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There are really interesting use cases of "Web3" As an example, consider domains. Ethereum Name Service domains are currently one of the most popular. If you

There are really interesting use cases of "Web3" As an example, consider domains. Ethereum Name Service domains are currently one of the most popular. If you use these domains, you instantly have access to the 10,000,000 people using MetaMask, and the 50,000,000 people using Brave Browser. They're actually very powerful when considering the centralization of normal domains. They allow you to create decentralized domains that are - Easy to remember These are better than onions because they're easy to remember. There's no centralized host that can try to change the address to trick other people. - Censorship resistant I don't think people here are unaware of how domain seizures have impacted services. The domains are controlled by records on a blockchain. - Controllable by a single person or smart contract Domains are controlled by private keys or smart contracts. A small group of 10 people could democratically control a domain when they don't trust each other. A DAO could control vote out the CEO that controls where a domain points, and elect a new CEO. There's lots of use cases here. ----- I could write more, but I'm just trying to show that it provides use cases that Web2 does not currently.

Zanfa 4y ago
And as with anything web3/crypto, this example falls apart completely when you need to consider the reality of domain squatting, trademark issues, domain name theft etc. Cases where you need somebody (e.g. a court) to overrule code-is-law and thus invalidating the entire premise of putting it on the blockchain in the first place.
- mfbx9da4 4y ago
  So much this!
- web3isgoing 4y ago
  Why does a decentralized protocol need to be amenable to these disputes? Saying “we will have a jury of appointed authorities to manage disputes” defeats the point, and is what ENS tries to avoid. If apple.eth is held by a squatter, should courts be able to override the protocol to send it to trademark holder Apple? In the end this can get resolved by regular dispute mechanisms but without compromising decentralization and integrity of the protocol.
  - teraflop 4y ago
    > If apple.eth is held by a squatter, should courts be able to override the protocol to send it to trademark holder Apple? If the holder is using it maliciously to scam people by tricking them into thinking it's the real Apple, then yes! In that situation, revoking their ability to use the domain is a much better outcome for everybody except the scammer. > In the end this can get resolved by regular dispute mechanisms but without compromising decentralization and integrity of the protocol. But the Ethereum Name Service does not have any such dispute mechanism, by design.
    - web3isgoing 4y ago
      ENS avoids this dispute mechanism by design, to avoid the need for a central third party. > If the holder is using it maliciously to scam people by tricking them into thinking it's the real Apple, then yes! Try applying your logic to Twitter and its current situation. Is it a good thing that accounts impersonating others are being suspended from the network? Mastodon does not have this same centralization, so @teraflop@teraflop.xyz could impersonate your @teraflop@teraflop.com account. There is no centralized entity that controls the whole Mastodon and ActivityPub network, which I think is a good design decision for a less centralized protocol. And see my sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33626408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33626408
      - acdha 4y ago
        Local namespaces are fine, even desirable since very few names are globally unique. The problem with ENS is that it apes the federated DNS design without the oversight mechanisms. In the example you gave, an impersonator is subject to the rules of their Mastodon instance and the operators can handle things like lost credentials or an account compromise, and if a particular host is not a good custodian many people will block the entirely. ENS has none of those corrective mechanisms and I suspect that they’ll slowly be added over time to get usage.
        web3isgoing 4y ago
colesantiago 4y ago
How do you deal with domain squatting or trademark violation? The current system does this well because of identity and web3 doesn't have any answer to this. Also I can host my own DNS server with my own domain name all decentralised without crypto scamming.
- nileshtrivedi 4y ago
  Some challenges arising out of human-meaningful names that any registry of names needs to tackle: - Inclusivity for future generations. Early adopters should not crowd out late adopters of all the desirable names - Community ownership or geographical indications or false advertising (eg: DarjeelingTea.com should only be owned collectively by farmers in that particular region) - Prevention of abuse or trademark violations (eg: Nestly should be able to sue and win the case on merit against somebody who registers nestlekillsbabies.com)
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    "nestlekillsbabies.com" wouldn't be a trademark violation. If anything, it'd be libel, but the defense there would be either a) truth or b) protected opinion.
- searchableguy 4y ago
  > How do you deal with domain squatting or trademark violation? In practice, it rarely works. Only big corporations have money to actually sue and win these cases. They usually prefer to pay however. Same with regards to other reasons people give for lack of adoption of crypto alternative. For example, lack of reversal and dispute handling is cited as the major reason why crypto currency isn't used for payments. That's just not true. UPI in India does not have ability to reverse transactions either. So does not countless p2p payment systems. UPI alone processes billions of transactions weekly. I think all these high level concerns aren't the reason for lack of adoption. They might indicate lack of corporate adoption but at the core level, I would think lack of a widely used consumer DNS like 8.8.8.8 and 1.1.1.1 is a bigger hurdle. Both of them won't resolve ENS and any other crypto based alternative. Your average person is never going to run their own local DNS resolution node and switch it in their browsers. In iOT and smart devices like TV, DNS is often hard coded so impossible to change.
pavlov 4y ago
Are there really 10M active MetaMask users and 50M active Brave users? I mean, that's a lot. Twitter has ~200M daily active users and it's a service everybody knows. I've installed both products maybe five years ago, tried a few things and gave up, and there's no incentive in sight that would make me use them again. I suspect they're still counting me as a user on the brave web3 frontier because I have some wallets whose private keys I've lost ages ago.
- World177 4y ago
  Brave Browser states 50M monthly active users [1] and MetaMask states 30M monthly active users. [2] The Chrome extension shows 10M+ [3] which is the source I used. It seems like Daily Active Users (DAU) is more often used than Monthly Active Users (MAU), so I maybe should have stated that in my comment. [1] https://brave.com/2021-recap/ https://brave.com/2021-recap/ [2] https://decrypt.co/95039/metamask-consensys-30-million-users https://decrypt.co/95039/metamask-consensys-30-million-users [3] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/metamask/nkbihfbeogaeaoehlefnkodbefgpgknn?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/metamask/nkbihfbeo...
  - pavlov 4y ago
    Ok, thanks, that's useful! I'm glad Brave is doing well. It's not a product for me, but anything that reduces consolidation in the browser market is welcome. To my knowledge, the Chrome Web Store user count represents the number of users with the extension installed who have opened Chrome in the past 7 days. So the 10M+ number for MetaMask includes everyone who installed the extension but isn't actually using it. (The MetaMask reviews are pretty interesting reading. "I lost $3k", "I lost $6k" and so on.)
    - World177 4y ago
      > To my knowledge, the Chrome Web Store user count represents the number of users with the extension installed who have opened Chrome in the past 7 days. So the 10M+ number for MetaMask includes everyone who installed the extension but isn't actually using it. It's active by default on all websites. As long as it is active, a user can resolve linked ENS domains.

