Comment by lkrubner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lkrubner | Hacker News Reader

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I've been documenting this with specific companies. A recent one that I worked with was Omnichains:

https://www.omnichains.com

"Omnichain CEO Pratik Soni speaks to Inbound Logistics about the growing number of blockchain use cases in the supply chain, including in reverse logistics, product authentication and sustainability."

Apparently this company started with the idea that they would use the blockchain to make supply chains more transparent. And they raised money from investors with that goal in mind. But they have since retreated from that goal.

I worked with a retailer that worked with Omnichains. None of Omnichains tools had anything to do with the blockchain. Certainly, we were never given access to a blockchain, nor was it mentioned after we had signed the contract. Instead, we were granted limited access to an API that I believe was run with Ruby on Rails and MySQL. So at a certain point this company retreated to traditional technologies, rather than trying to use the blockchain.

This is one example. At some point I hope to write up some of the other examples that I've seen.

I do not believe anyone will ever find a legal use for blockchains that cannot be more easily served with traditional technologies.

> I do not believe anyone will ever find a legal use for blockchains that cannot be more easily served with traditional technologies.

One does not blockchain to build a product in the cleanest, most efficient manner.

One blockchains to have access to investors/speculators that control the gigantic pile of on-chain wealth that has accumulated over the past ten years, who would never sink $100k+ into a poorly drawn picture of an ape with sunglasses if it was running on Rails+MySQL.

This may sound like I'm being dismissive, so let me be clear, I am not - this is an extremely valid reason to chase this technology, and the existence of these (maybe ridiculous and shady, maybe not) massive stacks of digital cash is going to drive a lot of investment in the space, so if there is anything that can "break through" and prove real value beyond just targeting this wealth, someone is going to find it, likely as a side-effect of targeting these whales.

Web 1.0 couldn't have happened without the late 90s tech bubble, and as ridiculous as the Pets.com era hype was, when the dust settled there was much broader connectivity and a real market for the Internet companies that did live up to the hype over the next two decades.

One big issue is that the largest supply chain participants generally do not want transparency because they make their money on opacity. Transparency attracts more entrants, applicants, and competitors. It is business intelligence that provides important things like pricing advantages. When competitors can see your supply chain, they can do all kinds of stuff to make your life harder and gain an edge.

Almost everyone at every stage in the supply chain have an interest in opacity rather than transparency. The people who may want transparency want transparency for themselves but not for others: they want the equivalent of a one-way mirror to spy through. Naturally, people tend to react with extreme negativity to the installation of such one-way mirrors. Actual transparency is desired by almost no one. This is even true at the consumer level: the consumer may want to know the supply chain information for various purposes, regulators certainly want to know it, business partners certainly want supply chain documentation, but a consumer would balk at the notion that they expose all of their credit card transactions to the entire world at all times. It's always transparency for thee and not for me.

Most of the companies that tout blockchain seem to be doing so to attract free marketing and VC funding. Once they have that the real products seem to use the same old reliable tech that runs the entire internet.

There's selling NFTs of ape cartoons, or selling crypto coins or other imaginary assets.

Rails and MySQL are too transitory for that - you'd buy a record in the database only to find the company hosting the database had gone broke or been bought by Yahoo who closed them.

You buy a bitcoin and you can be fairly confident in a decade or two you'll still have it.

> You buy a bitcoin and you can be fairly confident in a decade or two you'll still have it.

You’ll have a copy of some hashes. That doesn’t mean anyone will want to buy them at the price you want or even that there will be an operating network around them.

This is especially important to learn when it comes to NFTs: blockchains are too inefficient to store the media so you’re still dependent on paying for outside hosting (yes, even with IPFS). Because you’re buying a link but not the rights, you would also need to make sure you have the right to even make your own mirror, too.

What would make you confident about that? Buying an NFT requires trusting the chain (typically ethereum) and the marketplace.

Now you have two problems.

Most NFTs aren't stored on the blockchain.

Yes - they usually use an URL that points to some IPFS that is behind a domain name they'll let lapse, and someone can cyber jack the domain.

> You buy a bitcoin and you can be fairly confident in a decade or two you'll still have it.

And it will be worthless. Most assets that NFTs point to are already gone. Because that useless hash you have in your NFT? It points to a centralised storager somewhere.

>And it will be worthless

Well maybe, maybe not. It's been remarkable resilient so far. See https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-obituaries/

NFTs I'm less sure of.

You're forgetting that bitcoin is currently propped up by Tether. That Tether will survive two decades is extremely unlikely.

>Rails and MySQL are too transitory for that - you'd buy a record in the database only to find the company hosting the database had gone broke or been bought by Yahoo who closed them.

Wouldn't working with more robust companies (like banks) solve this?

I guess it does to an extent with things like share ownership. Although there are ongoing costs for the various peoples salaries at the institutions involved.

You're missing the point. The goal when you use blockchain is not to more easily serve. It is all the things that don't matter to you until it is too late, like censorship resistance.

Censorship compared to what? What can’t you post on the internet? Specifically that the government would stop you from, not private companies like Twitter booting people.

There is no censorship resistance with blockchain.

You’re still beholden to the whims of centralized developers and miners.

You’re still beholden to a court order. If the government wants to confiscate your crypto assets they can simply put you in jail until you provide the location of your private key.

If the government can penetrate offshore bank accounts they’ll have no trouble with your crypto wallet.

I’m happily mining ETH with gminer on flexpool.io and selling the coins as fast as I get them just like I did with BTC a decade ago. Because I know this whole thing is a temporary pyramid scheme.

You are so wrong on so many levels that I won't even bother to address your false points.

Because when there is an immutable record of all transactions you ever did in perpetuity, you’ll be so much better off in a fascist run country.

The freedom to fuck your life over, forever, in record the moment you make that one transaction that connects your identity is sure worth the fact that it’s uncensorable.

Lol.

Blockchain has no point versus immutable databases https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23290769 or at least database with immutable history of changes.

One point the linked article makes is that even this claim has been proven wrong.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com