[exciteabletom]

Web3 isn't solving problems that the average user cares about. The vast majority of people just care that they can read articles, watch videos, do shopping, etc...

Web3 makes these tasks more complex and slower in order to create a decentralised, privacy-preserving, cryptocurrency supporting network. No average user cares about privacy on the web or paying with anything other than fiat.

And if the user base isn't there, what company will build software to interact with Web3? Every usable browser today is made by a for-profit company.

I can see it being used for niche, nerdy communities, but that's about it. I don't think it will ever be mainstream.

[yosito]

Of all the supposed value props of crypto, "privacy" is at the bottom of the list.

[WhisperingShiba]

I think permissionless-ness is something developers and businesses will come to value greatly. Only certain technologies on the blockchain help with privacy, and most debatable make it easier to track your activity, if the user doesn't want to make the process convoluted for the explicit sake of their privacy.

Blockchain might also be attractive to users who are not developers, but are computer power users, since they can effectively rent their computer for extra money, and provide a valuable service (That they hopefully personally support) in the process.

[louloulou]

You sound like someone in the 90s talking about web1

[rewma]

> You sound like someone in the 90s talking about web1

The web became popular because it solved a myriad of problems that people cared about, from text and voice communication to meeting new people.

If you cannot come up with any real world use or purpose for a new hyped tech then I'm not sure if there is any rational basis for that hype.

And searching for problems that match a solution is not how progress happens.

You tried to compare web3 to the web in the 90s, but you unwittingly make web3 sound like the semantic web in the 90s up to now.

[WhisperingShiba]

Very much this.

It takes vision to predict the future. The people who have it are too busy making things to be making propaganda on Hackernews.

[exciteabletom]

Propaganda? I was sharing my opinion on a post that explicitly asked for it, you're welcome to disagree with it

[atatatat]

We were the first adopters of WWW, of all internet everything.

We will work the kinks out of this protocol, as well.

[rewma]

> We will work the kinks out of this protocol, as well.

It's not a protocol problem, it's a purposefulness problem.

You can have the most perfectly oiled and flawless Rube Goldberg machine, but that doesn't mean it manages to become useful because all the kinks are ironed out. At the end of the day, it's still a convoluted way to do stuff no one cares about.

[nwienert]

Hard disagree - actually the usefulness is numerous, it’s the protocol(s) I think that either doom it or fracture it’s use.

The big fundamental is it allows for platforms to share equity with their users. It also has a bunch of marginal features downstream of “I can code my treasury/board” and anonymity, but the big one is it allows for platforms to share the upside with early adopters. And if that’s the only benefit, it’s a huge one.

The problem is it has no single protocol. Browsers and http somehow unified on similar standards. I don’t know if that was a miracle, but I don’t see it happening in crypto. There’s a fractal of competition, and that’s actually bad for adoption. It has no correlate, though it’s possible bridges over bridges and a lot of hammering on the UX will eventually paper things out.

But contracts that guarantee revenue share or other types of equity share with users is a significant benefit and a new world.

Regulation May kill it as well.

[rewma]

> Hard disagree - actually the usefulness is numerous, it’s the protocol(s) I think that either doom it or fracture it’s use.

Ok I'll bite: in your opinion what is the absolute best application you associate with the web3 keyword, and is a clear unquestionable selling point?

> The big fundamental is it allows for platforms to share equity with their users.

What leads you to believe that equity sharing is not possible right now without resorting to web3 buzzwords? I mean, the only reason that stops platforms from sharing equity with anyone at all is the fact that platform owners do not want that. That is a business model consequence, not a technology limitation.

> The problem is it has no single protocol.

I don't know if you even noticed that you haven't described a single problem at all, at least one that people care about. You only talked about crypto as a solution to a problem than no one has.

And the reason why no one shares equity is quite simple: no one wants to, because the ones that do never felt blocked at all.

[nwienert]

> Ok I'll bite: in your opinion what is the absolute best application you associate with the web3 keyword, and is a clear unquestionable selling point?

Anything with user generated content. The takes on web3 are significantly smaller and you can argue why but the fact is people get to choose their platform based on public contracts. Trust is the feature, the platforms can do anything web 2 does just with better more solid terms.

> What leads you to believe that equity sharing is not possible right now without resorting to web3 buzzwords?

Because modifying the cap table is hard and controlled by a single entity, so even if they somehow jumped through all the regulatory hoops they wouldn’t have the trust.

You’re also arguing against reality. Name companies that do it without crypto, because every crypto company does.

> you haven't described a single problem at all

I guess you think Twitter, YouTube and Facebook don’t have trust problems.

> the reason why no one shares equity is quite simple

Crypto has proven this wrong already.

[rewma]

> Anything with user generated content.

I'm sorry but that is meaningless. I was hoping for a concrete, tangible example, but this sounds an awful lot like handwaving and question marks preceding the inexplicable "profit" stage.

> (...) but the fact is people get to choose their platform based on public contracts.

What exactly leads you to believe that's something anyone cares about or is even a problem that people need fixing? Right now it's more than enough to just point to a resource as a reference.

> Because modifying the cap table is hard (...)

No one even know what a "cap table" is, let alone cares about it.

I was hoping to hear about real world problems that the web3 buzzword promises to fix, but at best that's just a contrived way to shoehorn crypto as a solution to a problem that does not exist at all.

> I guess you think Twitter, YouTube and Facebook don’t have trust problems.

To the eyes of virtually everyone, no it does not. Content is posted by users, and to most checking who posted it is more than enough.

More importantly, even if people cared about that, you're trying to pass off the web3 buzzword as the only possible way to address the problem, while at most it's just a contrived way to propose one alternative approach to the issue.

> Crypto has proven this wrong already.

I'm sorry but your statement is plainly absurd. Crypto does not nor ever addressed the issue of equity at all.

If that's the very best argument you can muster to sell the web3 buzzword on it's perceived merits then I'm sorry but you've only inadvertently demonstrated once again that at best web3 is a convoluted solution to a problem that does not exist.