4 ms·

I don't understand the netizens of HN sometimes. Can someone explain to me what is going on in their mind? On the one hand, they complain constantly about this

by EGreg 3y ago

I don't understand the netizens of HN sometimes. Can someone explain to me what is going on in their mind? On the one hand, they complain constantly about this or that centralized service that they are throughly dependent on, and admit to being terrified of that service doing something "unaligned" with their interests. A few days ago, it was Stripe, before that it was Twitter, Reddit, now it's Apple, Google, etc. They complain and throw their hands up in despair, and Cory Doctorow even recently coined the word "enshittification" showing that this will always happen to for-profit platfoms. And Google Chrome's new client attestation API has everyone freaking out. On the other hand, a lot of them gang up en masse on any decentralized and open alternative, especially Web3-related, that actually solves the problem technologically. They fight tooth and nail arguing that it isn't popular yet, and never should become. Because only centralized, government-regulated platforms that had years to become entrenched, are good, the rest is bad and should not belong on HN. So what is the alternative? Also this same group of people, seemingly, is totally nonchalant about the prospects of AI destroying human civilization, despite its own creators consistently giving that a 10-20% chance. They say that you shouldn't be worried so much. I just don't get this crowd, honestly. It seems like insanity. PS: It's not all people on HN, just the most activist and vocal ones, and the ones with the silent downvote button trigger finger with massive hyperthrophy from constant use.

mrtksn 3y ago
> Web3-related, that actually solves the problem technologically Is this true though? Sure, there are tech demos but people use the tech as a mean to the end(which is some content or interaction) and just because it works on technical level it doesn't mean that it fulfil the needs of the user. For example, if all the best stuff about LK-99 is on Twitter and Reddit, I'm going to be on Twitter and Reddit. Convenience? network effect? Does it matter? Also it's usually different people complaining about different stuff and as a result it's not a contradiction. We are not coordinated.
onli 3y ago
HN loves decentralized solutions. Talk about blogs, RSS, the old web, mashups and you get a lot of positive feedback. Also mastodon and matrix got a lot of coverage here, everything in the category of peertube. And encrypted alternatives to potential monopolies as well, Signal vs Whatsapp for example. But you are simply mistaken if you believe a bunch of obvious scams with not a single usecase bundled to one illegitimate buzzword is a decentralized solution, and of course the crowd here will see right through such bullshit. That web 3.0 scambubble never had a chance here.
- notpushkin 3y ago
  Nitpick: WhatsApp uses litetally the same encryption algorithm that Signal does. That said, I trust Signal a lot more, just because it isn't owned by Facebook.
  - uoaei 3y ago
    To clarify the point made above: Do you trust Meta not to change your key to one they control without notifying you? Do you think they haven't implemented this functionality already?
    - notpushkin 3y ago
      I don't. I think we can decompile WhatsApp and look if something suspicious has been implemented (e. g. some backdoor that hides the key change message), but I'm not sure if somebody does this on a regular basis. That's a bit simpler with the open source Signal, although we still need to verify they haven't slipped a backdoor to their official build. And this backdoor might not be needed though, as UX for key change is (was?) atrocious in both Signal and WhatsApp: https://keybase.io/blog/chat-apps-softer-than-tofu https://keybase.io/blog/chat-apps-softer-than-tofu (2019)
- yebyen 3y ago
  I still think Urbit has a chance.
  - onli 3y ago
    Urbit stems from a politically unacceptable author, and is far too much ideology, not usecase. I'm convinced it has no chance at all.
    - yebyen 3y ago
      I'm glad you've heard of it! There are lots more authors now. I'm not sure why you're so hung up on this one. (He was literally forced out of town. So don't hold him against us.) I was also pretty sure that story would be a good one to explain why it does have a chance. Ever heard of Elinor Ostrom? (I'll assume you didn't hear of her, but you might have heard of Garrett Hardin who came up with Tragedy of the Commons, which I learned was one of the most widely cited "wrong arguments" in the history of publishing papers...) I'm not a scholar in the field, but it was my understanding that retaining the capability for "driving someone especially bad out of town" was literally the thing that made it possible for "tragedy of the commons" to have been found an invalid construct as foregone conclusion or an inevitable outcome of working with communal shared resources. They did studies of the tight-knit communities in Africa where they had managed to avoid the tragedy of the commons for many generations, and I'm sure I'm drastically over-simplifying the conclusion, someone here can explain it better than I can... But so, we've got that going for us, as well. We can kick people out without "losing their shit for them" on the way.
