have very different properties.
• illiac786 4y ago
  I agree with the bottom line, but the form, why does the author have to exaggerate like this? Cryptocurrencies are not "useless except for criminals"... Blockchain is also not useless. It's just much less useful than the hype makes it out to be. Making absolute statements like this isn't helpful, it makes it easy to demolish the argument for the actual scammers.
  • bertman 4y ago
    >Cryptocurrencies are not "useless except for criminals"... Blockchain is also not useless. You say this, and yet fail to mention a legitimate use case, which is exactly what a big part of the article is about.
    • illiac786 4y ago
      I thought that was obvious, apologies: anonymous payments. Do you also require an example of why anonymous payments are useful to non-criminals?
      • only_human 4y ago
        >I thought that was obvious, apologies: anonymous payments. That isn't a legitimate use case. Cash is still largely superior at anonymous transactions, and it always will be because every crypto transaction inherently leaves a rather large paper trail. This can be obfuscated with cryptography techniques but can't be totally eliminated, traditional network tracking still goes a long way. >Do you also require an example of why anonymous payments are useful to non-criminals? No because they largely aren't. Any activist use case you think you have is disproportionately benefiting criminals. The larger the sum of money they're trying to launder, the more they gain from this. The problem with your line of thinking is that "anonymous payments" isn't actually a feature, it's the default state of things. Big corporations and shady governments would absolutely love to not tell anybody anything about what they're spending money on unless they can put a marketing spin on it. The transparency, accounting and reporting requirements are things that society built because we acknowledge that those who have large amounts of money have more power and therefore deserve more scrutiny.
• john_snowden 4y ago
  Ledgers, blockchain, distributed systems, etc prexisted, long before web 3.0 and cryptocurrencies. Those are not disruptive technologies and they don't offer anything new, neither they solve any new problems. Bitcoin on the other hand, as it was presented by Satoshi Nakamoto whitepaper, is the disruptive technology. Took existing technologies and combine them in a way making something unique. It is not a currency, it is a platform of trust. For the first time in human history there is a tool that enables online exchange of value, which is peer-to-peer, permissionless, censorship resistant, borderless, neutral and open. The rest of the applications that are built on this idea may be "useless" as the author believes, maybe not. I don't know that and I don't think anyone can be sure. When the current financial system is a fraud and rigged the only bad thing that web 3.0 and cryptocurrencies could do is not making it better. MIT course MAS.S62 Cryptocurrency Engineering and Design is free in youtube and helped me understand more about money, the tech and what problems is solving. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJquEYhiq_U&list=PLUl4u3cNGP61KHzhg3JIJdK08JLSlcLId https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJquEYhiq_U&list=PLUl4u3cNGP...
  • only_human 4y ago
    >which is peer-to-peer, permissionless, censorship resistant, borderless, neutral and open All of this is false. Every word of it. If that's what you heard from an MIT course then what that professor is doing is shameful. Here, let's go through it. - Bitcoin isn't peer-to-peer or permissionless and it never has been. The network is de-facto run by mining pools who have exclusive permission to determines who gets to write to the blockchain. In order for two users to send payments to each other they must go through the miners and must pay them fees to gain permission. Peer-to-peer would be if the two users directly sent messages to each other to exchange funds, but that isn't how Bitcoin works. The core design of it intentionally has middlemen and gatekeeping built in. - Bitcoin isn't censorship resistant or borderless. Have some articles: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0916 https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0916 https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/eu-issues-bitcoin-crypto-ban-on-russia-with-new-sanctions https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/eu-issues-bitcoin-crypto-ban... https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/08/politics/fbi-north-korea-hackers-30-million-axie-infinity/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/08/politics/fbi-north-korea-hack... https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/us-seizes-1-billion-bitcoin-tied-silk-road-rcna171 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/us-seizes-1-billion-bi... - Bitcoin isn't neutral. The political leanings of bitcoin have been known for a very long time. Satoshi intentionally put political statements in the whitepaper and the genesis block. The early adoption by wikileaks and silk road wasn't a coincidence, they had a very specific goal they had in mind. - Bitcoin isn't open. The code itself is available on github but only a small number of people have commit access. A random person can't just go in and start modifying the bitcoin code at will. The best you can do is try to fork the network and launch your own token, which has happened a lot of times but none succeeded at causing the system to actually become open. >The rest of the applications that are built on this idea may be "useless" as the author believes, maybe not. I don't know that and I don't think anyone can be sure. I can say for sure that it's useless because every single positive claim I've ever seen about it has been completely false.
