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Maybe it is just my personal filter bubble, but I constantly get these "why web3 sucks" articles pushed into my timeline, while I actually had to look up what is even meant with web3 a few weeks ago.
I am starting to think it might be best to just ignore this artificial hype and not streisandeffect it by writing articles against it and thus make it somehow worthy of discussion...
Yes, every time I see this I think "stop trying to make web3 a thing. It's not a thing."
Whenever I hear web3 I want to jump off a cliff. Seriously. I love decentralization, I am currently developing an indie web platform, but crypto makes me irrationally mad. I have never been so fired up at anything. If the web becomes primarily crypto based, I will quit my job and become a ski instructor. Fuck Ethereum, the drug cryptocurrency. Fuck Smart contracts and fuck all the people who manipulate people into NFT scams. Fuck all the people who fell for NFT scams. I just want it to be over. Now back to sdf. org
Crypto is so infuriatingly good at hijacking the language of decentralization and web liberation while doing its very best to destroy what little of the internet actually is still free.
Its greatest strength was tricking the people who do (or did) actually care into working against their own interest.
it's funny how all of the "web3 is a scam" articles and websites focus completely on cryptocurrency scams aspect, and never say a word about legitimate technologies that comprise web3
it's like pointing out that there are scams on web2, therefore the entire web2 is a scam 🤦♀️
I think the problem is that crypto-currencies and block-chain have largely become synonyms for pyramid scheme scams, and if you take those out of web3 there really isn't that much worthwhile left to talk about.
there are a lot of web3 technologies that don't use any cryptocurrency: libp2p, textile stack, go-ipfs have enabled all sorts of exciting new projects to be built upon them with features like peer to peer communication, offline use, decentralization and a ton of other things
Other then IPFS (which is also tightly interwowen with Filecoin), do you have some actual examples for something not blockchain based build with these?
IPFS (which is also tightly interwowen with Filecoin)
how so? all of these technologies rely on ipfs at their core but you can use them just fine without ever touching filecoin, or even knowing what filecoin is, and there are a lot of projects based on these, some of the ones I follow or know of
anytype - uses textile, go-ipfs and ipfs-mobile, works like an note taking alternative to notion, except it has a ton of really cool capabilties like offline use, p2p sync between your devices, p2p and offline collaboration etc
berty - p2p messenger that uses libp2p and ipfs-mobile that works offline, via bluetooth, on local networks etc
peerpad - decentralized text collabortion (uses libp2p)
dtube - decentralized youtube alternative that stores videos on ipfs
Thanks for the examples. All of them seem to use IPFS though.
I am willing to go as far as IPFS being an interesting technology, but AFAIK it predates the idea of web3 by quite a bit and can be used without it just fine.
As for being interwoven with Filecoin... yes currently it can be used without, but the venture capital funded company that is developing both IPFS and Filecoin is clearly aiming to use Filecoin as the preferred IPFS storage backend, meaning that if they succeed with establishing both, it will be nearly impossible to use IPFS without also using (at least in proxy) Filecoin.
most of these projects are separate from protocol labs, so if they seize to exist you can still be using these libraries/projects
and while yes, they are definitely going to be leaning into filecoin, i don't see this as a problem: part of the appeal of ipfs is its modularity and flexibility, for example, there's a theoretical google docs-like ipfs-based app, and they're offering either p2p sync or sync to an ipfs node on your own server, or they offer paid backups via filecoin, it's a perfect business model in my opinion... many ipfs based projects have already adopted this model
without its modularity and flexibility (purely restricted to filecoin) ipfs is nothing but a glorified storage solution, and would lose most of its appeal
Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't IPFS have build-in replication of data to other IPFS nodes? At least using it purely on a single node on your own server seems useless (and p2p in general is too impractical to be of much use).
So as a result you as an IPFS user are likely to end up either using Filecoin directly or indirectly by using another IPFS node where someone else pays for the storage (more likely then not in Filecoin if Protocol labs gets their way).
Now, given that Filecoin is both an ecological disaster and primarily benefits some of the worst venture capitalists (due to extensive pre-minting for them), I would rather avoid this technology all together...
by default ipfs doesn't offer any data replication guarantees
if you spin up a regular ipfs node and do nothing with it, you will get practically zero data flowing in and out of it, excluding a few kilobytes of metadata that is broadcasting your peer id to other nodes and downloading some distributed hashtable data about which nodes have what files
you can pin any file, and then your node will broadcast that it has that file and others can now download it, if they choose to do so, and that file will remain on their computer for a few hours until garbage collection gets rid of it
iiuc this is basically where "involuntary" data replication ends, so for your file to remain on ipfs you either have to pin it yourself, get others to get interested in it and also pin it, or pay a hosting provider to pin it for you, or use filecoin, but that comes with its whole separate api and other stuff
about the ecological aspect of filecoin i'm not really sure, but I thought they aren't using proof of work, rather proof of space, which doesn't carry much ecological consequences, other than the energy to run the drives and the computer they're attached to, but since these drives are used for legitimate applications of storing data, it's not any worse environmentally than any other cloud storage provider
primarily benefits some of the worst venture capitalists
was there some shady stuff going on? i've heard that filecoin has had some weird stuff going on, but never really paid close attention to it... in theory, though, filecoin should work against concentration of power in the hands of VCs and big companies, because even if there were one massive company that hosts 95 % of data using filecoin, there is no vendor lock in like there is with aws or google cloud, so anybody can come in and set up their filecoin operation, you only need to pay for hardware to enter the game and that's it
Thanks for the clarification regarding replication on IPFS... but I guess you agree that a single node storage on IPFS doesn't really have much positive advantage over just putting it on a basic http server?
