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Comment by mmastrac | Hacker News Reader

Tech seems to be dividing into a "web3" camp and everyone else. I don't run in web3 circles, so all of this stuff just seems like a big, continuing grift. I still remember my feelings after seeing the Matt Damon ad.

Really sad to see so much energy put into this space. Out of all the web3 use cases, maybe 5% at the most are truly useful to have on the blockchain, while the rest are just databases wearing blockchain clothing. The really useful cases probably aren't as valuable as selling a landgrab, however.

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Personally I'm pretty cynical about web3. I don't see how it becomes any less decentralized and rather just appears to me an attempted coup where a different set of leaders take over the internet. Decentralization is an incredibly difficult problem, especially when infrastructure is non-trivial. People get mad at me all the time for pointing to email (or even the internet) as an example of this, but we just had a top page post the other day about this exact issue with email AND browsers. Sure, it isn't 100% centralized, but that isn't a requirement for centralization. We consider Coke to be monopolistic but it couldn't even perform a 51% attack, though it could with Pepsi (which has half the market share that Coke has). Decentralization is difficult because momentum is a key principle and there are natural monopolies. These especially arise when there are network effects. So until I hear a compelling reason that this force has been overcome (extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence) then I'm not a believer. If you are still in prototyping and using big names to sell your product, I'm going to think you're a grifter.

I even say this as having a belief in some of the values of cryptocurrenceis and a desire to have what web3 claims to be. I see high value in a private (ZKP), secure, quick, digital currency, but it must also be better than what we already have, meaning that if it doesn't allow for things like clawbacks (being able to play within the judiciary), then it is dead in the water. I really do want to see a decentralized internet like web3 seeks, but I haven't seen any extraordinary evidence. Maybe there is a signal in all the noise that I can't see, but if there is, then maybe the true believers need to rid the space of the grifters (there is zero doubt that there are a large number of grifts making hand over fist) and build trust. If you can't convince a bunch of techies of your cool tech product you're not going to convince the average public. It just builds distrust, which will be almost impossible to recover from. But I'm still waiting to see if there is a signal in all that noise.

> secure

> allow for things like clawbacks (being able to play within the judiciary)

Pick one.

Is Algorand not secure? It isn't ZKP so still doesn't fit my above criteria, but that's different. I don't see why this isn't possible. Hard, yes, but impossible?

Do you see the underlying desire for Web3 (true democracy) being served anywhere else? There is certainly an eternal September problem in the space, and unfortunately many incentives to fleece the freshmen, but do you know of an alternative for those of us who believe in the ideals?

> Do you see the underlying desire for Web3 (true democracy)

I don't see that as the underlying desire for Web3. Not in the slightest.

Yes maybe self-sovereignty of digital assets, but certainly not democracy. I wonder how suoduandao2 got that democracy idea.

> true democracy

I don't see that at all. What I see are a bunch of predatory projects trying to make a bunch of money before the music stops.

Whether you think it's an insincere sales tactic or not is immaterial to my question, which was, is anyone else trying the same sales tactic?

If a particular set of ideals are being used in marketing for only one space, that space is going to attract people who care about those ideals. Currently I see those people flocking to Web3, if there's an alternative I'd be interested to hear about it.

> anyone else trying the same sales tactic?

Amway, Avon, and door-to-door knife sales were three that I recall.

> Currently I see those people flocking to Web3, if there's an alternative I'd be interested to hear about it.

Freenet is decentralized and so far is unstoppable. You probably would not like 80% of information that’s being exchanged there… but that’s actually a sign of quality, if you think about it.

Speaking of which , if I say write an anti-Putin manifesto on Web3 - will Putin’s thugs be able to stop me digitally or biologically? What are my protections?

Thank you! Never heard of Freenet but it sounds like an answer to my question.

Regarding your protections - I'd say anonymity is still the #1 protection in most online environments. Of course, adding money adds 'skin in the game', but you have a lot more control over how much of your identity you want to risk on any one manifesto.

I'm sure many people thought the same exact thing about the internet...

Show me how web3 actually addresses decentralization and isn't just replacing the current winners with a different set of winners. Are you going to take down Binnance and Coinbase and allow no exchanges? No custodial wallets at all? I'm not going to hold my breath.

Anyone smart knows centralized exchanges should be avoided. DEX are a thing.

It's simple, and I don't know why people are confused. New technology (value-neutral) comes around that promises decentralization. Grifters come into the space with a bunch of centralized garbage (stablecoins, CEX, etc). And "idiots" (I want to be respectful, but it's hard to find a better word) throw away the technology along with the bathwater. Result: enjoy CBDCs and the government being able to institute transaction taxes, implement negative interest rates, and freeze your bank account at will. Good thing you didn't get scammed!

There are plenty of non-KYC fully decentralized exchanges and platforms.

SideShift.ai for example or Bisq.

