[philippz]

Without giving you a monologue, I'll give you some food for thought in a very few statements.

1. The internet you know today allowed people to connect and share information globally.

2. Over the years, we've found value in digital things and may, thus, call them assets: e.g., data, media, and information/knowledge.

3. We have no way to deal with digital assets, which has implications and inefficiencies. DRM was a symptom & soft way to deal with this problem.

4. While the internet connects globally, it is not made to reflect ownership on a global level. Real ownership either doesn't exist or is not transparent. And while privacy is important, ownership should at least be cryptographically provable.

5. Blockchains do not aim to replace the internet or your database; they are a layer on top of the internet, giving us a new foundation to rethink and rebuild how we deal with digital value creation.

In some way, it will bring humanity closer on a global level.

On top of that, there are many philosophic, societal, and idealistic ideas. A lot of them require or trigger a systemic change—many of them we might never see happening, at least not in our lifetime.

If you want to learn more, you need to dig in.

[56friends]

> we've found value in digital things and may, thus, call them assets: e.g., data, media, and information/knowledge

> We have no way to deal with digital assets

Are you writing an ad for a new crypto platform that is definitely not a scam?

There are literally people on the Internet who are able to deal with data, media, information and knowledge without ever touching crypto. Amazing, right?

[philippz]

Eh no, I'm giving you, step by step, a reason why we need blockchains.

[phpnode]

You wrote a lot of words but did not answer the question

[philippz]

Because the question needs to be revised. It is not about what you can do with an append only database vs. blockchain. That's not reflecting its purpose.

[phpnode]

Ok, please could you list some tangible, practical and cost effective use cases for blockchain that are not better solved with other technologies?

[philippz]

* Insurances (e.g. your travel insurance) are contracts. They should be digital, standardized, on a public ledger, so that I can travel anywhere and prove that I have one instead of having to bring, a fakeable piece of paper.

* If I resell my phone, transfering the remaining guarantee and/or insurance should be nothing else then a transaction. On the blockchain that's 10x more efficient than the status quo.

* If an artist sells his art the first time for $10, and the person resells it for 10000$, then the artist should be compensated too. Royalty mechanisms can solve for that and avoid secondary markets or at least create a more beneficial secondary.

There are an endless amount of examples which will make a lot of things more efficient, transparent and enforce standardization on a global level. Long way to go, but absolutely worth it.

[hiq]

As usual, all of these "use cases" suffer from the problem at the boundaries (see also Oracle problem), namely that you can automate everything on the blockchain you're using, but once you're back in the real world you no longer have any guarantee. Your new layer of abstraction just leaves you with a more brittle system.

* insurances: you still need somebody outside the smart contract that needs to connect it to what happens. You've just moved the trust from one place to another, and you're not better off.

* transferring money is faster in many countries than it is with (e.g.) BTC when you include the wait for the confirmation blocks. It's also bound to become faster and cheaper, while many blockchains (especially BTC) seem stuck with their processing time. Even countries with slow bank transfers now tend to have a fast solution, like Zelle in the US. Add problems like volatility of the cryptocurrency with the respect to the currency that actually matters, high (and volatile) fees, and transfers via cryptocurrencies is only attractive in a few countries and will only remain so as long as these countries do not improve.

* with art you again have the same boundary problem: the blockchain you use doesn't know what's happening, and only the law will resolve your conflicts.

> efficient, transparent and enforce standardization

So far the blockchain systems have been less efficient than non-blockchain ones they purported to replace, see the usual comparison with the Visa network for example.

Transparency and standardization are orthogonal to the use of a blockchain: using one doesn't mean you can't be opaque or follow any standard.

[philippz]

But this is only because businesses have yet to be built around this technology. These things will change. We are super early. We should not build these use cases everyone is asking for right now. The tech is still early and has to figure out many things. There is a lot of innovation happening on the base- and interoperability level, and it needs a lot more abstraction (e.g., network and account abstraction) to make things more usable.

Standardization also plays a huge role, and yes, in many ways, it's a technological chicken-and-egg problem whereby systems have to work with each other and the chain in a way that makes intermediaries as obsolete as possible.

The transfer speed of money or the general transaction speed - well, that's something that is being solved as we speak. These systems (e.g. Ethereum) have to mature, and many ways are being explored, using known principles like separation of concerns, e.g., separating settlement, execution, and data layers - but in a decentralized manner.

The public and many entrepreneurs need to understand how early this tech is and rush use cases that don't add value as of now. You must go deep and understand that this has to grow from the bottom up.

[anonymouskimmer]

> Insurance

All blockchain proves is that you have access to someone's insurance key. While it would be a bit more difficult or costly than faking a card, it's not impossible. And most places I've been to don't even care about the card or the insurance number, they just ask for my regular ID and insurance provider to verify with.

> resell my phone

Two things: 1) The status quo could be that the new owner has the serial number of the phone. The fact that it isn't this simple (if it really isn't this simple) is because the seller doesn't want to make it that simple. 2) Insurance is particular to a person and their activities. For things such as aftermarket phone insurance the price you pay for the insurance will be based in part on your individual risks. This is obviously not transferable.

> Art

Royalty mechanisms aren't controlled by the artist, and can be, and have been, eliminated by marketplaces. https://www.forbes.com/sites/leeorshimron/2022/10/24/nft-cre...

[philippz]

I just gave some examples. Tech is early, and the businesses around this new environment still have to be built. It's kind of a chicken-and-egg problem.

It's very early, as I stated in another answer on the same comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=philippz#34479955

[Oxidation]

> If an artist sells his art the first time for $10, and the person resells it for 10000$, then the artist should be compensated too.

This is far from axiomatic[1].

Also, presumably you can move up a level of abstraction and sell the identity that bought the artwork for $10000. The blockchain doesn't need to know that the keys have changed hands.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

[JumpCrisscross]

This dodging is fodder for folks who seek to ban crypto, or at least ring fence it from the money and banking system.