"Web3" isn't even able to solve problems it's supposed to solve.
The big pitch was that you could have non-copyable items which you could move between virtual worlds. The Second Life / Open Simulator ecosystem already has that problem. People looked into NFTs as a way to solve it, and concluded it would not help.
You can download content and upload it as new content, perhaps with a minor mod, creating a new object. This is called "copybotting" in Second Life and Open Simulator. As with any copyright violation, you can file DMCA takedown requests if you find a copy of your stuff.
Would NFTs stop copybotting? No. They just protect the object's ID, not its content. You can still copy the content. If you want to copy a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT image and make a poster of it, the NFT system does nothing to stop you. It's not even clear that's a copyright violation in the US, since BAYC images are computer-generated.
Many NFTs don't even have an on-chain cryptographic hash of the content, only a URL for some server. Nor do most NFTs have their NFT ID watermarked into the actual content. So the NFT doesn't even give you a verifiable proof of ownership independent of the creator's server. There isn't info that would allow a server to tell if a new image upload is a copy of an existing item. An image search might help, but that doesn't need NFTs. Decentraland's solution to this problem is to charge a $500 "curation fee" to get an object onto their platform, which cuts down content to the point that they can check for duplicates.
> The big pitch was that you could have non-copyable items which you could move between virtual worlds.
The whole "moving objects between virtual worlds" thing is one of the most ridiculous concepts I see pushed by the crypto/NFT/web3 community.
As you've outlined there is a potential for this functionality in non-game/metaverse environments - even if NFTs fail to do it properly.
However, when this gets applied to video games at large, I really start to roll my eyes. Even if you could magically hand-wave away all the technical issues that go along with trying to implement something like this - why would developers even bother? Game economies have to be tightly controlled to combat things like RMT, botting, and unsanctioned item trading. Letting people transfer in any item they want basically makes that impossible.
The amusing thing is the people who actually are drafting standards to move objects between virtual worlds have nothing to do with NFTs.[1] That group includes Epic, Unity, NVidia, W3C, Autodesk, Microsoft, Meta... The people who make stuff work.
"Game economies have to be tightly controlled to combat things like RMT, botting, and unsanctioned item trading. Letting people transfer in any item they want basically makes that impossible. "
Except in Diablo 3. Where all that killed the game.
> Letting people transfer in any item they want basically makes that impossible.
This is missing the forest for the trees. Of course it wouldn't be a carte blanche, but it would be trivial to let people transfer in cosmetic items (think stickers, color schemes, etc.) based on another ecosystem/game/achievement/etc.
Cosmetic digital items (e.g. non-gameplay-impacting) are like a hundred-million-dollar+ industry.
The point of BAYC was the community. So others could copy your image but that wouldn't provide them with access to the community. It's a single-factor login token to a private web forum, which is non-revokable by the client (but AFAICT is revokable by the hosting platform). So sort of the worst all worlds in terms of authentication technology.
To a reasonable approximation, no one actually cares about "access to the BAYC community". I'm sure they made some grandiose promises about it at some point, but the primary feature of their NFT is as a social symbol. I'm not convinced there even is a "community" there to access -- realistically, it's just a customer list.
And to private parties. ApeFest just started in NYC a few minutes ago. If you own a BAYC or MAYC NFT, you get to go to a rave in Manhattan today. Food and drink included.
Why would I want to be part of a "community" composed solely of people stupid enough to pay money for low-effort cartoon monkey drawings? I would actually pay to keep losers like that away from me.
That was definitely not 'the big pitch' of web3. That's a pitch of nfts. Different web3 companies have different pitches. Uniswap for example has little to do with virtual world items and is definitely web3.
> They just protect the object's ID, not its content.
This is very similar to how DRM works (protects the ID, not the content, hence we need DMCAs if someone tries to illegally stream a movie on YouTube or whatever) and it seems to be doing a pretty good job. In spite of everyone hating it, we have the luxury of Spotify, Netflix, Apple+, etc. because of DRM. NFTs definitely have a use case in gaming and digital collectibles; they also happen to be consumer-friendly (unlike the current status quo of digital collectibles). I wish I could sell my thousands of items in WoW for real money, or my Fornite skins for real money, or my unneeded Magic Arena cards for real money, but I'm locked in their ecosystem.
