Is Web3 Bullshit? – Molly White at Web Summit 2022 | Hacker News Reader

Is Web3 Bullshit? – Molly White at Web Summit 2022

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60 pointsbfung14 comments

You know what's really stupid? Web 3.0 was originally the "semantic web" - an effort to make the web machine readable. The term was co-opted by crypto pumpers and dumpers and now has lost all meaning.

the Semantic web was a pretty interesting set of ideas that really intrigued me, to which extent has the industry adopted such concepts?

Twitter and Facebook use semantic tags to extract information for cards https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/twitter-for-websites/c... also Google etc.

Unfortunately, at least in Twitter's case, the markup is twitter-specific instead of being standardized. Which is the thing that the semantic web ppl was trying to avoid.

... but another point of view is that those cards (specially in Google's case) rip off websites by providing the website information without granting the web side page views (and ads). So, some publishers have little incentive to make it easier for third party apps to use their data. (but people do scrape anyway)

Take a look at Microformats2, used extensively on the Fediverse (Mastodon, for example).

It’s a manufactured play to create a new regulatory space by tech companies and investors trying to slink out of the regulatory noose tightening of their existing ventures.

The standard answer when people ask ‘so, how are you handling identity”, now has become ‘oh the community does’ … it’s raw unadulterated bullshit and companies like Meta enthusiastically embracing the supposed technology to bring deliverance from the yore of big tech should be all the answers one needs.

fyi, Molly White is the creator of https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

Molly is awesome. I think p2p tech and encryption are really neat and potentially revolutionary, but I hate the scammers and bullshitters that have glommed onto the space like parasites. Molly is able to seemingly effortlessly cut directly through bullshit and speak to the core of projects. I'd really love to see her posting about some positive findings she comes across in "web3". Like she said, web3 will happen, it's just about what form it will take.

Yes.

yes.

only thing is, too many people are trying to loop in potentially useful technologies with web3 - like ar, vr, ai, etc.

Exactly. I worry good emerging tech will get a bad rep as a result of Web3 shills trying to lump them in with their ‘product’ to pump their crypto holdings.

100% agree. Too often we hype up technologies and try to force fit problems to them.

Waiting for Web 4.0 Myself.

Jack will beat that with Web 5, supposedly.

100% yes

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