Ask HN: Is Web 3.0 just crypto or something more? Whenever I search and learn for web 3.0 people limit it to blockchain based solutions and apps. However, the core ethos of web 3.0 is about decentralisation, shouldn't it also encompensate technologies like edge computing which are decentralising ownership of compute and data back to devices. |
That doesn't mean it isn't something new and useful though, just like web 2 was.
Supposedly web 3.0 would fix this problem by making sure decision power is decentralized. Will it deliver? I personally doubt it, because it's easy to create an anonymous oligarchy under an apparent layer of decentralization. Still, I'm sure some applications will succeed.
1) Either the decentralized software system can't easily be updated without true consensus - which will make it slow and cumbersome (like bitcoin) or there will be a central authority that can just change the rules at any point - which will make it centralized (like Ethereum Classic vs Ethereum fork). Every web 3.0 related tech that I've peeked at looks to be like the latter - it claims to be decentralized, but is actually controlled by some central authority that is authoring the whole thing.
2) Governments aren't going to stop enforcing laws just because the activity moves onto a blockchain. Governments will most likely be slow to react, sure - but ultimately all these decentralized encrypted bits flow through a cable that the government can just cut. Wireless signals aren't an answer either, because the signal can be located and the antenna owner introduced to a wrench. A lot of web 3.0 promises that I've seen seem to either implicitly or even explicitly promise freedom from government policy, which I think is naive at best.
What I see blockchains enabling (to what degree, tbd) is ownership of digital assets without a central party. Take concert tickets, for example. Imagine a world where transaction fees are nominal and blockchains are scalable. An artist/venue can mint tickets and have people buy them directly from them, no TicketMaster with 20% "convenience" fees needed. Now, of course, there will exist a product (probably a winner takes-all, as usual), that will serve as the UI to mint the tickets. But a significant value add of such products, the validation of tickets via the authority of their name, will be replaced by the blockchain. I don't know exactly what that'll look like, but I don't think that's insignificant.
Can you elaborate a bit? Are you saying that ultimately things start looking like competing groups or that they start looking like a single group?
But decentralization isn't anything new: decentralized peer-to-peer networks have existed for a long time (Napster, BitTorrent, Tor). Calling decentralized technologies "web3" implies that they are new, not just revived.
Also, you don't have to go fully decentralized to avoid the extreme moderation of YouTube, Twitter, etc. Plenty of centralized forums exist which allow controversial or even full alt-right content, and generally the "centralized" internet of Cloudflare and registrars/ISPs won't take you down unless you're especially toxic or illegal. This could change in the future, so decentralized solutions are very important, but usually only as a sort of backup.
The web will definitely evolve until it deserves a new denotation "Web 3" distinct from "Web 2". But I don't think it will be the web3 everyone is talking about now, I think it will be something else.
Maybe a consent mechanism to use other's data in privacy safe manner, where anyone can build their analytics models and people can choose which one to follow or choose. Seems like a interesting proposition.
But cryptobros are all about secondary markets. So as soon as you give permission to your data to an entity they'll copy it off-chain (you can't stop them if they can read it) and bundle it up for resale.
All this does it flip the problem. Instead of a singular entity that "owns" the data, everyone owns it. So instead of having no privacy from the singular entity with a wide reach you've got no privacy from anyone.
Decentralisation of internet was there since the very start of the World Wide Web.
The first internet during era of ARPANET was decentralised and it evolved into giant monolithic cloud to to appease the economies of scale.
In recent times, we have seen a lot of limitations and vulnerabilities of our dependence on the cloud counting from data breaches, hacks to outages. But since Cloud has become a single point of failure.
There are tens of billions of devices on earth having capabilities far exceeding the Great Cloud, yet they are completely wasted because we insist on using the data-centers to do everything.
It is high time that we realize the ceiling and limitations of the Great Cloud and move towards a decentralized cloud where the devices in our hands are the powerhouses.
A very interesting blog on the same: https://stratechery.com/2021/internet-3-0-and-the-beginning-...
> Retroshare is a free and open-source peer-to-peer communication and file sharing app based on a friend-to-friend network built on GNU Privacy Guard. Optionally, peers may communicate certificates and IP addresses to and from their friends.
> RetroShare is a decentralized, private, secure, cross-platform, communication toolkit. RetroShare provides file sharing, chat, messages, forums, channels and more.
> encompensate technologies like edge computing which are decentralising ownership of compute and data back to devices.
I've been working on just that [1], and I think many other projects are as well. If you stop focusing on the 'value' of 'coins' in the market and, instead, narrow in on the merits of the underlying technology, I think you'll quickly find that all the building blocks are there to get to this decentralized ownership model we are all seeking so eagerly.
It's pretty important to understand that the concept of web3 has been used by people who want to be in the cool trend of the day. As a result, it's definition has become really loose.
To me, and arguably to the people who have been working on web3 all these years, web3 is the application of decentralized technology to the web. It uses concepts such as federated platforms, blockchain, content addressing, to make the web less reliant on the major web players.
It's a mix of technologies, and an ideology that seeks to change the shape of the architecture of web apps.
In that sense, crypto is not part of web3. It is similar in terms of technology and ideals, but crypto isn't specifically a web technology.
You can still just do something that you authenticate using metamask or some other form of DID without using blockchain for anything else and still call your application web3, and I think this is a good distinction to make. Metamask is really good as an identity provider that is always online and doesn't require a centralized party, you can still get value from it without touching the finance part at all.