The tokenomnics aspect of Web3 is mainly speculation, which imo also has a use case, but it most likely will be impacted by some much-needed regulation.
> I wish I could sell my thousands of items in WoW for real money, or my Fornite skins for real money, or my unneeded Magic Arena cards for real money, but I'm locked in their ecosystem.
That's exactly it: you may wish it, but the reason it won't happen isn't that NFTs weren't invented yet, it's that companies making these products really don't want you to. One simple reason is that it might make someone else play less if they could all those items by just paying a little money.
The other reason why selling in-game items for real money will never be permitted (again) is all the gigantic legal crap that it brings along. If the items are worth real money, you can sue Blizzard or other players for events which unfairly make you lose an item, or affect the value of the items you hold.
genuine question: what is the value of a virtual artifact outside of the sofware where it is played? What would one do with a token of a lotus123 addon?
> In spite of everyone hating it, we have the luxury of Spotify, Netflix, Apple+, etc. because of DRM.
I doubt this. All of these services have one thing in common: it's easier to just subscribe than it is to torrent the content. It's not particularly difficult to find original-quality torrents of Netflix content, for example.
Don't encourage them. There is no Web3 and if there ever is, it's not fucking blockchain apps.
What these hucksters call Web3 is the digital equivalent of essential oils. Blockchain apps have no real productive use beyond selling them to each other. Calling the whole thing Web3 was a fairly transparent grasp at trying to legitimize the whole charade.
Also, does that mean that you going to finally stop using Signal for not only having mobile wallet [3] for payments, but also facilitating in using cryptocurrencies for donations? [4]
Only a very small percentage of the population has a demand for encrypted email or decentralized anything. Most people trust institutions blindly and it gives them anxiety to even think about not trusting them. Most people don't even agree that there's a problem at all with centralized institutional trust-based systems. They don't understand or trust algorithms, they trust brands on TV.
Web 2.0 gave us legitimate added productivity and functionality of being able to do stuff online for the first time. Web 3.0 does nothing but give us a trustless system that nobody asked for. Zero new functionality in any of those apps.
If you trust banks and FAANG companies, as most people do, Web 3.0 has exactly zero value.
Skiff.org charges $8 USD/month for it's premium service, and it's just an implementation of PGP encryption. I have no idea what this as to do with crypto.
ens.domains is a privately owned and managed DNS provider. It's litterally the exact opposite of what web3 claims to be. Having a "constitution" is just re-wording "Terms of Service". I love how it sells hard covers versions of it's Terms of Service for fiat at Blurb.com. And no, Blurb does not accept cryptocurrency payments even, lol.
Signal.org existed well before they added crypto, and quite frankly, yes I did just about completely stop using it - and so did many others. The introduction of cryptocurrency in that app litterally chased away users rather than improve adoption.
Re: Skiff, it looks like a very cool product but I'm skeptical they can make enough money. The primary path to monetization for a product like this would be enterprise SaaS licensing but I simply don't see how you can sell to enterprises without centralizing the product. Auditability, compliance, SSO, etc. would all seem to be difficult if not impossible with the product as specced.
seems like you're saying "hey, here's an email company that takes crypto payments, here's two domain name companies for crypto, here's two posts about one company that takes donations in crypto, that means a multiple hundred billion dollar system that produces several nations of pollution and serves no tractable purpose other than being an unlicensed securities casino somehow isn't a scam"
to which i reply: "shaka, when the moon lambo fell"
So lets say that none of these web3 coins are scams. They still aren't actually solving anything that hasn't already been solved with web2. So at best they are unnecessary. And while the examples you have listed may not be scams, unfortunately the general web3 landscape is rife with them.
This is such a typical web 3 page. It doesn't even try to tell me what it is about, except promising "quadratic" money showers for open source Blockchain apps.
Apparently "the mathematically optimal way to fund public goods in a democratic community". Mathematics sure have increased in scope since I left uni.
Its a cool project but nothing about how it works requires web3 technologies or blockchain technologies. Web3 still isn't "solving" any problem in that system.