Zanfa 4y ago

And as with anything web3/crypto, this example falls apart completely when you need to consider the reality of domain squatting, trademark issues, domain name theft etc. Cases where you need somebody (e.g. a court) to overrule code-is-law and thus invalidating the entire premise of putting it on the blockchain in the first place.

mfbx9da4 4y ago
So much this!
web3isgoing 4y ago
Why does a decentralized protocol need to be amenable to these disputes? Saying “we will have a jury of appointed authorities to manage disputes” defeats the point, and is what ENS tries to avoid. If apple.eth is held by a squatter, should courts be able to override the protocol to send it to trademark holder Apple? In the end this can get resolved by regular dispute mechanisms but without compromising decentralization and integrity of the protocol.
- teraflop 4y ago
  > If apple.eth is held by a squatter, should courts be able to override the protocol to send it to trademark holder Apple? If the holder is using it maliciously to scam people by tricking them into thinking it's the real Apple, then yes! In that situation, revoking their ability to use the domain is a much better outcome for everybody except the scammer. > In the end this can get resolved by regular dispute mechanisms but without compromising decentralization and integrity of the protocol. But the Ethereum Name Service does not have any such dispute mechanism, by design.
  - web3isgoing 4y ago
    ENS avoids this dispute mechanism by design, to avoid the need for a central third party. > If the holder is using it maliciously to scam people by tricking them into thinking it's the real Apple, then yes! Try applying your logic to Twitter and its current situation. Is it a good thing that accounts impersonating others are being suspended from the network? Mastodon does not have this same centralization, so @teraflop@teraflop.xyz could impersonate your @teraflop@teraflop.com account. There is no centralized entity that controls the whole Mastodon and ActivityPub network, which I think is a good design decision for a less centralized protocol. And see my sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33626408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33626408
    - acdha 4y ago
      Local namespaces are fine, even desirable since very few names are globally unique. The problem with ENS is that it apes the federated DNS design without the oversight mechanisms. In the example you gave, an impersonator is subject to the rules of their Mastodon instance and the operators can handle things like lost credentials or an account compromise, and if a particular host is not a good custodian many people will block the entirely. ENS has none of those corrective mechanisms and I suspect that they’ll slowly be added over time to get usage.
      - web3isgoing 4y ago

