5 ms·

I think the OP is missing what those kids actually desire when they say web3 - self sovereignty. They grew up in an era where a few big tech companies control

I think the OP is missing what those kids actually desire when they say web3 - self sovereignty. They grew up in an era where a few big tech companies control most of their experiences, and you're completely locked into them unable to escape even if you hate the platform because that's where all your friends are. Web3 is where you can have one digital login owned by you that you can use for many services and you can easily move somewhere else if that service turns evil. It's hosting your own website vs having a page on Facebook. It's being able to trade any digital with friends without having to be locked into one platform. It's having all your likes and personal preferences carry with you between services. We had more of this in the early days of the internet, but people just graduating don't remember this, they just know an internet of walled gardens they want to escape from.

lpcvoid 4y ago
But escaping the walled garden shouldn't be a synonym for cryptocurrency scams.
- k__ 4y ago
  As far as I know, you don't need cryptocurrency to participate. Lens Protocol, a web3 social media platform, just requires you to have a wallet. Huddle01, a web3 Zoom alternative, even works without a wallet. Radicle, a web3 GitHub alternative, works without a wallet. IPFS, works without a wallet. And gasless transactions are a huge topic these days. Improving UX and onboarding to web3 by lowering the barrier.
red_trumpet 4y ago
> I think the OP is missing what those kids actually desire when they say web3 - self sovereignty. You might be right, but do they actually achieve this? > It's hosting your own website vs having a page on Facebook. I mean, running your own E-Mail or Mastodon instance is self sourvereignty in the way you propose. But I've never heard anyone claiming this to be web3.
- TimJRobinson 4y ago
  They're presumably building a new company so it's about the direction that company is taking, not what already exists. Is the company trying to lock users into their platform? Or are they building open APIs, allowing users to easily export data, integrating with open technologies (ENS, Arweave, Login with Web3 etc)?
  - pwinnski 4y ago
    Everything you mention is just adding crypto scam to existing tech. We have OAuth, we don't need "Login with Web3." We have DNS, we don't need to introduce Ethereum to it.
    - secretsatan 4y ago
      I think this is why the whole web3 things seems like a scam to me, proponents are telling people such things didn't exist before FB et al, and that's just BS. I suspect it's more about monetising every little interaction on the web, every click will cost you a penny, micro transactions taken to the next level.
lupire 4y ago
Yes that's the lie web3 sells, just like the perfume beer company and the company says drinking their swill will make women want to have sex with them.
acdha 4y ago
I think that's a valid concern, but it's not clear that the web3 companies are even trying to solve it rather than replace other companies. We've seen so many times over where the “decentralized” system relies on a handful of companies to function and they always seem to be pushing their own site rather than you hosting yourself. Maybe a new college grad doesn't remember the 2010s but almost all of these companies have executives, board members, and VCs who were there at the time, and I think it's telling that you very rarely hear anyone discuss what lead to so much centralization and the systems they propose are clearly going to suffer from the same problems if anyone starts using them seriously. This isn't a novel observation or especially hard to find good discussions about so it's hard to avoid the conclusion that they're not looking for it because there's no profit in it.
pwinnski 4y ago
Self-sovereignty is an excellent goal, and it is true that something is lost when all of us use the same email service providers and social media sites and so on. Web3 is unnecessary to achieve self-sovereignty, and is not going to help with any of that. It's a money-hungry fever dream by crypto maximalists and would damage the open web as much as the current status quo, while not actually fixing the current issues.
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
Self-sovereignty was web 1; you could run your own webserver and e-mail server from a broom closet. Web 2 was the walled gardens, in part due to facebook et al, but in a big part due to min/maxing and malicious actors; spam e-mail is why you can't run your own mail server anymore, SEO spam and the simple fact the internet is infinitely larger now than in the 90's is why your homepage isn't found anymore. Web 3 is billionaires and would-be billionaires trying to make (fiat) money from solved problems. It may be decentralized (in theory), but that doesn't make it self-owned & operated. You can't run your own blockchain (it requires participants after all), so you have to join someone else's (walled garden) blockchain. In theory you can convert fiat to crypto and vice-versa without a middle person, but in practice you need an exchange. In theory, web 3 is the great emancipation from everything, in practice it isn't.

lpcvoid 4y ago

But escaping the walled garden shouldn't be a synonym for cryptocurrency scams.

k__ 4y ago
As far as I know, you don't need cryptocurrency to participate. Lens Protocol, a web3 social media platform, just requires you to have a wallet. Huddle01, a web3 Zoom alternative, even works without a wallet. Radicle, a web3 GitHub alternative, works without a wallet. IPFS, works without a wallet. And gasless transactions are a huge topic these days. Improving UX and onboarding to web3 by lowering the barrier.

red_trumpet 4y ago

> I think the OP is missing what those kids actually desire when they say web3 - self sovereignty. You might be right, but do they actually achieve this? > It's hosting your own website vs having a page on Facebook. I mean, running your own E-Mail or Mastodon instance is self sourvereignty in the way you propose. But I've never heard anyone claiming this to be web3.

TimJRobinson 4y ago
They're presumably building a new company so it's about the direction that company is taking, not what already exists. Is the company trying to lock users into their platform? Or are they building open APIs, allowing users to easily export data, integrating with open technologies (ENS, Arweave, Login with Web3 etc)?
- pwinnski 4y ago
  Everything you mention is just adding crypto scam to existing tech. We have OAuth, we don't need "Login with Web3." We have DNS, we don't need to introduce Ethereum to it.
  - secretsatan 4y ago
    I think this is why the whole web3 things seems like a scam to me, proponents are telling people such things didn't exist before FB et al, and that's just BS. I suspect it's more about monetising every little interaction on the web, every click will cost you a penny, micro transactions taken to the next level.

lupire 4y ago

Yes that's the lie web3 sells, just like the perfume beer company and the company says drinking their swill will make women want to have sex with them.

acdha 4y ago

I think that's a valid concern, but it's not clear that the web3 companies are even trying to solve it rather than replace other companies. We've seen so many times over where the “decentralized” system relies on a handful of companies to function and they always seem to be pushing their own site rather than you hosting yourself. Maybe a new college grad doesn't remember the 2010s but almost all of these companies have executives, board members, and VCs who were there at the time, and I think it's telling that you very rarely hear anyone discuss what lead to so much centralization and the systems they propose are clearly going to suffer from the same problems if anyone starts using them seriously. This isn't a novel observation or especially hard to find good discussions about so it's hard to avoid the conclusion that they're not looking for it because there's no profit in it.

pwinnski 4y ago

Self-sovereignty is an excellent goal, and it is true that something is lost when all of us use the same email service providers and social media sites and so on. Web3 is unnecessary to achieve self-sovereignty, and is not going to help with any of that. It's a money-hungry fever dream by crypto maximalists and would damage the open web as much as the current status quo, while not actually fixing the current issues.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

Self-sovereignty was web 1; you could run your own webserver and e-mail server from a broom closet. Web 2 was the walled gardens, in part due to facebook et al, but in a big part due to min/maxing and malicious actors; spam e-mail is why you can't run your own mail server anymore, SEO spam and the simple fact the internet is infinitely larger now than in the 90's is why your homepage isn't found anymore. Web 3 is billionaires and would-be billionaires trying to make (fiat) money from solved problems. It may be decentralized (in theory), but that doesn't make it self-owned & operated. You can't run your own blockchain (it requires participants after all), so you have to join someone else's (walled garden) blockchain. In theory you can convert fiat to crypto and vice-versa without a middle person, but in practice you need an exchange. In theory, web 3 is the great emancipation from everything, in practice it isn't.