What is a dApp? https://twitter.com/TylerJewell/status/1474468145704280064?s...
What are the investment opptys for an infra investor? https://twitter.com/TylerJewell/status/1474468607295832069?s...
What are various people saying about Web3? https://twitter.com/TylerJewell/status/1474468866101157889?s...
This enables composition between services more freely than oauth.
There are voices, that Web 3.0 is the same as the DWeb - the distributed web. Like IPFS, which might be indeed a solution against DDOS attacks and censoring. [1]
On the other hand, there are people who think that "The promise of a decentralized and trustless future is forever just that: a promise, and in the future." [2]
1) https://decrypt.co/resources/how-to-use-ipfs-the-backbone-of...
https://www.jasonrexilius.com/articles/understanding-web3.ht...
So yes, it is a crypto thing in the sense that it uses blockchain technology as the storage medium (sortof). You still need somewhere to store the data, but you can put pointers to those storage locations on chain.
Web2: Twitter knows the URL to your avatar and decided what it is (usually they listen to you).
Web3: The blockchain knows the URL to your avatar. You decide what it is and nobody can (practically) stop you.
A blockchain knows some URL recorded in the transaction. You have to hope whatever service you want to use cares about that blockchain and the URL actually points to a usable and accessible resource. You can't store the avatar itself without it being stupid expensive so all you've got space for is a URL.
The same exact thing could be done with a regular URL. You point $random_service to your avatar URL or even a vCard and it can access your data. No rainforests need to be burnt down or polar bears need to be drowned.
“Web3: “user-generated authority, enabled by self-certifying web protocols.” A superset of technologies that include blockchains, but are not limited to them.
Or we can just use “Self-Certifying Web Protocols” (SCWP).”
https://twitter.com/arcalinea/status/1474124531895713792?s=2...
Ethereum's chain is about a terabyte and the total compute power is less than a single raspberry pi. So you can't store a meaningful amount of data on it without insane fees nor can you do much in the way of processing. This means anything interesting exists off-chain.
If interesting things exist off-chain...there's not much utility in having a blockchain at all. It's just a slow expensive ledger with no off-chain authority. Even if a transaction points to some content addressing P2P resource (IPFS etc), that content only exists while someone is hosting it from some machine(s) somewhere. When it stops being pinned (or conceptual equivalent) the record on the blockchain is worthless.
I think this is where some of the confusion and skepticism comes from. Often in W3 discussions there seems to be a push to find a way to use crypto rather than an explanation of a resource, period. If a decentralized product includes blockchain or crypto, I'm immediately skeptical and expect a good explanation for why the product can't exist without it. Usually it seems like the product doesn't need it or could be built on some other option.
I'm all for decentralized and federated solutions, but they do tend to be slower and more resource-intensive. Blockchain most of all.
Absolutely. In the project I linked to, I'm using DHT and torrent protocols to deliver decentralization.
That said, we run into an issue in a decentralized system called Zooko's trilemma [1] when it comes to naming. Names need to be human readable, secure and decentralized. Using public keys, this isn't made possible.
> Often in W3 discussions there seems to be a push to find a way to use crypto rather than an explanation of a resource, period. If a decentralized product includes blockchain or crypto, I'm immediately skeptical and expect a good explanation for why the product can't exist without it. Usually it seems like the product doesn't need it or could be built on some other option.
In the case here, I opted to use the handshake naming protocol. Handshake's use case makes sense as decentralized networks are subject to sybil attack [1], so a free for all naming system doesn't make sense. Handshake is one of the blockchain projects I admire specifically because the blockchain project solves a problem that has limited the success of decentralized systems until now, and the purpose of the coin is to limit the ability for an attacker to take over all the names.
> I'm all for decentralized and federated solutions, but they do tend to be slower and more resource-intensive. Blockchain most of all.
I think this depends on the functionality. In the case of the handshake blockchain, lookups are faster since data is local. On the other hand, you're absolutely right as DHT is very laggy.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko%27s_triangle
[2] "A Sybil attack is defined as a small number of entities counterfeiting multiple peer identities so as to compromise a disproportionate share of the system."
Like you can have decentralized web now, you can host your video on your server. Maybe even p2p. Just the reach would be probably minimal. And you can have your own bitcoin wallet. I was downloading chain to my wallet ten years ago and it was slow. Most people will chose some centralized service even for crypto.
In decentralized world, everyone can build their models, host them and train them on user data. But since, I wouldn't want my data to be used for any other purpose, I don't want them to make a copy of that data. So they send their models (after taking my consent) to my device, train it locally and send the aggregated model back.
If you want some personal data to show up somewhere be it a name or avatar it has to leave your device. At that point someone can and will copy that data. If there's value with associating that data with your activity someone will do it.
But also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17083333
You don’t own a domain, you rent it.
Blockchain content isn't much more permanent than content hosted on a traditional server.
I understand it makes it more difficult, but they could seize your keys or your person and force you to turn over your keys.
Either way that seems like a legal issue, not a technology issue.
0 - https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/technology/23iht-web.html
Web1: read only
Web2: read-write
Web3: read-write-own
Web3: read slowly - write slowly - vague claims of "ownership" limited to particular blockchains each with no authority over anything off-chain.
But hey, smart contracts allow a long chain of intermediaries to bleed a percentage off all transactions.
for ex: take an instant USD loan on your stock, since you are the owner only your authority(signature) is needed. In web2 world you go through middlemen.