Check out https://kycnot.me/

All I see when ever I hear anyone shilling web3 isn't "democracy", it's just that THEY want to be the middleman (often in transactions that don't traditionally have one).

All the people so confident that suoduandao2 and I don't exist [0] might want to reconsider their info diets.

[0] Heavy downvoting of the parent, + three replies all saying "don't see it". A decent place to start: https://vitalik.ca/index.html

"The motivation is claimed to be democracy, and some people even believe it" and "the motivation is democracy for an appreciable portion of the promoters" are vastly different things.

One person one vote is democracy, one dollar one vote is web3. Very different.

Okay fair, but I can still fork a project if I don't like how the rich are acting in it, and the value of the resulting project is entirely down to who decides to come with me - that seems pretty democratic as well. Web3 democracies do still devolve into oligarchies as they inevitably do, but the reigning oligarchs have fewer ways of preventing competition from new projects than in the current model.

It is important to recognize that democracy is not something that happens online or through technology. Those who wish to strengthen democracy would do better to turn the computer off and engage with some real-world people.

> Do you see the underlying desire for Web3 (true democracy) being served anywhere else?

Yes. Peer-to-peer networks have existed long before Web3 ever became a thing. Bittorrent worked fine without a blockchain. IPFS works fine without a blockchain. Soulseek and Limewire didn't need blockchains, same as Napster.

The idea of digital currency is definitely geek pornography, but it's a much more complicated issue in the real world. All signs seem to indicate that the further a protocol distances itself from money, the better chance it has at succeeding in the long-term.

> Yes. Peer-to-peer networks have existed long before Web3 ever became a thing. Bittorrent worked fine without a blockchain. IPFS works fine without a blockchain. Soulseek and Limewire didn't need blockchains, same as Napster.

Fine, but for IPFS you need a normal domain name. Oops, now you're centralized/cancellable again.

Every single person who thinks blockchain = database just doesn't understand centralization vs decentralization, and trust vs trustless. A database is run by a central authority.

> Fine, but for IPFS you need a normal domain name.

Huh? Who told you that? Sure, if you are lazy enough to rely on a translator (which exists for Tor and IPFS), domain names would be in the picture, but you could use clients... that do that directly.

I meant to use IPFS for a "mainstream" site.

You're saying nothing. I take it you're suggesting that DNS is bad, and should be replaced by a Blockchain. Fair enough, let's humor this funny little adventure you're suggesting.

1. The most immediate problem is going to be scaling. Since we can't rely on centralized peers (or even federated trackers like on Bittorrent), our ledger has to be both distributed and operate with relatively low block times. This introduces a problem: anyone who wants a "complete" ledger needs to trace their domain back through the history of the blockchain. This would require a local copy of the ledger on your client (extremely large), or server-side domain resolution (unbelievably slow, even for a single user). The internet as we know it simply wouldn't fit on a Blockchain.

2. Let's pretend like that isn't an issue though, and you only need to serve a few dozen sites to a few dozen users (the fate of many such crypto projects). Now we get to the exciting stuff; decentralized domain markets! I'm assuming this is where people step in to suggest smart contracts and NFTs get used, but there's a bigger problem on the horizon; lack of regulation. Since DNS is a centralized server, it can determine when abusive transactions are conducted and rectify them. If Microsoft decided to buy every domain NFT overnight, nobody could stop them. Now Microsoft owns your "decentralized" internet! Yippee!

3. Even though the mental gymnastics are getting exhausting, let's assume one more time that this project has perfectly worked out every social engineering kink and logical exploit in their market system.

...then what? Domain owners can now be openly hunted by observing the wallet their domain name lives in. Domains can be stolen like those poor Bored Apes. Companies can no longer take solace in a B2B transaction with their DNS provider, since that doesn't determine the ownership of their domain anymore. The logic of domains breaks down past this point, you may as well just use unique identifiers, IP addresses or hashes by now. The idea of a web as we know it wouldn't exist in this reality. It would be a lawless no-man's land, a reflection of the catatonic crypto landscape as it exists currently.

>desire for Web3 (true democracy)

In a democracy people maintain a commons. Web3 is the opposite, withdrawal from the commons, usually to ignore democratic authority or the law to begin with.

The underlying desire seems to be pump-dumping NFTs and shitcoins.

> I still remember my feelings after seeing the Matt Damon ad.

Btw, speaking about Brave

Matt Damon told me "fortune favors the Brave" and I lost all my f#cking money

( for context - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twpEgYnc-jA )

It was my shoeshine boy moment, for sure.

Weirdly, I'm fairly confident Damon didn't accept his $X million payment for the commercial in crypto.

I sort of feel like this is how tech has always been. A new technology comes around, people use it for everything, and the bad use cases filter themselves out while the rest stays around. Personally persistent, decentralized domains sound like a useful tool to a lot of people, and I hope it sticks

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