Comment by SkyMarshal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SkyMarshal | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I’m personally not a fan of the term, but here’s what I believe is the steel-man explanation of it:

Web3 refers to how the Ethereum community decided that the user interface to blockchains should be web-like, instead of say via commandline terminal or via Qt desktop apps (like Bitcoin).

You can see this with Metamask, which is essentially Ethereum’s App Store for smart contracts. https://metamask.io/

From that concept, the notion extended into using crypto to augment Web2 apps, like with micropayments or NFTs or the like.

Now it is a catch-all term for the Internet of Value, or the global Web augmented with a native currency that is not controlled by any country or company.

I’m not sure it was a good idea to co-opt a familiar term (Web2.0) and then define blockchain and cryptocurrency in terms of that. It’s unsurprisingly getting pushback, and Ethereum is being accused of “marchitecture” (like with the Pentium4, tech designed for marketing which compromises true performance, or security, or something else). Blockchains are expensive fully replicated distributed databases. They inherently want to host very light weight but high-value data, like accounting ledgers or internet names, and websites and apps are not that.

This is not my primary understanding of where the term "Web 3" came from or refers to (though I'm not really disagreeing with you - the term is sufficiently nebulous that people use it to mean different things in different contexts).

I always understood the primary differences in the Web "versions" to be:

1. Web 1.0: dedicated servers on the Internet producing a lot of content/services by your average user who accesses that content with a web browser.

2. Web 2.0: really focused on the rise of user-generated content, e.g. social media, blogging platforms, image sharing sites, etc. But the architecture is still primarily client-server with end users interacting with server-provided apps.

3. Web 3.0: The main differentiator in Web 3.0 is trustless peer-to-peer architecture. That is, it's no longer about end users needing to connect to Google or Facebook-owned servers to receive and share content. Instead, the content lives on a distributed blockchain that no single entity owns. All of the applications that people talk about in "Web 3.0" like smart contracts, NFTs, etc. arise as a consequence of the underlying architecture being this distributed blockchain.

You’re right, that’s the core part of it. I think I just assume that goes without saying, but it should probably be mentioned explicitly when defining Web3.

>Internet of Value

I’m disgusted how a bunch of VC types thought they were so incredibly clever with that piece of dystopian commodification double speak.

To be fair, VC types are not in the business of ethical philosophy. Crypto was not the first tech hype, won't be the last one. VC types will continue to thoughtlessly promote whatever makes them the most money.

With my theory of everything that is wrong…

MBA-ification is actually very very high on the list.

I don't have much insight into MBA programs. But suspect that they give substance to a pre-existing world view, effectively provide tools for justifying (and even reinforcing) bad practices. This is a generalization, of course, but if someone is already a crook, an MBA would only amplify that.

It is that. But also efficiency above all else.

Let’s run lean, let’s do it without human interaction, let’s push our solution first, we can force people in to this, etc.

I used to think Ayn Rand’s comments about creators and consumers were smarts people vs dumb, but that isn’t it at all. I think we’re in a complexity crisis and MBA driven business and large government is in a race for unsustainability.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com