[ghostwreck]

Very excited for more people working on identity and ownership. Everyone calls web3 a grift because the stack is too young to see the truly useful applications, so all we've seen are some scammy NFTs and coin drops. We're at web browser state of 1993 where the core pieces have just launched but nothing has been proven.

It's actually very hard to develop a real app in smart contracts. We're missing the ability to store private data. Tooling is highly lacking for anything beyond deploying a simple 100 line NFT contract. As soon as these problems are solved, we'll start to see some traditional applications rebuilt in a way that gives users ownership of their own data.

That's the goal of web3 to me, not specifically the exact implementation of whether we're on a blockchain or doing peer to peer file storage. Web3 means I have all the rights to my data, and ideally, applications can live on beyond their creators.

[mmastrac]

> We're missing the ability to store private data.

This is solved off-blockchain.

> Tooling is highly lacking for anything beyond deploying a simple 100 line NFT contract.

This is solved off-blockchain.

> we'll start to see some traditional applications rebuilt in a way that gives users ownership of their own data.

This is solved off-cloud, or if you pay for storage. I can download my photos and documents locally from Google Drive just fine.

> Web3 means I have all the rights to my data

You already do, if you store it off-cloud or pay for storage

> applications can live on beyond their creators.

This is solved off-cloud. I can still run executables from the 90s.

[rvz]

> > We're missing the ability to store private data.

I don't think anyone here said 'store private data on blockchain'.

> This is solved off-cloud, or if you pay for storage. I can download my photos and documents locally from Google Drive just fine.

Better not have your child's photos on Google or iCloud, and possibly reported on your device due to excessive CSAM checks [0] [1].

Their solutions have created more problems in the background which are no better, and will get worse with the big tech companies over time.

Skiff looks like it is going in the right direction so far in how they are using IPFS, ENS, Mail, etc. [2] Watching them closely.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil...

[1] https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/14230711866160005...

[2] https://skiff.com

[ceejayoz]

> Better not have your child's photos on Google or iCloud, and possibly reported on your device due to excessive CSAM checks.

If a single "it went badly enough to wind up in the NYT" case means Google is a no-go, I've got really bad news for you about blockchains.

[rvz]

> If a single "it went badly enough to wind up in the NYT" case means Google is a no-go,

I think we are beyond 'one' case going wrong with Google services like YouTube, Drive, etc which the result of automated bans have made people realize that Google owns whatever you put on their services and can remove whatever they 'think' violates their ToS.

> I've got really bad news for you about blockchains.

Yet, I made no mention about or storing data on the 'blockchain', since IPFS is not a blockchain.

[smoldesu]

Then solve it off-cloud. These companies draw clear lines on acceptable use, and you agree to their TOS. You reserve no right to have service restored when you violate those terms, period.

[rvz]

> You reserve no right to have service restored when you violate those terms, period.

You're right. Don't complain if Google Drive, iCloud, etc bans you via an AI or bot automatically over an alleged ToS violation. Same with Twitter and the rest of them or even payment companies like PayPal. When your account is banned, that is that. Period.

As these services are free to do business with whoever they want, you are free to choose alternatives to these services, since at the end of the day, they will never change.

[fariszr]

Yup, Skiff seems interesting, unfortunately it doesn't seem to be open source.

[mNovak]

> This is solved off-cloud > You already do, if you store it off-cloud > This is solved off-cloud

Yes, but I think the goal is to have these things AND be on-cloud

[techdragon]

And I would like my cake to re-appear after eating it. But it doesn’t happen.

While I’m not anti-web3 I’m sceptical the promised results will appear not for technical reasons but due to misaligned incentives. At the end of the day someone has to pay for the storage or compute and we’re back to systems of exploitative extraction by proxy. Your personal data pays for service X via advertising and you pay directly for service Y by volunteering cryptocurrency based information exchange tokens so that blah blah blah it’s normally just tokens automatically created to track what you do which makes it just the same as advertised, arguably more creepy.

It’s a very lofty technical goal, I fear will fail for very normal human psychological reasons.