about the ecological aspect of filecoin i’m not really sure, but I thought they aren’t using proof of work, rather proof of space, which doesn’t carry much ecological consequences, other than the energy to run the drives and the computer they’re attached to, but since these drives are used for legitimate applications of storing data, it’s not any worse environmentally than any other cloud storage provider
This is also what I thought until I looked into the actual hardware requirements of Filecoin, which require a hoster to purchase the very latest AFAIK ~~Intel~~ AMD based hardware (for the required cryptography). In addition Filecoin has a really high overall storage need Vs. usable storage, something like 100:1 if I recall correctly (edit: seems more like 20:1). This together means that Filecoin requires the replacement of huge amount of hardware and most of it is wasted due to the inefficiency.
was there some shady stuff going on? i’ve heard that filecoin has had some weird stuff going on, but never really paid close attention to it…
Something like 30% of the total possible volume of Filecoins was pre-minted and exclusively sold to accredited investors, which primarily included some really shady venture capitalist firms. Edit: the problem there being not that they could control the network, but rather that they will get absurdly rich if Filecoin ever takes off.
but I guess you agree that a single node storage on IPFS doesn’t really have much positive advantage over just putting it on a basic http server?
same as with bittorrent? a single seeder isn't much better than just setting up a regular http server, but if more people decide to download and seed it, then you have infinite horizontal scale in bandwidth and resilience, all in a decentralized manner, same thing with ipfs
it's already been used for large scale backups by sci hub and libgen
This is also what I thought until I looked into the actual hardware requirements of Filecoin, which require a hoster to purchase the very latest AFAIK Intel based hardware (for the required cryptography).
i don't really see a problem in that, if they are going to compete with enterprise grade storage offers then you need good hardware to run it
Filecoin has a really high overall storage need Vs. usable storage, something like 100:1 if I recall correctly.
that seems awfully high to have any semblance of practicality, could you provide a source on that?
Something like 30% of the total possible volume of Filecoins was pre-minted and exclusively sold to accredited investors, which primarily included some really shady venture capitalist firms.
yeah, pre-mining sucks, but that's just how ICOs work, no?
For example, a 32GiB expands to ~480GiB during the sealing process.
Source. (And yes I stand corrected and it is only about 10:1 on a single miner at least, but I think there is also some further significant network replication involved). Edit: also note the significant other hardware requirements. Edit2: now I remember where the higher ratio came from... typically commercial data-storage is done on Raid6 or similar, so storing something 10:1 on an raid system gives you the a even worse ratio, but maybe not 100:1.
Yeah, ICOs suck, but that is just how Capitalism works, no? /s
I wouldn't call them "synonyms for pyramid scheme"s, but what I'm sure about is that people that is into this only cares for the amount of money they might gain for shilling some kind of seemingly interesting project that could change the web itself. A lot of money. A LOT OF MONEY. The only thing I see is just a bunch of slobbering dogs chasing tasty projects to invest in.
Not convinced, lots of good points are made, but lots of misleading and biased statements as well. There are many solutions to these problems mentioned and the stuff about the ethereum hack is weird. Eth wasnt hacked, a smart contract was. 51% attacks are not common but there are ways to eliminate this, namely replacing A blockchain with a directed acyclic graph. Like this shit is so half baked that it loses all its weight. I with the author stuck to what they actuallly knew.
Like all the stuff about whales dictating voting out comes are facts. The reality of it all is that some things are true decentralization. Like the ENS and ONS being able to replace central domain autorities. Of course there is a need for governance and human oversight ( like having voting based on verified identities not $ to determine if someone is abusing the system ). It also makes phishing and MITM attacks impossible.
Can we admit where there are merits while still calling out garbage like voting with money, NFT art, blockchain games etc? Its really that simple critisize what needs the attention. I think what makes people really mad is that its capitalism. And I think people are right to be mad about it.
I agree with everything you've mentioned here. TBH, I'm surprised that energy consumption was not brought up when it comes to heavier reliance on blockchain and crypto.
Seems like the primary pain points are, as you mentioned, capitalism and a premature tech fear. Environmental impact is just such an easy point to make here, it seems weird that it's never brought up in the original post
I agree, however I am hopeful. Majority of the 'proof-of-work' mining for Bitcoin comes from renewable energy. But it does create unnecessary wastage.
