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> The average person has no idea, nor cares about Web3. The Web3 scene is full of crypto bros who think that if only the right technology comes along, it will d

> The average person has no idea, nor cares about Web3. The Web3 scene is full of crypto bros who think that if only the right technology comes along, it will disrupt the current web. They're focused so much on the tech, that they don't realize that the average person doesn't care about privacy, and just wants to use a product for "free". The problem is that they're focused on getting rich or getting richer, not on the tech. The tech is only interesting to them if it offers a method of early investors being set up for a lifetime (or eternity) of completely passive income. I'm working in peer-to-peer, and everything that I find within the web2/cryptosphere incidental to the problems I'm working on is hopelessly focused on convincing people to trade cash for new tokens. You do find a nice idea or implementation here and there, but mainly you only see what a concept would look like as the disguise for a con. > the average person doesn't care about privacy, and just wants to use a product for "free". This is a lie. The average person cares about privacy far more than the average programmer who spends all day trying to come up with new ways to subvert privacy. I've literally never had a conversation with a "normal person" about privacy, especially in the US, where it wasn't an extreme priority for them. They just 1) aren't technically savvy, and often don't understand that since computers can cheaply focus on everybody at the same time, everybody is worth paying attention to, and they 2) are shrewd enough to know that if there are truly private options, they'll be quickly eliminated or subverted by governments. Bragging about not being interesting enough to pay attention to is just a way for some incurious people to signal to the people around them that they're not hiding any dirty secrets. There's also the instinct to be protected by the herd: if I'm doing the same thing as millions of other people ("buying IBM"), they're not going to hurt all of us. It's a very dumb instinct to apply especially to technology working at scale, but also even to entities like massive corporations, billionaires and states who will kill you without even noticing. One may not think they're going to round up everyone who has ever read a particular book, or has criticized a president even in conversation with their cousin in a bar, or everyone who ever supported a political party that won the last election, but it's happened many times, all over the modern world, using index cards, punchcards, and handwritten lists compiled at local police stations from networks of informants, and handed up the chain to death squads. Pol Pot even got down to everyone who wore glasses being a potential source of trouble. You say it's not a tech problem, it's an education problem. I say it's neither, it's a political problem.

imiric 2y ago
> I've literally never had a conversation with a "normal person" about privacy, especially in the US, where it wasn't an extreme priority for them. We must've been talking to different groups of people, since the most common response I've received when discussing this topic is "I have nothing to hide". And this is after first having to explain that these services aren't gratis, and that they're paying for them with their data and attention. The second most common response, coming from even tech-savvy people who understood this, was "I only use it infrequently". I don't remember talking to someone who understood the risks, and cared enough about their privacy to want to make a change in their habits. > You say it's not a tech problem, it's an education problem. It is partly a tech problem, but my point is that tech alone won't solve it. People first need to understand the implications of using these services, and then decide for themselves whether they accept those terms. The unfortunate thing is that most people (judging from my conversations) are perfectly fine with that transaction, as long as they get to use a service without paying. The idea that the general public will somehow choose to pay for an equivalent—and in reality, more often than not, inferior—service just to safeguard their privacy is wrong. This is only the case for tech enthusiasts and a minority of people who are willing to sacrifice the experience, and who value their privacy more than the experience. > I say it's neither, it's a political problem. I think your concerns of governments using this information for "evil" are overblown. Yes, that is a risk, but in reality people are more likely to be targeted for advertising purposes than for persecution because of their beliefs and actions. Of course, governments will always want access to this data, and there's arguably a legitimate interest I think most people would agree is good (e.g. stopping actual terrorism and national security threats), but people getting persecuted because of their beliefs is low on the list of possibilities in most countries, even though this has happened before in history. I do agree that this is partly a political problem, but from a different perspective. Governments need to be involved to improve regulation of tech companies, and to better educate themselves about technology in general. Laws need to be passed to not only limit the reach of tech companies, but also to provide tech education to the general public early on in children's lives. Parents are struggling with controling access to technology to their kids, and it's unreasonable to expect them to protect their kids from billion-dollar corporations that build services designed to be as addicting as possible. Kids are growing up with an increased reliance on technology that they believe is benevolent, and it's making future generations complacent with side effects that are yet to become apparent.

imiric 2y ago

> I've literally never had a conversation with a "normal person" about privacy, especially in the US, where it wasn't an extreme priority for them. We must've been talking to different groups of people, since the most common response I've received when discussing this topic is "I have nothing to hide". And this is after first having to explain that these services aren't gratis, and that they're paying for them with their data and attention. The second most common response, coming from even tech-savvy people who understood this, was "I only use it infrequently". I don't remember talking to someone who understood the risks, and cared enough about their privacy to want to make a change in their habits. > You say it's not a tech problem, it's an education problem. It is partly a tech problem, but my point is that tech alone won't solve it. People first need to understand the implications of using these services, and then decide for themselves whether they accept those terms. The unfortunate thing is that most people (judging from my conversations) are perfectly fine with that transaction, as long as they get to use a service without paying. The idea that the general public will somehow choose to pay for an equivalent—and in reality, more often than not, inferior—service just to safeguard their privacy is wrong. This is only the case for tech enthusiasts and a minority of people who are willing to sacrifice the experience, and who value their privacy more than the experience. > I say it's neither, it's a political problem. I think your concerns of governments using this information for "evil" are overblown. Yes, that is a risk, but in reality people are more likely to be targeted for advertising purposes than for persecution because of their beliefs and actions. Of course, governments will always want access to this data, and there's arguably a legitimate interest I think most people would agree is good (e.g. stopping actual terrorism and national security threats), but people getting persecuted because of their beliefs is low on the list of possibilities in most countries, even though this has happened before in history. I do agree that this is partly a political problem, but from a different perspective. Governments need to be involved to improve regulation of tech companies, and to better educate themselves about technology in general. Laws need to be passed to not only limit the reach of tech companies, but also to provide tech education to the general public early on in children's lives. Parents are struggling with controling access to technology to their kids, and it's unreasonable to expect them to protect their kids from billion-dollar corporations that build services designed to be as addicting as possible. Kids are growing up with an increased reliance on technology that they believe is benevolent, and it's making future generations complacent with side effects that are yet to become apparent.