Web3 'contains the seeds of a dystopian nightmare'

https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/01/forrester_web3_criticism/

62 75 4 years ago

verisimi• 4 years ago

I agree that there the seeds of dystopia there, in the guise of progress.

Eg is decentralisation a universally good thing?

You can also interpret it as a means for big corporations to shift the burden onto the devices of the people who use their services, thereby decreasing their costs at the cost of the consumer. Making you and your hardware a node in their network.

feanaro• 4 years ago

So don't use the corporation's network but build an open one?

jasfi4• 4 years ago

The ideas in Web 3 are very diverse, and are frequently mixed with already established ways of thinking and doing business. People are trying to figure out what works and what doesn't. It's basically a melting pot of ideas. The best of what works will win.

Note: I'm the founder of TradeCast. I'm mixing the crypto trading part with automated trading, but in a way that is transparent and gives users control: https://tradecast.one.

orzig• 4 years ago

I'm not 100% disagreement, but I'd love to see a little more evidence (or at least reasoning) for "The best of what works will win".

To start, here's my counter-argument: We're almost exactly 6 years from the release of bitcoin, and it's still dominant by market cap. We either nailed it the first time or the best has not (yet?) won. We're 50 years into computing and the dominant operating systems are from the same companies that dominated ~40 years ago. Did we top out on ideas then?

jasfi4• 4 years ago

Web 3 is far bigger than Bitcoin alone. VC money is pouring into Web 3 companies, so I'd say we haven't seen too much of what's coming just yet.

It's actually really interesting that you make a comparison to operating systems. I helped get ReactOS started in the late 90s, because Windows was so dominant and there was a tremendous lock-in effect because of the software and drivers that were Windows only. However I still think a clone was not the best direction (I left the project ages ago), and that interfaces to other OSs such as Linux are better. Although I didn't come to this conclusion immediately, mainly because driver APIs seemed difficult to abstract to another OS.

That said, Linux has made tremendous strides and WINE has helped it along. With Web 3 you don't have that lock-in effect, so the ideas are flowing more freely. That's why I think Web 3 is different to the OS analogy.

i14• 4 years ago

Well, getting people to change what they use takes time. And it’s hard to compete with big players.

the-dude2• 4 years ago

Adding a disclaimer is common courtesy.

jasfi4• 4 years ago

What were you expecting exactly?

jlgaddis• 4 years ago

You certainly don't miss an opportunity to make a meaningless, no substance comment just so that you can spam a link to some "project" of yours, do you?

jchw5• 4 years ago

Personally, I think “Web3” will never come. It’s got as much usability issues as the Linux desktop with no obvious draw for as to why most people should care or work on it. It’s a nebulous term that encompasses a bunch of stuff nobody wanted without the blockchain, and I’m not sure why anyone would want it with the blockchain.

Of course this could be a Hacker News Dropbox comment moment. And there’s always that quote “the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” Still, I don’t think the “metaverse” or non fungible tokens will have any long term relevance simply because nobody was asking for this crap to begin with. Like many crypto schemes, the majority of players are now in it to cash out, not because they believe in it.

fartcannon7• 4 years ago

Without the pressure of the frankly outstanding Linux desktop, Microsoft and Apple would be renting your computer to you by the minute or some other coporate nightmare. So beyond even its true day to day usefulness, it's importance to your quality of life is likely immeasurable.

jchw5• 4 years ago

Maybe, dunno. I am a passionate Linux desktop user. I have the SwayWM configs to prove it. However, unless Apple and Microsoft really did decide to do that, I don’t see a huge likelihood that someone is gonna swoop in and start putting serious resources into fixing stuff. Stuff like Cairo being virtually unmaintained or Qt… well, being Qt and having about 5000 bugs. (Don’t kill me, I like Qt too, but it’s damn buggy.)

The point was that the year of the Linux desktop never comes, and it probably never will. If it’s good enough to act as a counterbalance against dystopian outcomes, then fine. I don’t really see it, because I suspect most people don’t really have that much of a choice, for practical reasons, about the computing environments they’re beholden to.

mytailorisrich2• 4 years ago

Linux is irrelevant on the desktop. Its market share is insignificant and it's constantly trying to play catch-up in term of user experience.

throwaway8265210• 4 years ago

Of course this could be a Hacker News Dropbox comment moment.

It's not. Cryptocurrency has been around for over a decade at this point, suffice to say that it doesn't work. And why should it? The stated purpose of it is to be another form of unregulated private money, which we already knew was a bad idea hundreds of years ago. Wrapping it up in layers and layers of confusing (and pointless) technology doesn't make it any less of a bad idea.

jchw5• 4 years ago

I’m with you. Of the folks I know who mess with crypto stuff in any capacity, none of them seem to actually think it’s a good idea. It’s just a way to make money. I don’t think VC-funded companies see it any differently.

