Web 3.0 is pretty much unproven marketing hype | Hacker News Reader

Web 3.0 is pretty much unproven marketing hype

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32 pointsmahirsaid20 comments

Web 3.0 is people not born when the dot com bubble exploded trying to sell it to people who missed out the first time, apparently.

But it certainly has companies dabbling in it.

Here's what Tim O'Reilly had to say about web3: "We won't know what Web3 is until after the current bubble pops — because we're in the middle of a bubble, just like the dot-com bubble, where there's all kinds of crazy startups getting outrageous valuations, with less to show for it."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/web3-cryptocurrency-nft-tim-ore...

I'm old enough to have experienced the dot com bubble bursting (and losing money because of it), innovation of web2.0 and web3.

I was skeptical of web2.0, thinking it was hype and just "cool ruby hipsters", what was web2.0 anyway? I've been able to make 2.0 websites in PHP long before these new kids had a computer.. but I was wrong, and I admit that was a mistake I made.

I also was also impacted by the 2008 global downturn. I was also intrigued by Bitcoin right at the start, and experimented with CPU and early GPU mining on non-dedicated hardware.

But I learned HERE, back in 2012 that Bitcoin was a hype with no underlying value and was foolish enough to think people here must know what they were talking about... and i'll just wait for it to go back to <$1 before buying back in.

I was also impacted by the skepticism of Ethereum, and the concept of NFT's. But, this time I didn't make the mistake of trusting the common voice here. I've learned about web3, learned solidity and why/when i'd choose ERC20 vs ERC721. How an NFT can be more than "just a jpeg bro" and how the technology itself can be useful if adopted properly (not the majority of the junk you see).

If you are reading this.. i'd strongly suggest getting involved with it before blindly parroting the HN hate towards new tech. We are pre-crossing the chasm on web3, and you can choose to be an early adopter, or not. Whatever. But this technology isn't going away, and assuming it will will just leave you behind.

It still has no use case I've yet heard of beyond "enable criminal financial activity" and "make more money for people who bought in early" that isn't better enabled by something non-blockchain-related.

Here we go again, another one who can't ignore the inevitable failure of web3.

> The blockchain is not necessarily anonymous. Especially when you start attaching real-world metadata into each of the tokens.

Unless you are using Signal and MobileCoin, Monero, etc which all the fraudsters, criminals and terrorists are using, what part of web3 ever claimed that it was anonymous? It's more pseudonymous than anything else.

> Every blockchain to this date has not addressed a thing it was set out to do.

I don't think the author knows what they are talking about with this point.

This article is unspecific in its accusations and metaphors. Wouldn't recommend wasting your time with it. Why was it written, why was it posted here. There's nothing in the article to really discuss and so this thread is just gonna be boring.

Here's a repository of well written web3 critiques: https://github.com/rufuspollock/awesome-crypto-critique

Disclosure: own crypto

The state of web2 in 2005: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Million_Dollar_Homepage

> it received 1465 Diggs, becoming one of the most Dugg links that week.

What a time

Google Maps launched in 2005.

So did Writely (which would become Google Docs). WordPress was created in 2003. Wikipedia was created in 2001. I'm not sure why the web3 crew doesn't seem to think there were any legit uses for the web after 15 years.

And MySpace in 2003, Facebook and Flickr in 2004, the list goes on. Web 2.0 produced a lot of obviously compelling things very fast. The difference is that they weren’t really using “Web 2.0” as a selling point to consumers because users care about what they can do with it, not what it’s built on.

Cryptocurrencies are compelling enough for governments to try to lock them down: https://twitter.com/nunchuk_io/status/1494885897577271299

Just because they're trying to ban or control something doesn't mean it's good for society.

Agreed, perhaps I'm conflating "compelling" with "good for society"..

"cheap, mind-bogglingly lucrative marketing monstrosity, an advertising badlands of spam, banner ads and pop-ups."

Everyone is racing to find an answer to what actually is "web 3.0" with no actual innovation other than plain hype. take a look at this site that puts a more reasonable to what web 3.0 should include.

I thought Web 3.0 (capital 'C', space, dot zero) was the semantic web which didn't catch on, except a few microformats and maybe podcasting. This is a critique of web3 (lower 'c', no space, no dot zero). And I'd say it's a rather even handed take on a decentralized web.

i think that's unfair. companies like Braintrust is actually doing legit work

Web 3.0 is one thing, Web3 - a totally different craptopolluted one!

Its a word looking for products.

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