[kkielhofner]

Serious question because you seem to have a very good handle on this.

Thirteen years after the release of bitcoin. Seven for Ethereum. Both of these technologies had the benefit of building on each other (and many others), ubiquitous internet connectivity, social media, mobile, etc.

Yet all of it is still nowhere near ready for mass-consumption. How is it possible that technologies/platforms with all of the advantages I mentioned are significantly underperforming mass adoption compared to any other significant technology created over the past 30 years?

Reminds me of “the year of the Linux desktop”.

[rglullis]

The difficult part of decentralized tech like this is that we can not hide its complexity into any kind of abstraction. Decentralization, by definition, means that no node in the network is different from each other. Because of this lack of specialization, the system as a whole is more robust but the failure modes for each individual node multiply.

Decentralized systems do not benefit from "efficiencies of scale", but the opposite, they force every actor to duplicate work, execute functions, etc, etc.

> Reminds me of “the year of the Linux desktop”.

You know what? I think it is a good analogy, but not in the way you think it is. I think using "mass-adoption" as a measure of success for web3 is as stupid as using to measure "Desktop Linux" as a measure for FOSS success.

I think what makes web3 interesting is that it gives options, even if most people think that it is not the "ideal" alternative.

Centralized alternatives can and should be used whenever possible. They are cheaper, more efficient and do not require everyone to become an expert. But there will always be cases where the centralized alternatives are broken (Google's algorithmic approach to solve problems at scale), corrupt (governments/institutions that abuse their power) or hostile to the users (Big Tech exploitation of data privacy to optimize for eyeballs, Apple's "my way or the highway" when it comes to consumer electronics, etc).

I'm using "Linux on the desktop" for 15 years already, but it's not because I think it was a "better desktop". I am using it to because it is the only alternative that doesn't force me to sacrifice some principles and because it lets me avoid dealing with MS/Apple shit.

Similarly, this is why we should work on web3: not to try to replace the existing web, but to have an option that lets us avoid systems created (and controlled) by centralized institutions that might not be working in our best interests.

[kkielhofner]

Fair enough. I’ve been using Linux on the desktop since 1997, FYI.

As long as you have reasonable expectations web3 exists as a choice that makes sense to me and, at the rate things are going, Web3 as a choice looks to me a lot like Linux on the desktop.

Problem is there is going to be a lot of heartbreak if web3 tops out at 2.5% market share in 30+ years like Linux on the desktop has. That said 2.5% is a lot better than the <1% anything blockchain related sees today (after 13 years).

[rglullis]

> Problem is there is going to be a lot of heartbreak if web3

Heartbreak by whom? Bitcoin maxis? Superstonks losers who all parrot things about the inevitable dominance from "their" pet project? ICO/NFT "investors"?

There is no shortage of people like me who are working on web3 and keep warning (or trying to warn) the general public that web3 is not about getting rich. If people don't want to listen, it's on them.