Maybe referencing the Dropbox comment is unfair. I know it gets widely over-referenced to begin with. I mostly just mean, I could always be wrong.

zozbot234• 4 years ago

The purpose of crypto is to build a trusted, decentralized ledger that allows for the implementation of "smart contracts" defined by code. That could have plenty of applicability as a basic layer for all sorts of things. "Currency" might be one of them but not exclusively.

throw93232• 4 years ago

And Windows is supposed to be usable? I had to use Windows 10 recently (after 12 years on Linux). My compilation was very slow. I discovered antivirus is using 80% of CPU during my task. I disabled it, but somehow it re-enabled itself. Eventually I gave up and used Windows 7 on offline WM.

I have no idea how difficult it would be to use Windows as daily driver. Dig into registry every day to disable all spyware and crapware. Browse shady forums to find "hack of the week" to make Windows usable again after recent update.

Normal web and financial system has the same quirks. Right now the most convenient way to send money from EU to Russia is crypto.

7steps2much• 4 years ago

Right now the most convenient way to send money from EU to Russia is crypto.

Which is kind of the point right about now? I am not sure one can compare deliberately introduced sanctions to crappy products...

_fat_santa• 4 years ago

Still, I don’t think the “metaverse” or non fungible tokens will have any long term relevance simply because nobody was asking for this crap to begin with.

I listened to the podcast between Lex Friedman and Mark Zuckerberg the other day and I remember Mark describing the metaverse and one comment got me, he said how you would no longer have to go to a concert or gathering to be there, you and all your friends could join up and go see it in the metaverse.

And I thought to myself "Mark, this is not why people go to concerts". Yes people go to concerts to hear the music, but that's only part of the draw. It's the vibration in the floor, the screaming fans, the whole environment that makes you want to go, not just the music.

I think that Facebook is making a grand miscalculation with the metaverse. They assume people will "Do X in the metaverse" versus "Doing X in real life", missing the point that people don't necessarily go do X for X itself, they do it for all the other small reasons including X.

pureliquidhw• 4 years ago

I would have agreed with you back when I only watched concerts that cost $20 bucks and the seats were General admission. But lately most acts I see are $100+ and you're assigned a seat and eventually everyone stands. Examples include Foo Fighters, TSO, Dream Theater, Book of Mormon (no standing), and Doobie Brothers. All were at different venues and all were enforced assigned seats with no energy allowed. I'm not sure VR is there yet, but I bet in less than a decades time there will be economical virtual options that achieve parity of experience for some people.

I'm not claiming it's the same for everyone. I'm not claiming concerts are going to go away. I do however see a valid business opportunity in creating a new class of seat.

Remote workers could go together, long distance relationships could make it a date. Rural Polish fans of Japanese metal could see a more immersive set than just a YouTube video.

The issue I see is that FB doesn't have a moat for this type of experience. Anything in the metaverse can be replicated by MS (discord + Xbox), Sony (hardware experience + Playstation), or maybe a partnership between Valve, ticketmaster, and Twitter.

In short, virtual concerts, probably. FB being saved by them, probably not. But hey, I've been wrong about Facebook since their IPO.

gmays• 4 years ago

I'm still forming my opinions on this, but I think I agree. There will be a web3 in terms of the next era of the internet, but it won't match this blockchain/NFT/metaverse vision that it currently describes.

This would also makes sense since it's near impossible to accurately describe a future that hasn't arrived yet. Few of us will predict it, but it'll all make sense in retrospect.

lngnmn2• 4 years ago

Web3 is a scam - a bunch of unnecessary redundant abstractions.

Imagine your cells could pile up layers of abstract bullshit.

Molecular biology has been "optimized" by evolution to stable forms which are necessary and sufficient, and this is the big fundamental lesson.

One should remove crap, not pile it up

sudden_dystopia• 4 years ago

I’m pretty critical of “web3” but some of these points are pretty weak:

“ Decentralization Impossible to achieve, as shown by current crypto projects centering around certain (usually large) actors; Trust in code, not companies: the belief that a community’s smart contracts encode and enforce its rules We should all trust unknown developers why, exactly? Always using open and transparent code Doesn't stop monopolies forming, and relies on a small pool of people capable of assessing code;”

Decentralization, hand waved to impossible. Maybe, but this seems especially worth trying.

Unknown developers aren’t trustworthy but inexplicably known developers just are despite plenty of evidence indicating nobody is worthy of actual trust.

