You Don't Own Web3
twitter.comWeb 3.0 means embedded semantic metadata and has since 2012. This nonsense can fuck off. :)
yes absolutely,
these VCs have scams like Ethereum which they claim to be p2p networks but all the people making money of this don't even know where the peers are on this p2p network.
The validation nodes run on handful of hosted nodes on a software(ethereum) that changes it's source code and make it backward incompatible all the time, making it centralized at both who develop that code AND the handful of nodes that run it.
a16z has no shame perpetuating these total scams.
This tech never really took off and is a stillbirth.
I wish I could disagree with you. Of my four last jobs, two were semantic web/knowledge graph and two have been deep learning. I get more satisfaction from ML/deep learning work.
That said, from a knowledge representation perspective, I love the idea of knowledge graphs, and sometimes they do have real efficacy.
I totally agree. My thesis advisor was doing semantic search research, I was the one doing ML. I never understood the need to organize information when you can just throw ML at it. But the research might be a stepping stone in AI further down the line, when you need to build exhaustive knowledge instead of "intuitive" knowledge based on pattern matching. So who knows what it's good for.
it's also a 70% premine token (exactly a security) just that they did it under a Swiss based foundation so SEC can't touch them "yet"
Right on! We (the semantic web “we”) own that term.
I realize that you may be joking but that doesn’t stop me from agreeing with you :-)
Can someone explain to me what even "Web3" means? It seems like a nonsense buzzword. I mean "Web 2.0" meant ajax, right? And even then it's a silly difference to make, like calling every new addition to the ECMAscript standard a new version of the web...
There are 3 main features:
1) Decentralized apps (dapps) - Backend of websites/service that run as smart contracts on a particular blockchain instead of a centralized infrastructure. More resilient and inherently scalable.
2) Decentralized identity - Instead of creating user accounts for every site, identities are just wallet addresses. People maintain their own data and use their own keys to sign transactions.
3) Decentralized ownership (records) - NFTs are secure records of payment for ownership of a digital asset and can be traded easily.
The theme is that everything is available and keeps running without censorship, corruption, or other influence getting in the way, as long as the chain itself is still running. Whether there's serious utility in that is still unknown. I also think it's unlikely given how much we're tied to physical bodies and sovereign nations with their own laws and politics.
its mostly talking about how its a platform to build uncensorable products. that's the primary distinction that web3 associated platforms offer.
think of it like Shopify apps - the SaaS products that developers try to sell to merchants to make some part of the merchant's life easier. Those developers are just trying to make money.
web3 offers a similar kind of platform that isn't dependent on Shopify continuing to care. there are many things to make easier and it is incredibly lucrative to do so.
the "decentralized" part is just a distraction to derail conversations, but degrees of decentralization are optional.
Isn’t Web3 meant to be decentralized sort of like peer to peer? Or it used to but maybe that’s not a thing anymore.
Depends on which “Web3” community you're talking to: ethereum, dApps, wallets etc. vs scuttlebutt, dat, urbit, etc.
I hesitate to ask, is urbit a thing? are daily active users of daily volume available anywhere?
SV luminary Jordan Hall spends some time answering your query in this interview on Rebel Wisdom:
How can you take his technobabble seriously?
I feel like the only people who take the idea of web3 seriously are those who like to tweet about it.
Jack is what we lovingly refer to as a Bitcoin maximalist. They are unmoved by innovations that happen outside of the Bitcoin project and tend to call everything that isn't Bitcoin centralized garbage.
There you go. Ethereum maximalists will do anything to pump their investments up by screeching 'web3', 'NFTs' and 'DAOs' and Bitcoin maximalists will also do the same thing.
Well I ask both of these maxis, can I use either of them to pay for my groceries quickly, efficiently and cheaply without overpaying for the fees and using a complicated contraptions?
If it still doesn't make sense to buy popcorn with bitcoin [0] then what hope is there to be better than Apple / Google Pay and everything else with payments?
[0] https://ambcrypto.com/is-it-really-ideal-to-buy-popcorn-with...
Arguing that Ethereum is a currency is just a straw man and you know it.