• osigurdson 4y ago
  I’m don’t own any crypto but this is overly dismissive. Encoding game theoretic concepts into a “token” such that various parties can be incentivized in the correct way such that the value of the overall ecosystem is maximized is a valuable concept. There are many great cons, the current monetary system could easily be considered one of them. Fractional reserve banking is a fraudulent concept at its core. Yet, we keep it because it kind of works to create the right incentives (we accept some level of corruption for this reason). It isn’t (at all) clear to me that we have landed on an optimal system.
  • only_human 4y ago
    There is absolutely nothing to stop fractional reserve banking from re-occurring in crypto. In fact it's already happening on a massive scale with stablecoins, which are pretty much doing all the same things as banks, but even less regulated. If you think the current capitalistic system is a fraud then it makes no sense why you would search for solutions in the form of unregulated "tokens" minted by random people and backed by nothing and it all can vanish in the blink of an eye. It's all the same scams but somehow worse.
    • osigurdson 4y ago
      How does one lend out more Bitcoin / Ethereum than they currently have?
      • only_human 4y ago
        You can just mint your own token and then lie to people about how much bitcoin/dollars/euros/pesos/whatever is backing it, or not disclose it at all, which is exactly what they already do. At least central banks require lenders to have minimum reserves and you can know that regulated banks aren't going below that limit. No such thing exists in crypto, it's the wild west.
        • osigurdson 4y ago
          One could also create their own gravel pebble based token and state that it is backed by something valuable. I don’t see how the existence of crypto changes much in this regard.
• tim333 4y ago
  A lot of the arguments seem kind of bad. Just in the first paragraph: "Blockchain is the greatest technological fraud" - It's just a hashed data structure. Maybe people use it for fraud but that's like saying accounts are a fraud because someone had bad ones once. "[Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies] are functionally useless as currencies outside the realms of criminal activity and a Ponzi scheme in effect if not name for everyone else." - they are used a fair bit in speculation which is not actually illegal. With bitcoin there is no ponzi schemer, the thing doesn't collapse ponzi like - it just goes up and down. Not to say they don't have flaws but there is interesting stuff too.
  • only_human 4y ago
    No, that paragraph is correct. You may be either missing some context or using a different definition of blockchain that doesn't apply to crypto and web3. All the selling points that crypto people have said about blockchains are completely false. It is just a hashed data structure but that's the point -- how is a hashed data structure going to solve inequality, minimize global energy usage, stop wars and feed the hungry? Of course it can't, but you can still see plenty of those outrageous claims floating around on crypto twitter from people who should know better. As far as hashed data structures go, it's not even a good one. It's universally bad at everything for a number of reasons. This is a database system intentionally designed so that writing to the database becomes increasingly and artificially expensive and/or wasteful, for no actual benefit. There's nothing interesting about them. There doesn't need to be a single person collecting the dollars for it to be a ponzi-esque scheme. The reason people call it a ponzi is because there is no actual profit anywhere in the system nor is there any reasonable mechanism for any typical investors to get stable profits. It's all speculation. The only way you can make a profit from "investing" in crypto is by selling to someone else at a higher price. Yes, ponzi schemes can continue indefinitely if people keep dumping money into it and nobody shuts them down.
    • tim333 4y ago
      Gold bars sitting there also don't produce anything and investors rely on other investors buying for a profit. Does that mean gold is also a Ponzi scheme?