After waiting 20 seconds for that page to load for some reason, I scrolled all the way to the bottom without being told what it does. It appears to be some sort of foundation that provides grants to open source projects, except given it's "web3," I'm guessing that means it isn't actually a non-profit so gives none of the tax advantages a real foundation would give, doesn't have a board with a non-financial interest in the mission the way a real foundation would, and pays creators in cryptocurrency, which is a much less predictable and usable funding source since it varies so wildly in real currency denominated value and needs to be off-ramped to real currency to actually pay your developers and energy bills and what not.
If I won a contest and the prize was the choice between 100 BTC and 1 small vial of "Thieves" essential oil, I'd take the Thieves. Why? Because it has value (excellent in my homemade mouthwash). Also I can't support something that vampires countries' worth of electricity.
Crypto was sold as the hedge against inflation. Well, how did that go? Inflation started creeping up and crypto crashed. That's not the hedge I'm looking for.
What problem does Web3 solve? It helps us better manage nonsense. As we face fuel shortages, potential food shortages, a recession and stagflation I wouldn't want to be in the business of solving make-believe problems. If you're not doing work for a business that's providing tangible value to their customers then you're likely to be out of a job soon. All it takes is another rate hike of 25 basis points and we're in a whole new ballgame - and unlike 2008, which was fueled by financial nonsense that had been going on the preceding 10 years, we're going to have bona fide supply shortages to contend with as well.
Can I roll a private/public key pair and use it to authenticate everywhere as the user BabyFarkMcgeeZax? Can I authorize Spotify to BabyFarkMcgeeZax/playlist?
In theory, I can use an OAuth provider for this kind of stuff, but then who owns what? Why can't I host my own content wherever I want and allow different permissions to it? Why can't I delegate certain things to some provider and revoke it when I want? How does anyone get paid for being such a service provider, especially with the idea that the data is host proof in some cases and thus can't be monetized?
Blockchains / tokens are trying to answer this question. Most are data that doesn't fit on a blockchain or are issuing tokens with arbitrary monetary policies and following them up with bad fiscal policy.
Thus far most of Web3 just requires some algebra to see a database that doesn't solve these problems.
I've been using EVM blockchain as an immutable registry / ledger to record small bits of data linked to IPFS to record events. These are supposed to be immutable by me or anyone else (essentially they act like logs and events).
Is there "regular" immutable events database like this that I don't have to host myself, has a super easy-to-use API, and costs less than $5/mo, but keeps my data around after I stop paying for it?
Do you use a standalone EVM node or mainnet? Recording small bits of data on mainnet must cost you hundreds of dollars in gas fees? If it’s your own personal blockchain then why not use a regular database?
oh! I'm actually using Matic, and all I'm doing is posting a URL that either points to IPFS or my API endpoint.
Yes I know, the API endpoint is silly and mutable and it actually links to my Airtable API lol, but this helps me track "when/where" that I don't want to track on a regular DB.
To date the entire thing's cost less than $10, and I have maybe 30-40 posts. Definitely not production yet though
I'm ever the optimist so believe the fallout from these blockchain experiments will likely leave at least one useful idea/technology in the ruins for future us to build on
Or perhaps all the experiments lead to the creation of a US digital dollar which can be spent online as anonymously as an ordinary paper dollar. This would have a clear advantage over Bitcoin, plus be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States
My world view, summarized to the simplest term, is “incentives”. You can find places and times where people act altruistically. We all do it regularly. We most reliably act altruistically when it comes to our own families, with our children as the highest recipient of our altruism.
When you get beyond the immediate family, relying on altruism as the organizing principle starts to break down.
Societies that provide incentives for delivering value to other citizens - going to work, doing a job, becoming wealthy if you drastically improve society - will win long term over those that provide disincentives to hard work and providing value.
Web3 and crypto provide artificial scarcity to digital goods. This is an experiment in economics. I believe providing economic incentives, when properly aligned with the tasks desired, can result in a more efficient and successful internet. Relying solely on volunteers in any group has very rarely worked - even the largest non-profits have highly paid directors and legions of paid employees. This is not some revolutionary idea, other than the fact that digital goods can have artificial scarcity.