Have you just admitted that my comment has upset you, knowing that it is true so that you jumped hastefully into the comments section to type in some nonsense without fully reading the article? So AMC is not accepting Ethereum to pay for popcorn then?
Well done for inventing and distorting claims to cover that you still haven't finished reading the article [0]
[0] https://ambcrypto.com/is-it-really-ideal-to-buy-popcorn-with...
The article is about using Bitcoin for payments (and is not talking about Ethereum). I was talking about Ethereum. I am not upset, but rather amused. I don't care for alternative payments, I am not a crypto bro. I want to see what the tech can do.
You use stablecoins like Magic Internet Money (MIM), which is linguistic re-appropriation of words or artifacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of entire crypto payment group.
> Jack is what we lovingly refer to as a Bitcoin maximalist.
What is a not so loving term?
Objectively?
"Dinosaur coin lover"
Because it doesn’t exist yet. Sure some folks bought too much weed with their bitcoinz and used the name for some crypto-nonsense but that isn’t web3 because web implies mass adoption.
It just so happens I purchased an NFT of a gif with the letters "Web3" in it. So, yes, I do own it. :-)
Can someone explain what is meant by this?
It may be related, there is a video making the rounds of a crypto-CEO explaining Web3 to a congressional committee [0][5m56s], the major theme being that owning tokens is part ownership in the platform, the old Web is owned by tech giants, the new web is owned by anyone who holds a token. The whole thing reads to me as sleight of hand, too slick, but I couldn’t place my finger on what the lie/misrepresentation was. Nonetheless, the comments are glowing reviews, best explanation of blockchain ever !!!1!
I don’t suppose Dorsey is responding directly to this video, tho at 4M views it is worth contradicting, but “Web3 is owned by the users” is the latest salesmenship for NFT-flippers.
[0] https://youtu.be/pSTNhBlfV_s
PS sure would be nice to link to congressional testimony without an ad pre-roll, but alas
Ao basically more tokens someone buys more he owns the platform lol, just like how internet was slowly bought by corporates. Do these crypto pedlers even realise what they say? Internet on day one was decentralised, and pretty much owned by none, no regulations.
The as people started joining Ads started then hackers joined, then came in scammers, then came in silicon valley unicorns who claim to make world a better place by showing more ads. Now web3 is just a dumb BS, they peddle to make money. If there is money to be made, govts and corporations wont let people have it.
Most of the "web3 VC's" with NFT avis and .eth handles (see Chris Dixon) are obnoxiously tweeting about how "web2" sucks and that you don't have any ownership in it whereas "web3" is a decentralized utopia where you own every single piece of information about yourself and have the ultimate freedom to do anything.
I can't believe some of the tweets they post. Things like "web3 is the first time you can own a piece of the internet" (I'm paraphrasing) are so bluntly wrong I don't understand why people fall for this.
I don't understand how you can't see blockchain/crypto as a growing tech where they might succeed, evolve and grow into the promises that contributors hope for. Why are most people taking a stance either in the crypto bro corner or in the "I can't buy popcorn with it, mah energy hurr durr" corner? The internet wasn't perfect from day one. How about seeing what sticks, what evolves, what problems are being worked on? It's also totally ok that we might not have the best problems to solve with blockchains, that's how science itself also works. Let's be critical but open to something new? How bout dat?
I think the ideas and the technology are interesting, but it’s really difficult for me to extract that from the fact that the loudest faction of supporters out there just treat it as a get rich quick scheme.
Yeah I get that. But that's also a good indicator (if it comes from the project initiators) that you don't need to have an in-depth look at the project.
Yeah that’s why I just stay out of it all together. If it’s really going to be world changing I can hop on when it’s mainstream.
Don’t need to be an early adopter of everything.
I think the "wait and see" crowd just doesn't comment as much, because they have no strong assertions to make (yet).
I used to be a "wait and see" person until I actually took a hard and critical look at a lot of things in the crypto space. It seems evident now that most of it is just poor reinventions of existing financial services, and in some cases (NFTs) just abject scams.
> I used to be a "wait and see" person until I actually took a hard and critical look at a lot of things in the crypto space. It seems evident now that most of it is just poor reinventions of existing financial services, and in some cases (NFTs) just abject scams.