There are other other eco-friendly blockchains that use a 'proof-of-stake' model, where excessive mining is NOT required. Ethereum, the second largest in market cap ('value') is currently migrating to this model. And there are many other new blockchains coming out such as Solana and Avalanche which is efficient (enough), with proof-of-stake and other hybrid technology from day one.
like having voting based on verified identities not $ to determine if someone is abusing the system
Not sure that would help. In the best-case scenario, you end up with dictatorship of the majority which is not exactly a happy outcome in general ("minorities" tend to be persecuted, at least in political systems ruled this way). In the worst-case scenario, you end up with intelligence services and mafia making up thousands of fake identities to game your system.
It also makes phishing and MITM attacks impossible.
In theory, in practice just look how many malware have been doing MiTM/phishing for crypto wallets...
I think what makes people really mad is that its capitalism. And I think people are right to be mad about it.
Indeed! But blockchain as we know it is a libertarian dream of commerce without regulation, i.e. a capitalist nightmare. When i read about Brave and other startups with tokens to fund the web, i can't help but think the web needs less financial incentives, not more.
I'm not talking about phishing in wallets. im talking about signing Content ID with NFT domains which means the content directed to when you go to website.eth is exactly what was published by the owner on IPFS a decentralized filesystem. meaning the web can be peer to peer with security and bandwidth optimization in mind while also being secure.
Ah yes that's a very interesting property indeed! What do you think about other decentralized naming schemes like .onion, .i2p or the GNU Name System? (not talking about Handshake because the design is very similar to .eth)
I personally find the design of GNS much superior from a technical perspective: it's backwards-compatible with DNS, and via hyper-hyper local root breaks Zooko's triangle by dissociating human-meaningful names to global machine-generated public-key-addressed names. Clever stuff!
Indeed! But blockchain as we know it is a libertarian dream of commerce without regulation, i.e. a capitalist nightmare.
It is indeed nightmarish. To think that out there, somewhere, someone is selling something they own to someone who wants it for a price that both agree to and there's no government man standing there making sure that the transaction occurs in the ways that we want (namely, with blessed Divine Regulation, the magic that creates such utopias as we're all familiar with in the 20th century and early 21st).
It must be stopped. By any means necessary.
I really disagree with terms like "Web 2.0" and "Web3". The web is not versioned, so please stop make it up. No technology needs a new version of the Web because it is a loosely defined collection of technology. Sure, version jumps like ipv4 to ipv6 makes sense, but not for the web as a whole.
The term "Web3" implies that all "Web3" technologies are bundled. I suggest, we should avoid the term "Web3" at all and all the time someone comes up with it, we should call it bullshit.
If we want to talk about crypto or decentralization, sure, but I think we should separate that from the term "Web3".
And, to strengthen my point, in this thread people are saying that there are good parts of "Web 3" while all the criticism is against the bad parts. Yes, because we let ourselves be baited into that discussion. We can be against crypto-blockchains and for decentralization. The term "Web 3" should not be used.
Alternative sufgestion: we call the fediverse "web3" (or even web4, cause higher is better).
LoL, I like that. Let's claim, that we are already on post blockchain web 4.2 technology.
When I heard web3 on a podcast last week I actually hoped they were talking about the fedi. Nope, just same stuff plus AI. These labels just help some get funding and others to sell products.
The web was already decentralised 🤷🏻♂️
Anyway it's like trying to keep normies out of TikTok, you can't stop progress
Using social network smartphone apps is as normie as it gets. Idk, maybe that was the point.
you can’t stop progress
Laugh in autoritarian regime
criticizing tiktok (ccp ties) on lemmy.ml, very bold
This title sound like a protest slogan, Awsome
I don't think the article is being objective, it is rather speculative and does not make a very good use of the terminology.
I don't know. Everything I've heard about Web3, aside from blockchain and cryptocurrency, is about a free web that transcends the need for central platforms.
Decentralized finance, Decentralized marketplaces, Decentralized social media...
Maybe I'm romantacizing the idea too much, but it personally represents the next step of the political revolution that we've been witnessing.
I agree, I see web3 as decentralized platforms. I host matrix-synapse and once I get time to do it I am going to host peertube, mastodon, pixelfed, and lemmy instances. I do not really do much with crypto except occasionally invest a really small amount of money in it.
I would like to be able to use crypto for transactions, but I know that most places do not accept it just yet. I have had a bank not be able to override a fraud warning at a grocery store that is a national chain. Also for international currency transfers. Banks do not make this cheap or easy, but I can send crypto almost instantly and the fees are basically non existent.
I find it very funny that a lot of people in this instance seem to be vehemently against blockchain because of pyramid schemes and other scam as if cold hard cash (or any currency for that matter) doesn't suffer from the same problem.
Cryptohaters are going to hate. Web3 is a bad term though. Gav Wood came up with the term and it kinda stuck.