> It's the only system where you are not at the mercy of some external entity to be always benevolent.
Until the owners of the network run away after extracting all the value they can, or they decide to fork it because it’s in their best interest, or they end it because it’s not as profitable as they wanted, or your exchange decides to halt trading so they don’t lose money, or, or, or.
It's a problem of most buzzwords, there is no formal definition and it largely depends on context.
If I were to give you my attempt of an definition, it would be: the main idea behind "web3" is to have systems where no single entity can gate-keep users. It's not supposed to be "better than web 1.0", but mostly to be a contrast with the "walled garden" platforms and social networks that defined "web 2.0".
So, by that definition, social media services powered by ActivityPub that allow communication between different services are a step towards web3 compared with the "web 2.0" social networks like Facebook or Twitter. Messaging protocols that Matrix, XMPP are a step towards web3 in comparison with basically any messenger protocol that is controlled by Big Tech, etc. Content distribution based on systems like IPFS are a step towards web3 in comparison with traditional websites.
The main thing is these systems still have central points where users can be controlled or censored. An user of Mastodon (or any federated service) can be kicked out by the server admin and will have no recourse to get access back.
To be fully permissionless, a distributed system needs to be able to reach consensus without having to appeal to any central authority. "Consensus" here means basically anything about the "state" of the distributed system: was this message really sent by Alice to Bob? If Charlie wants to buy an e-book from David, how can we verify if Charlie has sent the payment to David, and how can David prove that Charlie now has access to the e-book file? This is the part where blockchain helps.
Thanks; the last part seems like "non-repudiation" - I did not think we need either centralized entities OR blockchain for that; I may be wrong though?
Maybe it was a bad example to talk about messaging. It's not just the "is this data really who they claimed to be", but also "is this data part of transaction between multiple parties who do not trust each other"?
You need to have distributed consensus to avoid double-spending. Can you have distributed consensus without blockchain? Yes, but only if your participants are selected a priori, e.g, Distributed Paxos.
The problem that blockchains solve is that it is the only practical way to solve consensus between parties that do not trust each other and that are not pre-agreed on.
The "they" you denied existed, of course. Look, the frame of your argument here is "the blockchain won't ever unilaterally make decisions you don't like like a big centralized tech company". And they do, and have, multiple times in the past. And lots of people didn't like that, in each case.
No. You are talking about three different groups and you calling both by the same "they":
- One "they" is the Ethereum developers making new developments and proposing changes to the "main" blockchain.
- The other "they" is the thousands of people who are developing and using applications that can be used by the most people, and care (mostly) about having one blockchain where they can reach the most people.
- The third "they" are the ones running the nodes and making sure that the network is functional.
What I am saying is that none of these groups can unilaterally decide the course of the blockchain. Your confusion does not make my statement wrong.
You're splitting hairs. Sure, your carefully constructed "microtheys" don't have the power you fear. But someone does[1]. And they act. And have.
[1] As currently constructed, it (probably) requires a 51% attack by staked ETH owners. There's a lot more wealth concentration on the blockchain than you think there is, this isn't a lot of actual people!
I'm all for healthy skepticism, but you are far from it.
> There's a lot more wealth concentration on the blockchain
First, with Ethereum you need 67% of the staked ETH to make an attack on the network.
Second, stakers do not have power to change consensus rules. They are not able to dictate how people transact (not without losing their take) and they are not able to change transactions.
Third, do you understand that even if one single entity had that much power to launch an attack of the network, it would not be in their interest to do so? If the network got to be controlled by any single entity, the other people would simply lose confidence on it, they would stop using it and then all of the staked token would lose its value.
> Third, do you understand that even if one single entity had that much power to launch an attack of the network, it would not be in their interest to do so?
If that were true, then why was the Ethereum network attacked and forked last month?
I think what's happening here is that you've confusing "blockchain consensus" with "not evil", because you trust the giant faceless organization making decisions about the future of your activity in their system to act in something approximating your personal interests.
Just like people trust Google and Microsoft with their email. Get it now?
As to which entities are "really" more trustworthy, I'll just drop this link and flee: https://web3isgoinggreat.com/
What attack are you referring about? What fork are you talking about?
Please, provide actual information instead of throwing around sites that are clearly just helping you to confirm your biases.