lnxg33k1 3y ago
People have lost funds on blockchain technology due to scam / bugs / errors. With no one to complain too, regulations is always the way imho, more anarchy can’t be the answer to anarchy
cesarb 3y ago
> On the other hand, a lot of them gang up en masse on any decentralized and open alternative, especially Web3-related, [...] So what is the alternative? A decentralized and open alternative that's not "Web3-related"? Most of the objection is to the so-called "Web3" part, ranging from ecological concerns to the fact that its money-oriented aspect leads to it being full of grifters. We can have distributed systems without everything being about some kind of monetizable token.
- yebyen 3y ago
  How do you make decentralized identities that are spam-proof? You have to make them cost something, that's how. That's what this argument misses, and why you are all wrong about this IMHO.
  - cesarb 3y ago
    > How do you make decentralized identities that are spam-proof? You have to make them cost something, that's how. Not all costs have to be expressed as money or as a money analogue. For instance, a web-of-trust system could have reputation as the cost: someone who introduces too many spam accounts to the network could be marked as a spammer in turn.
    - yebyen 3y ago
      OK, but if it has value (utility) and it has scarcity, then it's going to get a cash price. My favorite internet argument about Web3 was the time that I had two people on Twitter telling me that "scarcity" was a problem with my imagination. If I could just imagine a world with no scarcity, then it would be so! Shame for this tremendous failure of my imagination. It's clear enough that I'm the problem now. Well friend, I'm here to tell you that it isn't so. There will always be some kind of resource scarcity, and as long as there is money, people will be putting dollar amounts on our million dollar art projects. Whether or not we think they are worth the money, is not at issue. Whether someone will pay the money, is not at issue. If there isn't a "finitely deep supply" for long-term holders to protect somehow, and the "cost to create more supply isn't negligible" then what cost is there to burn your pseudonymous identity? Just mint another one. It has to have some cost, or spammers will just push this button continuously and ruin it for all us good people. It only takes a few bad apples, (but there is really nothing worse than infinitely many procedurally generated bad apples!) It requires someone (it can be a shared job) to take ownership of these barrels, and occasionally remove some dangerous bad apples. There can be enough barrels for everyone (even the bad apples! they can get a barrel to themselves...) even if a few are spoiled, but there cannot be infinitely many barrels with infinitely many apples and still make a good community platform. It has to have boundaries. This is just IMHO. These are the table stakes for a successful distributed community platform to grow without limits. (It has to have limits!)
phatfish 3y ago
Decentralized is fine, especially Matrix and ActivityPub. In fact it's critical these open protocols get enough support to provide some antidote to Google, Facebook and the rest going full corporate capitalist utopia on internet services. The Crypto crowd LARPing as Bernie Madoff or being wall street hedge funds are not. I notice you didn't event mention Crypto or blockchain, "Web3" won't fool anyone here though.
- EGreg 3y ago
  Actually, enough people were fooled to conflate FTX and Celsius with Blockchain and Smart Contracts, exactly because they were all lumped into one thing by the word “crypto”. I wouldn’t be surprised if many people are now against end-to-end cryptography also because the word “crypto” was co-opted: https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/18/crypto-cryptocurrency-cryptographers https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/18/crypto-cr... So why would I want to use it? It just confuses the issue. And by the way FTX and Celsius and their ilk are exactly the sort of black box funds-custodying middlemen that Bitcoin and crypto was designed as an alternative to! They are closer to Stripe than blockchain. So when you try to equate smart contracts on a blockchain with FTX, who is the one being disingenuous?
kelnos 3y ago
> And Google Chrome's new client attestation API has everyone freaking out. I know quite a few people (many of them technically-minded and/or software developers) who don't like Google and don't like ads, and know that Chrome is just Google's way to get people to see more ads, and gain more control over the web itself. And yet, when I suggest they switch to Firefox (or something else), they just start making excuses.