It's pretty obvious that "crypto" (e.g. blockchain stuff) is just clever technology in search of a problem to solve. Its touts keep inventing problems for it, but of out all of them, the only one that's actually stuck is "speculative investment to throw cash at."
I don't think they'll ever succeed, because the problems they identify are already solved by existing technologies and their solutions make worse tradeoffs.
I just expect a bubble burst like the dot com bubble. What stuck was the companies with a real business case, the rest was just mania. And what we learn from that will shape the crypto field going forward.
People also miss how much money they can make... actually helping those things reach their promises!
It's like, how can a person working at a Web 2.0 nation destabilizing ad conglomerate really lob criticism at the people trying?
if Web3 were such a success they would cease talking about the future and simply show us _the_ killer app that everyone would immediately jump to. The "Web2" would be an empty space pretty soon. Yet it hasn't happened despite over a decade of hot-air, big techno-gobble-dygook and made up words invented to dazzle an ignorant audience.
But there is no such thing as a killer feature that can't be done better with what we have. And they're left with peddling NFT's, cryptokitties or MLM scams a la Dr. Ruja's "OneCoin". It's been "wE aWe vEWy close to bweakthrough" from the Ethereum grifters Buterin & Woods since the first time their garbage polluted the air.
The people at IOTA have been selling homeopathic crypto since "Kerl" and "Curl-P" while insisting that collusion resistance isn't the main goal of a hash function. Until today no explanation what has happened to their deals with CISCO, Volkswagen and Microsoft which they one day announced were implementing IOTA in their products (there was no such thing and these companies didn't know anything about these claims).
Craig Wright super-grifter continues to claim he is Satoshi and hoping he can bend reality into believing that 2+2=5 instead of simply signing a message with the old key.
There are 2 types of people in crypto: the scammers and the suckers, and sometimes they overlap because once you start believing your own scam to be reality it's only a matter of time until you're somebody else's mark.
that said,
bitcoin is a great technology for drug markets so that addicts no longer have to risk their lives with products where there is no review. It's the next best thing to legalizing drugs in societies that are still far away from that.
there are very few applications where blockchains make sense (e-sports and games, the SWIFT banking "backend"). Yet even for those a central database is a better technological, and business fit than coins and blockchains while also not being as environmentally damaging.
If all the crypto ecosystem would disappear all at once today nobody would notice (other than some people with aggressive investing habits losing their value). The world would literally just shrug and move on.
> if Web3 were such a success they would cease talking about the future and simply show us _the_ killer app that everyone would immediately jump to.
Or, in the immortal words of Linus Torvalds, "Talk is cheap. Show me the code."
> "Talk is cheap. Show me the code."
this is such an important razor[1]:
denouncing NFTs is good and honorable
here are some tips to help you on your scam-prevention journey: - 'power usage/environment' is a trap, people will goalpost move you on about proof of stake. - try to focus on what they do, which is nothing, but badly, while scamming
Exactly. Most of all these cryptocurrencies have failed and they will not survive regulations if they were to come in.
> there are very few applications where blockchains make sense (e-sports and games, the SWIFT banking "backend"). Yet even for those a central database is a better technological, and business fit than coins and blockchains while also not being as environmentally damaging.
The banks will just use Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) instead and will pick either XRP, Stellar, etc to use for that purpose.
Most cryptocurrencies failing is not an argument against them.
Most startups fail too (90% in 2019 according to Investopedia[1]). Does that mean no one should invest in, work on, or give a chance to any startups?
[1]: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/04091...
> Most cryptocurrencies failing is not an argument against them.
My whole comment already implies utility in cryptocurrencies - directly towards payments and towards the parent especially if cryptocurrency regulations were to come in the long term. (with examples)
Tons of other cryptocurrencies are going to fail once regulations arrive and realistically, those that have no serious use-case in general other than being meme or hype coins will wither away.
I guess we're not actually in disagreement then.
[off topic] addendum[1]:
A software engineer sits in a bar with a no-coiner and a socialist. A genie appears granting them a wish each.
The no-coiner wishes for all crypto & crypto-bros to be gone. His wish is granted. Nobody mentions crypto any more. The no-coiner drinks up and staggers home happy.