colesantiago 4y ago

How do you deal with domain squatting or trademark violation? The current system does this well because of identity and web3 doesn't have any answer to this. Also I can host my own DNS server with my own domain name all decentralised without crypto scamming.

nileshtrivedi 4y ago
Some challenges arising out of human-meaningful names that any registry of names needs to tackle: - Inclusivity for future generations. Early adopters should not crowd out late adopters of all the desirable names - Community ownership or geographical indications or false advertising (eg: DarjeelingTea.com should only be owned collectively by farmers in that particular region) - Prevention of abuse or trademark violations (eg: Nestly should be able to sue and win the case on merit against somebody who registers nestlekillsbabies.com)
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  "nestlekillsbabies.com" wouldn't be a trademark violation. If anything, it'd be libel, but the defense there would be either a) truth or b) protected opinion.
searchableguy 4y ago
> How do you deal with domain squatting or trademark violation? In practice, it rarely works. Only big corporations have money to actually sue and win these cases. They usually prefer to pay however. Same with regards to other reasons people give for lack of adoption of crypto alternative. For example, lack of reversal and dispute handling is cited as the major reason why crypto currency isn't used for payments. That's just not true. UPI in India does not have ability to reverse transactions either. So does not countless p2p payment systems. UPI alone processes billions of transactions weekly. I think all these high level concerns aren't the reason for lack of adoption. They might indicate lack of corporate adoption but at the core level, I would think lack of a widely used consumer DNS like 8.8.8.8 and 1.1.1.1 is a bigger hurdle. Both of them won't resolve ENS and any other crypto based alternative. Your average person is never going to run their own local DNS resolution node and switch it in their browsers. In iOT and smart devices like TV, DNS is often hard coded so impossible to change.

pavlov 4y ago

Are there really 10M active MetaMask users and 50M active Brave users? I mean, that's a lot. Twitter has ~200M daily active users and it's a service everybody knows. I've installed both products maybe five years ago, tried a few things and gave up, and there's no incentive in sight that would make me use them again. I suspect they're still counting me as a user on the brave web3 frontier because I have some wallets whose private keys I've lost ages ago.

World177 4y ago
Brave Browser states 50M monthly active users [1] and MetaMask states 30M monthly active users. [2] The Chrome extension shows 10M+ [3] which is the source I used. It seems like Daily Active Users (DAU) is more often used than Monthly Active Users (MAU), so I maybe should have stated that in my comment. [1] https://brave.com/2021-recap/ https://brave.com/2021-recap/ [2] https://decrypt.co/95039/metamask-consensys-30-million-users https://decrypt.co/95039/metamask-consensys-30-million-users [3] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/metamask/nkbihfbeogaeaoehlefnkodbefgpgknn?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/metamask/nkbihfbeo...
- pavlov 4y ago
  Ok, thanks, that's useful! I'm glad Brave is doing well. It's not a product for me, but anything that reduces consolidation in the browser market is welcome. To my knowledge, the Chrome Web Store user count represents the number of users with the extension installed who have opened Chrome in the past 7 days. So the 10M+ number for MetaMask includes everyone who installed the extension but isn't actually using it. (The MetaMask reviews are pretty interesting reading. "I lost $3k", "I lost $6k" and so on.)
  - World177 4y ago
    > To my knowledge, the Chrome Web Store user count represents the number of users with the extension installed who have opened Chrome in the past 7 days. So the 10M+ number for MetaMask includes everyone who installed the extension but isn't actually using it. It's active by default on all websites. As long as it is active, a user can resolve linked ENS domains.