by EGreg 3y ago

mrtksn 3y ago

> Web3-related, that actually solves the problem technologically Is this true though? Sure, there are tech demos but people use the tech as a mean to the end(which is some content or interaction) and just because it works on technical level it doesn't mean that it fulfil the needs of the user. For example, if all the best stuff about LK-99 is on Twitter and Reddit, I'm going to be on Twitter and Reddit. Convenience? network effect? Does it matter? Also it's usually different people complaining about different stuff and as a result it's not a contradiction. We are not coordinated.

onli 3y ago

HN loves decentralized solutions. Talk about blogs, RSS, the old web, mashups and you get a lot of positive feedback. Also mastodon and matrix got a lot of coverage here, everything in the category of peertube. And encrypted alternatives to potential monopolies as well, Signal vs Whatsapp for example. But you are simply mistaken if you believe a bunch of obvious scams with not a single usecase bundled to one illegitimate buzzword is a decentralized solution, and of course the crowd here will see right through such bullshit. That web 3.0 scambubble never had a chance here.

notpushkin 3y ago
Nitpick: WhatsApp uses litetally the same encryption algorithm that Signal does. That said, I trust Signal a lot more, just because it isn't owned by Facebook.
- uoaei 3y ago
  To clarify the point made above: Do you trust Meta not to change your key to one they control without notifying you? Do you think they haven't implemented this functionality already?
  - notpushkin 3y ago
    I don't. I think we can decompile WhatsApp and look if something suspicious has been implemented (e. g. some backdoor that hides the key change message), but I'm not sure if somebody does this on a regular basis. That's a bit simpler with the open source Signal, although we still need to verify they haven't slipped a backdoor to their official build. And this backdoor might not be needed though, as UX for key change is (was?) atrocious in both Signal and WhatsApp: https://keybase.io/blog/chat-apps-softer-than-tofu https://keybase.io/blog/chat-apps-softer-than-tofu (2019)
yebyen 3y ago
I still think Urbit has a chance.
- onli 3y ago
  Urbit stems from a politically unacceptable author, and is far too much ideology, not usecase. I'm convinced it has no chance at all.
  - yebyen 3y ago
    I'm glad you've heard of it! There are lots more authors now. I'm not sure why you're so hung up on this one. (He was literally forced out of town. So don't hold him against us.) I was also pretty sure that story would be a good one to explain why it does have a chance. Ever heard of Elinor Ostrom? (I'll assume you didn't hear of her, but you might have heard of Garrett Hardin who came up with Tragedy of the Commons, which I learned was one of the most widely cited "wrong arguments" in the history of publishing papers...) I'm not a scholar in the field, but it was my understanding that retaining the capability for "driving someone especially bad out of town" was literally the thing that made it possible for "tragedy of the commons" to have been found an invalid construct as foregone conclusion or an inevitable outcome of working with communal shared resources. They did studies of the tight-knit communities in Africa where they had managed to avoid the tragedy of the commons for many generations, and I'm sure I'm drastically over-simplifying the conclusion, someone here can explain it better than I can... But so, we've got that going for us, as well. We can kick people out without "losing their shit for them" on the way.

lnxg33k1 3y ago

People have lost funds on blockchain technology due to scam / bugs / errors. With no one to complain too, regulations is always the way imho, more anarchy can’t be the answer to anarchy

cesarb 3y ago

> On the other hand, a lot of them gang up en masse on any decentralized and open alternative, especially Web3-related, [...] So what is the alternative? A decentralized and open alternative that's not "Web3-related"? Most of the objection is to the so-called "Web3" part, ranging from ecological concerns to the fact that its money-oriented aspect leads to it being full of grifters. We can have distributed systems without everything being about some kind of monetizable token.

yebyen 3y ago
How do you make decentralized identities that are spam-proof? You have to make them cost something, that's how. That's what this argument misses, and why you are all wrong about this IMHO.
- cesarb 3y ago
  > How do you make decentralized identities that are spam-proof? You have to make them cost something, that's how. Not all costs have to be expressed as money or as a money analogue. For instance, a web-of-trust system could have reputation as the cost: someone who introduces too many spam accounts to the network could be marked as a spammer in turn.
  - yebyen 3y ago
    OK, but if it has value (utility) and it has scarcity, then it's going to get a cash price. My favorite internet argument about Web3 was the time that I had two people on Twitter telling me that "scarcity" was a problem with my imagination. If I could just imagine a world with no scarcity, then it would be so! Shame for this tremendous failure of my imagination. It's clear enough that I'm the problem now. Well friend, I'm here to tell you that it isn't so. There will always be some kind of resource scarcity, and as long as there is money, people will be putting dollar amounts on our million dollar art projects. Whether or not we think they are worth the money, is not at issue. Whether someone will pay the money, is not at issue. If there isn't a "finitely deep supply" for long-term holders to protect somehow, and the "cost to create more supply isn't negligible" then what cost is there to burn your pseudonymous identity? Just mint another one. It has to have some cost, or spammers will just push this button continuously and ruin it for all us good people. It only takes a few bad apples, (but there is really nothing worse than infinitely many procedurally generated bad apples!) It requires someone (it can be a shared job) to take ownership of these barrels, and occasionally remove some dangerous bad apples. There can be enough barrels for everyone (even the bad apples! they can get a barrel to themselves...) even if a few are spoiled, but there cannot be infinitely many barrels with infinitely many apples and still make a good community platform. It has to have boundaries. This is just IMHO. These are the table stakes for a successful distributed community platform to grow without limits. (It has to have limits!)

phatfish 3y ago

Decentralized is fine, especially Matrix and ActivityPub. In fact it's critical these open protocols get enough support to provide some antidote to Google, Facebook and the rest going full corporate capitalist utopia on internet services. The Crypto crowd LARPing as Bernie Madoff or being wall street hedge funds are not. I notice you didn't event mention Crypto or blockchain, "Web3" won't fool anyone here though.

EGreg 3y ago
Actually, enough people were fooled to conflate FTX and Celsius with Blockchain and Smart Contracts, exactly because they were all lumped into one thing by the word “crypto”. I wouldn’t be surprised if many people are now against end-to-end cryptography also because the word “crypto” was co-opted: https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/18/crypto-cryptocurrency-cryptographers https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/18/crypto-cr... So why would I want to use it? It just confuses the issue. And by the way FTX and Celsius and their ilk are exactly the sort of black box funds-custodying middlemen that Bitcoin and crypto was designed as an alternative to! They are closer to Stripe than blockchain. So when you try to equate smart contracts on a blockchain with FTX, who is the one being disingenuous?

kelnos 3y ago

> And Google Chrome's new client attestation API has everyone freaking out. I know quite a few people (many of them technically-minded and/or software developers) who don't like Google and don't like ads, and know that Chrome is just Google's way to get people to see more ads, and gain more control over the web itself. And yet, when I suggest they switch to Firefox (or something else), they just start making excuses.