Open source can only ever rely on a few people to review code whereas somehow enterprise code should just be blindly trusted even though it’s opaque and managed by still just a relative few people.

openfuture2• 4 years ago

No shit. The whole thing is basically about improving the security of the current totalitarian nightmare (i.e. economic system based on a central currency model). Real change will require a rethink of our assumptions. This is something I spend every waking moment on and I am getting close to being able to explain how we get out of this mess but give me time.

fennecfoxen2• 4 years ago

You’ll surely have to work on establishing the current system as dystopian.

openfuture2• 4 years ago

Look around. I'd rather be constructive and establish a way forward than joining the chorus of complaint.

chrisbrandow• 4 years ago

Every time I listen to web3 proponents explain how attaching smart contracts to things like music would work it just sounds like an exhausting nightmare.

fennecfoxen2• 4 years ago

Trading songs on the blockchain sounds like a reasonable idea until you realize any MP3 player that would enforce ownership needs DRM now, which it must either enforce by downloading the blockchain periodically, or periodically talking to some untrustworthy music-industry server that purports to interpret the blockchain but could shut down instead.

coffeefirst• 4 years ago

Yes, this is a terrible idea. I only recently escaped the last of the FairPlay DRM.

21723• 4 years ago

Music and the arts are where I get worried, because I've seen a lot of good people get involved in NFTs.

The regime we had beforehand wasn't working. Spotify royalties were pathetic. The interest in Web3, among artists, comes more from fear for the future than techie opportunism.

falcolas• 4 years ago

Spotify royalties are pathetic because people don’t want to pay very much for music.

Even without all the shitty middlemen taking huge slices of the pie, I’m paying less than $4 (family account) to play thousands of songs from hundreds of artists

przeor3• 4 years ago

Web3 requires whole new mindset analogous to 100% electric cars.

You can't find value in Tesla, if your mindset is still in 90' and there are no electric charges available.

Web3 value proposition is more obvious for people outside west world (eg. Nigeria) and people from countires like USA will have hard time to figure out value, but it doesnt mean Web3 is a scam.There are many ppl calling electric cars a scam.

It will take decades to realize on a mass world wide market value of Web3 for a common West/US citizen.

timeon• 4 years ago

But still it is hard to evaluate from your comment. Maybe we need more than one analogy.

przeor3• 4 years ago

In my opinion most general Problem that web3 is solving is related to coordination https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordination_failure_(econom...

citing: "Coordination failure can lead to an underemployment equilibrium.[3] "

... other problem worth mentioning is lack of trust and transparency.

There are many more specific side-problems as well depending on the specific use case etc. in web3 projects

benknight87• 4 years ago

The only thing that really seems to be true about all of this is Blockchain indeed is a huge innovation simply because of its ability to create decentralized trust. Full stop. Web3/crypto tech is currently going through the "Peak of Inflated Expectations" of the Gartner Hype Cycle, and once things settle down and get a little bit more boring, Blockchain applications will find their niche and prove their value in ways we didn't necessarily expect.

labrador• 4 years ago

This trust is still partial trust in the system. There are a lot more aspects of the system that need to be trusted with your money. The coders who maintain bitcoin, that the miners won't collude, that your wallet won't be drained by hackers and so on...

I'd rather trust my money to an FDIC account. It far more likely I'll lose my Bitcoin through some crack in the system that the United States governement collapses and is unable to give me my money, and at that point, Bitcoin wouldn't help me either.

przeor3• 4 years ago

Historically, people lost more money in the past by trusting third parties/IOU than trusting Ethereum settling layer.

Global trust network was not possible before blockchain tech happend.

Whole Switzerland success is built on trust concept in the society. Trust is important.

pg_bot• 4 years ago

My general take has been that Blockchain is a genuine innovation, but one that is inferior to existing technologies in nearly every respect. It's going to be similar to the Wankel engine or the Tesla turbine historically. Yes it technically *works* but the disadvantages outweigh the benefits of adoption at commercial scale.

gnufx• 4 years ago

steelpillow: "We should all trust [vulture hacks on 1 April] why, exactly?"

El Reg tends to be a bit slow on the ball, but I wonder if it was cunningly held for a day or two (and if they had to spend $1500).

https://www.forrester.com/report/web3-promises-a-better-onli...

Malic• 4 years ago

Web3 feels like a Google AMP caliber event; lots of excitement around it that, in hindsight, was created excitement to justify a technology that would be beneficial to the few at the expense of the many. Am I wrong here?

plorkyeran• 4 years ago

The "in hindsight" part is wrong, as that's been an incredibly common criticism from the very beginning.

karmakaze• 4 years ago

Decentralization Impossible to achieve, as shown by current crypto projects centering around certain (usually large) actors;

Comparing cryptocurrency with content in this way doesn't translate.

Cryptocurrency regardless of wallet/identity is fungible. Content isn't. So this point seems to be making the assumption that all the content is pooled and controlled by one voting pool, which I wouldn't take as a given.

Web3 'contains the seeds of a dystopian nightmare'

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