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Can you clarify what is "solving a problem that actually exist" means? I just looked around and I'm not sure I have anything that solves an actual problem. Lik

• notamy 4y ago
  Not the original commenter, but here's my stab at it: > In the morning I bought stuff on Amazon, but it also doesn't solve any real problem. Sure it does. It solves the problem of "I need something, I have money, and I don't have the time/ability/car/... to go to a physical location to buy it." > Not sure AWS is solving anything since we can rent servers directly. AWS gives you you - The ability to spin up MANY classes of servers instantly, whereas traditional server renting is more limited ime. - A host of extra services on top of it that all integrate fairly well with each other - Paid support if you want/need - ... > I used Zoom for a call, but it solves nothing, I guess. People like to see each other, phone calls can have quality issues and dead zones, ... --- Now, when I read the parent comments, I see: > The EVM specifically gives you a Turing complete financial system and, hence, probably a complete expression of operations on financial structures. And while that *sounds* interesting, I have absolutely no IDEA what the utility of this is. With AWS, Zoom, Amazon, ... I can point to things that very very directly benefit both technical and non-technical users day-to-day. That's not to say that there ISN'T use to the EVM -- I'm sure there probably is! -- just that imo it's less-obvious.
  • splix 4y ago
    I would disagree with all the reasons. I understand that it's some real problems the mentioned services solve for you, but I can easily point to a person who has none of those problems. Like my grandma. She doesn't see any point in any of the mentioned products. Even the coffee maker. So we must agree that it depends on the person and is not an objective criterion. Same for blockchan/defi/evm/etc. Some people argue that it solves some of their problems, and you may disagree with them, but it doesn't make their point invalid. I can go with refusing the points you said about the mentioned products. Not because I want to argue, but because it's really not the reason and problems it solved for _me_. I just question myself why I use them and have no answer. 1) Rel. Amazon. I can go to the seller's website directly. I guess I used Amazon because they are so good at marketing, so they are the first to go. But I kind of agree that it solves the problem of simplicity/easier access because a seller's website may have a clumsy website. Some people say that something similar is solved for them by Defi. 2) For AWS, I don't use anything you mentioned. It sounds interesting, like spinning many instances, but I never witnessed it being used like that. Except for instances where someone was playing with the tech (and you can apply it the exact same way to EMV). Also, recently I played with Kubespray, a tool to easily roll out a Kubernetes cluster on a bare metal, and now I don't see a reason to use AWS or another cloud provider. Bare servers + Kubernetes is a way to go imho. Maybe the real reason people use AWS is b/c they simply don't know alternatives? 3) For Zoom, I disagree because I am not even sure we always needed to call, honestly. I mean, we have an email and slack, so what's the point of wasting everyone's time on a call. It's just a routine now. Again, not arguing. Just trying to say that there could be multiple points of view. And if something works one way for someone, it may be completely useless and even stupid for others.
    • piva00 4y ago
      > I would disagree with all the reasons. I understand that it's some real problems the mentioned services solve for you, but I can easily point to a person who has none of those problems. Like my grandma. She doesn't see any point in any of the mentioned products. This doesn't make any sense, there's nothing in the world except food, water and shelter that's actually needed for every living human being. You're grossly mischaracterising or misinterpreting the meaning of "solving a real problem". What exactly is all this crypto-technobabble solving that isn't just feeding the system to make it work? Where is the end where a person is going to use all this bumbling infrastructure of finance primitives to actually solve a problem they face? Again, not a problem created or caused by the other mumbo-jumbo lying around, piling solutions on top of solutions still looking for a problem is ultimately not solving any problem. If the fundamental piece of technology you are working on doesn't have any applicable uses in the end, all the other pieces supporting this fundamental are not solving anything of value. I really, really don't follow your line of argumentation, I keep looking for the base argument and there's none except for "if some people believe this has value, then it has value". No, like Matt Levine said to SBF, the fundamental economical value of this thing is zero.
