[jmeyer2k]

No.

Investing in crypto is very similar to learning to win at poker. It's totally possible to make a lot of money in crypto, but there is no positive impact on the world.

Because of this, nobody invests in a certain crypto because they think it will have a positive impact on the world. They only invest to make money. "Successful" Web3 startups will be the ones that focus on making their coin go up instead of focusing on making the world a better place.

Personally, I don't see a reason to invest time/money in something that doesn't help people.

[tough]

What stops you to build a decentralized app / web3 whatever that improves the world?

Maybe you can't do it with bazillions from VC, but you're certainly free to try.

I see your point though. nobody will care about your project until they see $$$ themselves...

Sad late capitalism is sad

[unilynx]

What decentralized app/web3 will improve the world that we can’t do in ‘web2’?

[waprin]

Uniswap / automated market makers / decentralized exchanges are already a “killer app” of web3.

It’s not a hypothetical, it already has billions in daily volume.

It’s true that , for any blockchain app, you could trust a third party who could use traditional database to do it faster and cheaper.

What the web3 detractors repeatedly refuse to understand is that not needing to trust a third party is a feature many people care about. By handing trust to a third party over important things like your money and your identity, you hand over a massive amount of power over yourself to them.

It’s also true that all this tech is still nascent. Big picture, ~10 years is really not that long. In many ways, technological limitations means a lot of these projects are still “toys” , just like microcomputers and Linux once were. But there is a ton of cryptography research and application that _might_ transform these from toy to the future. And again, with billions in daily volume, calling it a toy is unfair, it’s in between a toy and the future.

To clarify “not needing to trust a third party” - it’s better to phrase it as “needing to trust fewer parties and having more choice in who you trust.”

I’m amazed people can watch scam after scam from Wall St financiers and struggle to understand why some find axing the middlemen appealing.

Anyone can list 100 reasons why it won’t work long term. The question is do you use that list as a reason to write it all off, or a list of problems to solve as an engineer. HN obviously leans towards the former.

[wmf]

not needing to trust a third party is a feature many people care about

I think this is overblown. Most DeFi is illegal so people are using it because of regulatory arbitrage, not because it's trustless.

[waprin]

Most people bought bitcoin to buy weed on Silk Road , now it’s the reserve currency for a nation state.

Just because not every use case lives up to the big picture ideology and long term goals doesn’t mean there is no big picture long term goals.

A lot of modern AI exists because of GPUs which exists because people wanted higher quality zombies to shoot in their FPS games.

[moltke]

I use crypto to pay for things even though it's more expensive. I just like having the option to not need to trust anyone.

[bathtub365]

What are you buying that you don’t trust the seller in some way?

[wmf]

Yep, "good" blockchains like Reserve and Taler get zero attention because nobody's getting rich from them.

[nathias]

Untrue, I always invest because I want a project to exist and have a positive impact on the world.