Part of the problem here is that good incentive design is incredibly, incredibly difficult.
We've learned this lesson over and over again. If you apply an incentives layer to anything, people will attempt to game it. Watch what happens at any company that starts rewarding developers for number-of-issues-closed or lines-of-codes-written.
The only responsible way to work with incentives is to constantly monitor and re-balance them. I use Duolingo a lot and I find it really interesting watching how they tweak the various gamification models over time as people's behaviour alters. They need to balance their models such that people who game them will also learn the language most effectively.
The token model - represented by things like DAOs - generally requires this incentive design to be perfect up front. It assumes that people can design a perfect incentive system from day one - which obviously they cannot.
This goes right back to the beginning of smart contracts: Vitalik was famously inspired to create Ethereum after his World of Warcraft character got nerfed. But nerfing is essential to how game design works! If you don't constantly rebalance things your game ends up being broken.
I am a member of many token projects that have successfully altered their rules via governance vote. These include contract upgrades and fundamental changes to structure. It is possible to fix and augment post-launch, and in 2022 is quite common.
the entire language used here, from altruism, to value, to efficiency makes no sense in a world that isn't scarce. You don't need efficiency or altruism when resources aren't limited.
Imposing artificial scarcity on the internet is like imposing the caste system on a modern society. It's a way to differentiate people by status in a world that has no need for that distinction any more. Literally putting a rotten economic system on a domain that could be free of it and practically limitless, like people driving cars with the break pulled so others can feel faster.
What we really need to do is get the ideology out of people's heads that burning energy so you can get a hexagonal twitter avatar to set yourself apart from all the round avatar people is a way to organize society.
But using the word scarcity seems to try and piggyback on what we all know scarce goods are. Goods become scarce because of excess demand or difficulty with production. A real finite thing.
what is scarce about tokens? the hash? why are they desired, for speculative investing?
No, think scarcity in the "artificial scarcity" sense where only 1000 copies of a certain handbag were made so they can market it as "limited edition" and demand a higher price than if they were making as many as they could.
And yet, our current medium of exchange relies on artificial scarcity as well, controlled by central banks. This is where your average crypto proponent will follow up with their spiel on the benefits of decentralization, but I personally believe decentralization is a distraction, or at best only relevant for those in charge of the supply of the currency. On the demand side, what cryptocurrencies really bring to the table is an alternative, asymmetrical channel for currency and values to move through; and in a capitalist system that naturally skews towards inequality, the more money changes hands, the more likely it is that the next hand to take it will be that of the rich. So as far as the rich are concerned, the incentives to bootstrap the crypto economy and keep it funded well enough to slowly suck up conventional economic activity is already there.
Readit News
The big pitch was that you could have non-copyable items which you could move between virtual worlds. The Second Life / Open Simulator ecosystem already has that problem. People looked into NFTs as a way to solve it, and concluded it would not help.
You can download content and upload it as new content, perhaps with a minor mod, creating a new object. This is called "copybotting" in Second Life and Open Simulator. As with any copyright violation, you can file DMCA takedown requests if you find a copy of your stuff.
Would NFTs stop copybotting? No. They just protect the object's ID, not its content. You can still copy the content. If you want to copy a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT image and make a poster of it, the NFT system does nothing to stop you. It's not even clear that's a copyright violation in the US, since BAYC images are computer-generated.
Many NFTs don't even have an on-chain cryptographic hash of the content, only a URL for some server. Nor do most NFTs have their NFT ID watermarked into the actual content. So the NFT doesn't even give you a verifiable proof of ownership independent of the creator's server. There isn't info that would allow a server to tell if a new image upload is a copy of an existing item. An image search might help, but that doesn't need NFTs. Decentraland's solution to this problem is to charge a $500 "curation fee" to get an object onto their platform, which cuts down content to the point that they can check for duplicates.
NFTs are thus useless for their claimed purpose.
The whole "moving objects between virtual worlds" thing is one of the most ridiculous concepts I see pushed by the crypto/NFT/web3 community.
