Ask HN: Would you agree Dapps are bad for programmer's biz value? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Would you agree Dapps are bad for programmer's biz value?

2 pointsmclightning13 comments

Hi,

In the world of centralised apps, programmers hold power. So many of the tech startups are founded by developers. Some of these turned into tech giants.

We as programmers hold power to the systems we make, investing our time and effort. It is the essence of meritocratic nature of programming.

If we bring a world where apps are decentralised, stored and ran on blockchain, developers will not be in power anymore.

We are basically killing our own market.

If Dapps become ever more popular, you will not be able to compete with it. Because it will be very cheap to run.

Please change my mind.

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I think the evidence is that it is the other way around. Running Dapps is very expensive.

For instance, if I want to run a program on a normal computer I can run it one computer. If I wanted something as reliable as the space shuttle I might use 5 computers.

If I want to run that on Ethereum it runs on thousands of computers and you have to pay all the miners. Not cheap!

Hmm that's interesting. Do you think it would stay that way in future?

Proof of stake for ethereum:

https://blockonomi.com/ethereum-casper/

Would this make it cheaper to run Dapps or what?

the contract/program doesn't need to run against every node just some small subset.

basic concept as far as I understand it, if 10 people deposit eth and run contract and get result A but 11 person runs it and gets result B, 11 person loses deposit. only with larger numbers probably based on how much of a transaction fee your willing to pay.

It is the essence of meritocratic nature of programming.

Programming is not meritocratic. Writing great code probably doesn't even make the top 10 in things you need to do to succeed as a startup.

It is not the quality of the code, it is the functionality of the code. If you find a niche/function/demand in the market, code has power to fill that need. I am not necessarily talking about tech value of the code, but the business value of it.

Try solving a problem in furniture industry, you will just be a innovative carpenter. Business spinoff chance in other activities are far less compared to programming IMHO.

people build physical machines all the time that get patented and make products, etc.

You under estimate how hard it is to sell a software product/Saas etc.

finding a feature people actually want to use and pay for that isn't already out there.

Try solving a problem in furniture industry, you will just be a innovative carpenter.

Ingvar Kamprad founded Ikea to solve a problem in the furniture industry, and at one point was the 11th richest person in the world. He didn't use code to do it.

The fact is that if you manage to find a solution to a pain that a lot of people suffer then you can make a huge impact and probably make a lot of money. It doesn't have to be code, and it definitely doesn't have to be good code, and very often you can be incredibly successful solving a problem without any code at all.

You can deliver the best functionality in the world with code and you will still fail completely if no one finds out about it, or if no one understands what it does, or if no one cares, or if no one sees the benefit, or if no one can afford it, and so on. Code is useful but there are far more important things you need to get right in order to succeed.

I love writing code, and I solve lots of problems with code. I also understand that there are problems code is not suited to solving. Code is a hammer, and some problems aren't nails.

Dapps might run on decentralized infrastructure but that doesn't change the fact that somebody needs to write the app in the first place.

But once you finish writing the app, you no longer own it. You don't own the database, you are basically an employee of the blockchain or ICO earnings if you collected that.

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