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Am I really being subjected to web3 crypto bullshit? No thank you

EGreg 3y ago
That just about sums it up right there. Doing the same thing over and over (shareholder capitalism) and expecting a different result after the platform gets big. Calling daddy government. Bitterly complaining. But to acknowledge the root cause and an actual solution of programmers enabling decentralization? Nah, that smells like web3! Don’t subject me to this decentralized nonsense! Brrrr By the way, the reaction of those who were used to centralized control has always been priceless… this is the earliest moment when they were confronted with the possibility of everyone empowered to do their own thing on their own personal computers: The committee meeting where the team first presented the Gopher protocol was a disaster, “literally the worst meeting I’ve ever seen,” says Alberti. “I still remember a woman in pumps jumping up and down and shouting, ‘You can’t do that!’ ” Among the team's offenses: Gopher didn’t use a mainframe computer and its server-client setup empowered anyone with a PC, not a central authority. While it did everything the U required and then some, to the committee it felt like a middle finger. “You’re not supposed to have written this!” Alberti says of the group’s reaction. “This is some lark, never do this again!” The Gopher team was forbidden from further work on the protocol. (https://www.minnpost.com/business/2016/08/rise-and-fall-gopher-protocol/ https://www.minnpost.com/business/2016/08/rise-and-fall-goph...) Times change, the hilarity of resisting decentralization stays the same…
- FridgeSeal 3y ago
  Are you genuinely trying to sell the hyper-capitalism-turned-up-to-11 that is crypto as a better alternative to…capitalism?
  - EGreg 3y ago
    That's the wrong way to look at it. Try to step out of the cargo-cult for just a second. Shareholders buying an IPO is hyper-capitalism. You have a market of buyers and sellers, say, and some utility token. Maybe it's FileCoin for file storage on IPFS. Maybe it's ETH for gas on Ethereum. It's global and convenient to pay once you have it. Maybe it's Disney Dollars. But then, you have on top of this "hyper-capitalism". Peter Thiel says "competition is for losers, build a monopoly", making many capitalists blush. Venture Capitalists prop up money-losing unit economics for years (they call it "reducing friction") and then dump the equity on the public. The public then pushes the team to extract rents from all sides from the marketplace forever. Who needs these shareholders? That's hyper-capitalism. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that your utility token shouldn't be freely available to everyone. Only the actual participants should be buying it. Otherwise a hyper-capitalist whale like Goldman Sachs can pump and dump it, hurting people: https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/04/27/how-goldman-sachs-created-the-food-crisis/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/04/27/how-goldman-sachs-creat... It might even be designed to undergo demurrage, so that if you don't use it, you gradually lose it. This was done in Worgl and defied the depression all around it, even the Mises institute had to gradully agree it worked: https://mises.org/library/free-money-miracle https://mises.org/library/free-money-miracle

That just about sums it up right there. Doing the same thing over and over (shareholder capitalism) and expecting a different result after the platform gets big. Calling daddy government. Bitterly complaining. But to acknowledge the root cause and an actual solution of programmers enabling decentralization? Nah, that smells like web3! Don’t subject me to this decentralized nonsense! Brrrr By the way, the reaction of those who were used to centralized control has always been priceless… this is the earliest moment when they were confronted with the possibility of everyone empowered to do their own thing on their own personal computers: The committee meeting where the team first presented the Gopher protocol was a disaster, “literally the worst meeting I’ve ever seen,” says Alberti. “I still remember a woman in pumps jumping up and down and shouting, ‘You can’t do that!’ ” Among the team's offenses: Gopher didn’t use a mainframe computer and its server-client setup empowered anyone with a PC, not a central authority. While it did everything the U required and then some, to the committee it felt like a middle finger. “You’re not supposed to have written this!” Alberti says of the group’s reaction. “This is some lark, never do this again!” The Gopher team was forbidden from further work on the protocol. (https://www.minnpost.com/business/2016/08/rise-and-fall-gopher-protocol/ https://www.minnpost.com/business/2016/08/rise-and-fall-goph...) Times change, the hilarity of resisting decentralization stays the same…

FridgeSeal 3y ago
Are you genuinely trying to sell the hyper-capitalism-turned-up-to-11 that is crypto as a better alternative to…capitalism?
- EGreg 3y ago
  That's the wrong way to look at it. Try to step out of the cargo-cult for just a second. Shareholders buying an IPO is hyper-capitalism. You have a market of buyers and sellers, say, and some utility token. Maybe it's FileCoin for file storage on IPFS. Maybe it's ETH for gas on Ethereum. It's global and convenient to pay once you have it. Maybe it's Disney Dollars. But then, you have on top of this "hyper-capitalism". Peter Thiel says "competition is for losers, build a monopoly", making many capitalists blush. Venture Capitalists prop up money-losing unit economics for years (they call it "reducing friction") and then dump the equity on the public. The public then pushes the team to extract rents from all sides from the marketplace forever. Who needs these shareholders? That's hyper-capitalism. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that your utility token shouldn't be freely available to everyone. Only the actual participants should be buying it. Otherwise a hyper-capitalist whale like Goldman Sachs can pump and dump it, hurting people: https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/04/27/how-goldman-sachs-created-the-food-crisis/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/04/27/how-goldman-sachs-creat... It might even be designed to undergo demurrage, so that if you don't use it, you gradually lose it. This was done in Worgl and defied the depression all around it, even the Mises institute had to gradully agree it worked: https://mises.org/library/free-money-miracle https://mises.org/library/free-money-miracle