The socialist demands for all the billionaires to pay their taxes. His wish is granted and there are no more billionaires.
Finally the genie turns to the software engineer: "and what is your wish?"
The software engineer thinks for a while then says:
"So you're telling me all the billionaires are gone because everyone started paying taxes?", "Yepp" the genie replies.
You're also telling me that all #crypto bros are gone and nobody anymore talks about crypto, #NFT's or #blockchain? "Yepp" the genie goes again.
Software engineer turns to the barman and says:
"Well I guess I'll have a coke then".
[1] https://twitter.com/phishermensfoe/status/147322937195572019...
>And they're left with peddling NFT's
Literally every argument against image NFTs is also an argument against art. Art is not a yield producing asset. Just like NFTs can be right-clicked and saved, indistinguishable to the naked eye reproductions of expensive paintings can be ordered relatively cheaply. The idea of the 'original' is a social abstraction, just like the idea of who's the real owner of a NFT is a social abstraction.
Exactly like physical art, image NFTs are fueled by a desire to own status symbols and the eternal need to launder money, in unknown proportions. They are objectively better than physical art at both. They are better status symbols because it's easier to show other people that you own expensive NFTs than it is with real art. It's enough if your ethereum address is publicly known and it's there. There's no fraud possible. With real art, you have to go out of your way to show it - maybe by inviting others to your home, but then they may wonder whether it's real or a reproduction. For money laundering it's way easier to sell NFTs for big amounts anonymously than real art.
Those two fundamental properties also make it somewhat of an investment, if you can predict what people belonging to one, or both, of those groups are going to want in the future.
For those two reasons physical art is going to be less and less important.
>The "Web2" would be an empty space pretty soon. Yet it hasn't happened despite over a decade of hot-air
Considering your knowledge of such details as iota's hash functions, it's clear you're being intentionally misleading. Ethereum is 6 years old, and the technology to scale to global levels - zkrollups - only started to arrive in 2021.
> Literally every argument against image NFTs is also an argument against art.
It is not. It's an argument against capitalism. Don't conflate them, there's art outside of capitalism, too.
> But there is no such thing as a killer feature that can't be done better with what we have
When someone figures out how to custody financial assets on the blockchain (e.g. stocks, bonds, etc), then you can create exchanges that aren't regulated and are open 24-7. You can also create contracts that mimic synthetic derivatives.
Sure you may not like the idea but you don't have to use those exchanges. And sure things could blow up for some people, but if done correctly you wouldn't have counterparty risk and no cascading series of failures. And there would be much less appetite for bailouts if things do explode due to the murky legality and pseudonymity.
The legal and regulatory framework prevents financial innovation. Could it be done better offchain? Sure, just completely rewrite the laws
That sounds exactly like
> "wE aWe vEWy close to bweakthrough"
as described by parent.
No, it's just some legal entity that is bound by law to hold those securities in a trust that is legally owned by the contract. This is how stable coins work, although tether holds assets not necessarily the underlying currency. But other stable coins hold 1:1 reserves based on the currency they're meant to track.
Its centralized sure, the company could f up or commit fraud but there would likely be best standards and multiple options.
So basically its just the same old system with a new database?
Did you read my original comment?
> When someone figures out how to custody financial assets on the blockchain (e.g. stocks, bonds, etc), then you can create exchanges that aren't regulated and are open 24-7.
The databases are outside of the purview of the state, so they're able to get around restrictions. Why can't you gamble online, depending on the state you're in? Why can't I send money to people in Iran? Why can't I invest in a start up if I'm not accredited?
What you are describing are regulatory hurdles, do you think MySQL automatically shuts down at 9PM? Do you think stock markets dont function on holidays because, their software refuses to? Do u think govts will silently and watch while people are exercising their will on blockchain. Brother we’ve gone thru that already. Its called the internet, internet was decentralised and unregulated. Once govts and corporates started sniffing money and propaganda. It became Ad Powered, regulated, censored and controlled. Whats stopping ethereum from being taken over by US and run only smart contracts allowed by them. All pipe dreams with optimism and failure to learn from past. For me blockchain fintech is just a clumsy database for a solved problem.