As you've outlined there is a potential for this functionality in non-game/metaverse environments - even if NFTs fail to do it properly.
However, when this gets applied to video games at large, I really start to roll my eyes. Even if you could magically hand-wave away all the technical issues that go along with trying to implement something like this - why would developers even bother? Game economies have to be tightly controlled to combat things like RMT, botting, and unsanctioned item trading. Letting people transfer in any item they want basically makes that impossible.
Stupid. Ponzi. Crap.
[1] https://metaverse-standards.org/
Except in Diablo 3. Where all that killed the game.
This is missing the forest for the trees. Of course it wouldn't be a carte blanche, but it would be trivial to let people transfer in cosmetic items (think stickers, color schemes, etc.) based on another ecosystem/game/achievement/etc.
Cosmetic digital items (e.g. non-gameplay-impacting) are like a hundred-million-dollar+ industry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpH3O6mnZvw
So it may not have been the pitch, but NFT's are definitely Web 3. You're just moving the goal posts.
it's just a brand name that's being used to trick crypto people into thinking that, in a couple decades, they'll invent the future of gaming
and the bullet list is always stuff we've had for decades
This is very similar to how DRM works (protects the ID, not the content, hence we need DMCAs if someone tries to illegally stream a movie on YouTube or whatever) and it seems to be doing a pretty good job. In spite of everyone hating it, we have the luxury of Spotify, Netflix, Apple+, etc. because of DRM. NFTs definitely have a use case in gaming and digital collectibles; they also happen to be consumer-friendly (unlike the current status quo of digital collectibles). I wish I could sell my thousands of items in WoW for real money, or my Fornite skins for real money, or my unneeded Magic Arena cards for real money, but I'm locked in their ecosystem.
The tokenomnics aspect of Web3 is mainly speculation, which imo also has a use case, but it most likely will be impacted by some much-needed regulation.
That's exactly it: you may wish it, but the reason it won't happen isn't that NFTs weren't invented yet, it's that companies making these products really don't want you to. One simple reason is that it might make someone else play less if they could all those items by just paying a little money.
The other reason why selling in-game items for real money will never be permitted (again) is all the gigantic legal crap that it brings along. If the items are worth real money, you can sue Blizzard or other players for events which unfairly make you lose an item, or affect the value of the items you hold.
NFT does not perform an equivalent function. Be infinitely more useful if it did.
I doubt this. All of these services have one thing in common: it's easier to just subscribe than it is to torrent the content. It's not particularly difficult to find original-quality torrents of Netflix content, for example.
What they're asking for is Digital Rights Management. The promise of NFT is DRM.
Seriously.
What these hucksters call Web3 is the digital equivalent of essential oils. Blockchain apps have no real productive use beyond selling them to each other. Calling the whole thing Web3 was a fairly transparent grasp at trying to legitimize the whole charade.
Also, does that mean that you going to finally stop using Signal for not only having mobile wallet [3] for payments, but also facilitating in using cryptocurrencies for donations? [4]
[0] https://skiff.org
[1] https://ens.domains
[2] https://handshake.org
[3] https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360057625692-In...
[4] https://signal.org/donate/
Web 2.0 gave us legitimate added productivity and functionality of being able to do stuff online for the first time. Web 3.0 does nothing but give us a trustless system that nobody asked for. Zero new functionality in any of those apps.
If you trust banks and FAANG companies, as most people do, Web 3.0 has exactly zero value.
ens.domains is a privately owned and managed DNS provider. It's litterally the exact opposite of what web3 claims to be. Having a "constitution" is just re-wording "Terms of Service". I love how it sells hard covers versions of it's Terms of Service for fiat at Blurb.com. And no, Blurb does not accept cryptocurrency payments even, lol.
Signal.org existed well before they added crypto, and quite frankly, yes I did just about completely stop using it - and so did many others. The introduction of cryptocurrency in that app litterally chased away users rather than improve adoption.
Gawd, could go on forever here.