      • splix 4y ago
        Right, it doesn't make much sense and that's my point. If we don't have an objective criteria we cannot judge what is a good tech and what is a bad tech. You think one techonoly is not important, another person think it's very important. I'm sure you're must better person that the any other person so we have to rely on your judgement, but it's not very scalable.
    • oblio 4y ago
      > Again, not arguing. Just trying to say that there could be multiple points of view. And if something works one way for someone, it may be completely useless and even stupid for others. Yeah, but it's about who the thing is useful to, and how many people are in that category. Amazon is very useful to the general population. AWS is very useful to startup and corporations in general. Zoom is very useful to the large amounts of people that like human interactions and consider text-only to be cold and distant. Crypto so far is useful to... not that many people, and worst of all, many of those people are scammers and grifters and criminals. Many of the others it's "useful" to look a lot like marks, gullible people that lose a lot of money. When a business the size of AWS decides it's not worth investing into it, that's a bad sign. They'll go for anything that can make them a ton of money long term.
• piva00 4y ago
  > Like the HN right now, it doesn't solve anything, right. What do you mean? It definitely solves a problem of information sharing, spreading, foster discussion, and creates some networking which definitely do add value, it might not be instant but there are various stories on HN about how HN affected their lives. Be with founders meeting, people getting ideas for starting products and so on. That's tangible value, even if a little abstract. > In the morning I bought stuff on Amazon, but it also doesn't solve any real problem. Again, I don't understand, you bought something expecting it to do something for you, solving an actual problem. If not it's just pure consumerism in a way that might even be pathological, buying stuff for no reason at all is extremely bizarre. Solving something means to actually provide an economical value, an outcome with tangible impact in the real world. People sharing knowledge and information provides tangible value in the real world. People buying stuff they want to use for a hobby, profession, entertainment, etc., have a tangible impact in the real world. You are going full post-modernism on what "value" or "solving a problem" means without directing the conversation to your point, you are almost completely paraphrasing SBF's words from this interview [1]: > Let me give you sort of like a really toy model of it, which I actually think has a surprising amount of legitimacy for what farming could mean. You know, where do you start? You start with a company that builds a box and in practice this box, they probably dress it up to look like a life-changing, you know, world-altering protocol that's gonna replace all the big banks in 38 days or whatever. Maybe for now actually ignore what it does or pretend it does literally nothing. It's just a box. So what this protocol is, it's called ‘Protocol X,’ it's a box, and you take a token. You can take ethereum, you can put it in the box and you take it out of the box. Alright so, you put it into the box and you get like, you know, an IOU for having put it in the box and then you can redeem that IOU back out for the token. > So far what we've described is the world's dumbest ETF or ADR or something like that. It doesn't do anything but let you put things in it if you so choose. And then this protocol issues a token, we'll call it whatever, ‘X token.’ And X token promises that anything cool that happens because of this box is going to ultimately be usable by, you know, governance vote of holders of the X tokens. They can vote on what to do with any proceeds or other cool things that happen from this box. And of course, so far, we haven't exactly given a compelling reason for why there ever would be any proceeds from this box, but I don't know, you know, maybe there will be, so that's sort of where you start. > And then you say, alright, well, you’ve got this box and you’ve got X token and the box protocol declares, or maybe votes by on-chain governance, or, you know, something like that, that what they're gonna do is they are going to take half of all the X tokens that were re-minted. Maybe two thirds will, two thirds will offer X tokens, and they're going to give them away for free to whoever uses the box. So anyone who goes, takes some money, puts in the box, each day they're gonna airdrop, you know, 1% of the X token pro rata amongst everyone who's put money in the box. That's for now, what X token does, it gets given away to the box people. And now what happens? Well, X token has some market cap, right? It's probably not zero. Let say it's, you know, a $20 million market … [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-25/sam-bankman-fried-described-yield-farming-and-left-matt-levine-stunned https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-25/sam-bankm...