[nwienert]

Less space than a nomad.

[mmastrac]

Not every criticism is wrong, and that particular review would probably have been right if it was anyone but Apple behind the launch.

[nwienert]

Or Dropbox:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

I think my main point is it doesn’t matter if other things do it alright already. There’s a lot of energy behind putting together the whole package in the crypto area.

I’m not saying it will end up working, but I am saying that any critique that tries to say it won’t work because disparate things X, Y and Z exist already is inherently unconvincing because it never comes down to whether some features exist in some form already. It’s always the final packaging, branding, and all sorts of vague appeals and ideals that give energy to something. And crypto, for all the leeches, certainly also has a lot of energy, funding, and smart people, and more than enough of appeals and ideals.

[mmastrac]

Web3 is a long way from either Dropbox or iPods. My point is that all of this stuff is done better and with much more polish in databases and existing tech. Perhaps one day web3 will come up with a killer app, but everything so far has been just enriching someone with a vested interest.

[nawgz]

> Everyone calls web3 a grift because the stack is too young

I don't think that's true. I think people call it a grift because "identity" and "ownership" are not topics that require whatever "Web3" constitutes to be implemented, and the idea that we require web3 to allow a user to "have all the rights to [their] data" is equally facetious.

[jl6]

> because the stack is too young

The components that get called Web3 may be younger than some other parts of the internet, but they have been available for nearly a decade now (depending on when you start counting), and in that time I haven’t seen any useful applications emerge. Well, maybe a few that are useful to criminal gangs.

How long do we have to wait?

[dumbfoundded]

Not too much longer. I think the big difference is now there are private chains coming out like Aleo, Aztec, and Espresso that use zero knowledge proofs. You can think of them as private Ethereum much like Monero is a private Bitcoin. They've only been possible to build in the last couple of years.

Honestly, I think 98% of Web3 is garbage. It's a worse system than our current financial system. I founded a web3 company in early 2022 based on a new way to put data onchain in a permissionless & trustless way to make smart contracts more useful. People don't actually care about decentralization so we pivoted a couple months after our raise.

Our team explored the space in depth by speaking with established founders and execs of many protocols and companies in the space. It's almost all driven by speculation for imaginary use cases. We went back to basics and asked, "Really, what is the point of this tech existing?" IMHO, the only reason for this tech to exist is privacy.

Right now, there's no private digital cash. I believe the ability to purchase things anonymously is a fundamental right. To me it's the same as private communication. Right now there's no private way to digitally send money. BTC & ETH seek to make this worse by making every transaction public instead of concealed by a trusted third party. I personally believe it's socially important that we figure out stable private digital cash.

Monero/Zcash don't solve the problem because they fluctuate wildly and are largely driven by speculation. Our long term goal is to create a private p2p venmo using a stablecoin. There are definitely up and downsides of privacy as there are with any freedom. Scientology wouldn't exist without freedom of religion, neo-nazi marches wouldn't exist without freedom of speech. All of the illegal activity on the internet wouldn't exist without encrypted communication. Nonetheless, I think the social benefits of empowering individuals outweigh the costs and I don't see any other technology capable of delivering private digital payments.

[ETH_start]

The blockchain was completely novel when it emerged in 2009. It needs an entirely new toolset, and major upgrades, to become widely useful, just as the early internet did when it emerged in the 1970s.

[ipaddr]

Like what twitter, facebook, instagram? What is useful to you?

[classified]

> How long do we have to wait?

Until Godot finally arrives.

[rakoo]

> Web3 means I have all the rights to my data, and ideally, applications can live on beyond their creators.

I don't understand how this isn't already solved by existing FLOSS

[jchanimal]

> Web3 means I have all the rights to my data, and ideally, applications can live on beyond their creators.

Thanks for this, I agree. For those of us working on the application stack, web3 is about human rights, and building global scale utilities that are run by networks not companies.

If this view of web3 is alien to you, I suggest starting some place like this blog post: https://jaygraber.medium.com/web3-is-self-certifying-9dad77f...