Re: Skiff, it looks like a very cool product but I'm skeptical they can make enough money. The primary path to monetization for a product like this would be enterprise SaaS licensing but I simply don't see how you can sell to enterprises without centralizing the product. Auditability, compliance, SSO, etc. would all seem to be difficult if not impossible with the product as specced.
to which i reply: "shaka, when the moon lambo fell"
Apparently "the mathematically optimal way to fund public goods in a democratic community". Mathematics sure have increased in scope since I left uni.
If there's a productive use, it escapes me.
Start here: https://www.amazon.com/Trick-Treatment-Undeniable-Alternativ...
What problem does Web3 solve? It helps us better manage nonsense. As we face fuel shortages, potential food shortages, a recession and stagflation I wouldn't want to be in the business of solving make-believe problems. If you're not doing work for a business that's providing tangible value to their customers then you're likely to be out of a job soon. All it takes is another rate hike of 25 basis points and we're in a whole new ballgame - and unlike 2008, which was fueled by financial nonsense that had been going on the preceding 10 years, we're going to have bona fide supply shortages to contend with as well.
Can I roll a private/public key pair and use it to authenticate everywhere as the user BabyFarkMcgeeZax? Can I authorize Spotify to BabyFarkMcgeeZax/playlist?
In theory, I can use an OAuth provider for this kind of stuff, but then who owns what? Why can't I host my own content wherever I want and allow different permissions to it? Why can't I delegate certain things to some provider and revoke it when I want? How does anyone get paid for being such a service provider, especially with the idea that the data is host proof in some cases and thus can't be monetized?
Blockchains / tokens are trying to answer this question. Most are data that doesn't fit on a blockchain or are issuing tokens with arbitrary monetary policies and following them up with bad fiscal policy.
Thus far most of Web3 just requires some algebra to see a database that doesn't solve these problems.
Is there "regular" immutable events database like this that I don't have to host myself, has a super easy-to-use API, and costs less than $5/mo, but keeps my data around after I stop paying for it?
Yes I know, the API endpoint is silly and mutable and it actually links to my Airtable API lol, but this helps me track "when/where" that I don't want to track on a regular DB.
To date the entire thing's cost less than $10, and I have maybe 30-40 posts. Definitely not production yet though
https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/the-innovators-dilemma-...
When you get beyond the immediate family, relying on altruism as the organizing principle starts to break down.
Societies that provide incentives for delivering value to other citizens - going to work, doing a job, becoming wealthy if you drastically improve society - will win long term over those that provide disincentives to hard work and providing value.
Web3 and crypto provide artificial scarcity to digital goods. This is an experiment in economics. I believe providing economic incentives, when properly aligned with the tasks desired, can result in a more efficient and successful internet. Relying solely on volunteers in any group has very rarely worked - even the largest non-profits have highly paid directors and legions of paid employees. This is not some revolutionary idea, other than the fact that digital goods can have artificial scarcity.
We've learned this lesson over and over again. If you apply an incentives layer to anything, people will attempt to game it. Watch what happens at any company that starts rewarding developers for number-of-issues-closed or lines-of-codes-written.
The only responsible way to work with incentives is to constantly monitor and re-balance them. I use Duolingo a lot and I find it really interesting watching how they tweak the various gamification models over time as people's behaviour alters. They need to balance their models such that people who game them will also learn the language most effectively.
The token model - represented by things like DAOs - generally requires this incentive design to be perfect up front. It assumes that people can design a perfect incentive system from day one - which obviously they cannot.
This goes right back to the beginning of smart contracts: Vitalik was famously inspired to create Ethereum after his World of Warcraft character got nerfed. But nerfing is essential to how game design works! If you don't constantly rebalance things your game ends up being broken.
Imposing artificial scarcity on the internet is like imposing the caste system on a modern society. It's a way to differentiate people by status in a world that has no need for that distinction any more. Literally putting a rotten economic system on a domain that could be free of it and practically limitless, like people driving cars with the break pulled so others can feel faster.
What we really need to do is get the ideology out of people's heads that burning energy so you can get a hexagonal twitter avatar to set yourself apart from all the round avatar people is a way to organize society.
On the concept of creating artificial scarcity, this is a philosophical debate and we will not agree.
what is scarce about tokens? the hash? why are they desired, for speculative investing?
This.
Money has finally entered software for good.