> you've (sic) confusing "blockchain consensus" with "not evil" because you trust the giant faceless organization making decisions
Not really. The thing that I care about is self-sovereignty. I do not want to depend on a system where any single entity or institution (whether is a big corporation or a government) can have this type of control over me and that leave without choice.
But it seems that it doesn't really matter what I think though, you already have made your mind and you are not interested in a healthy discussion. Have a good one.
> What?! What attack are you referring about? What fork are you talking about?
Wait, really? On September 15th, someone attacked the Ethereum blockchain and stole all the value, handing it off to this other coin. Our coins are still there, but per current markets they're only worth 0.47% of the value they should have. I can't believe you missed that.
Now, obviously you think that's different. And that this giant act of fiat by a centralized operating body was a GOOD act of fiat by a centralized operating body. But it was still a giant act of fiat by a centralized operating body, which points out that the kind of "self-sovereignty" you believe in doesn't exist. You are and will always remain solvent at the whim of the people running the economy you're part of. That's simply the truth.
The difference is that you trust the ETH cabal where you don't trust email providers. And I think that's misplaced.
There was no "giant act of fiat". The merge only happened because the overwhelming majority of participants were in full support of such a change. At no single point of time, the ETH developers had any way to decree that the beacon chain was the only one that had any value.
> That's simply the truth.
Thank you though for finally showing that you are just full of dishonest rhetoric.
Explain how "government by the overwhelming majority" is consistent with "self-sovereignty"? Some people didn't want the merge to happen. It happened anyway. What about their "self-sovereignty"?
Again, you're just saying that you thought this fork was a good fork. And for the record: I agree, it was a good fork. But it was still a fork, and thus still a successful attack on the network. Someday, one of those attacks might be on your interests.
And your answer will be that you TRUST that it won't. But that is still an act of TRUST and not "sovereignty". If they want to steal your coins, they can. They've proved it multiple times.
So, getting back to the point this topic is about: does it really seem so odd that people trust Gmail? You have to trust people in this world to not mess up your stuff.
You really think that any of this BS rhetoric is flying?
> What about their "self-sovereignty"?
Self-sovereignty is not about "always getting things my way". Is about being able to participate in a system without having some higher authority controlling access.
> successful attack on the network.
A "successful" attack is when someone manages to subvert the system to do something for their personal favor. The system was not subverted. for the merge to happen, the rules had to be defined and followed by everyone. Fuck, the reason that the merge was postponed so many times is because they wanted to have SIX different clients that could reliably participate in the beacon chain.
> If they want to steal your coins, they can.
No one stole anything. The old ETH PoW chain is still there. No one's balances got altered. The fact that most people started seeing that as worthless was not "by fiat".
No. The "They" that did the fork only managed to do it because there was a majority consensus agreement to switch to the forked chain. If the majority refused to follow, there forked chain would have died or become a thing for the minority. Just like EthPOW vs ETH POS.
Seriously, why is it that every discussion about crypto has the same bullshit talking points? Do you guys have a list of "standard basic list of BS arguments that I will throw at the discussion just to see it sticks"? Is it ignorance? Is it malice?
> The "They" that did the fork only managed to do it because there was a majority consensus agreement to switch to the forked chain.
A majority you may not agree with. So you’re still at the mercy of external entities, contradicting your original point.
> Seriously, why is it that every discussion about crypto has the same bullshit talking points?
Because proponents keep repeating the same debunked invalid talking points. Like saying anything they disagree with is FUD. That expression has become the Godwin’s law of blockchain discussions: it doesn’t advance the conversation, it’s just shorthand for “I angrily disagree with you”.
> So you’re still at the mercy of external entities
The people that didn't agree with the "DAO fork" continued on the original chain. None of them were forced to follow the majority. This is a huge important difference.
> None of them were forced to follow the majority. This is a huge important difference.
Quite the contrary, it’s a meaningless difference. Most systems have that feature.
Imagine everyone in your friends circle uses Signal. Then they decide to change to WhatsApp but you and one other refuse to do so. No one forces you to follow the majority, you simply deal with the consequences of not doing so. For example, you may have less of a voice in the decision of where to go to dinner together because you're not part of the main conversation.
You are (once again?) changing the actors and the power relationships between them and pretending it doesn't matter.
It's one thing to have "your friends" moving from one network to another. It's a completely different thing to have a network where there is an owner who can kick you out unilaterally.
None of the people that are using Ethereum Classic are disallowed to ever use ETH if they so want. They haven't been censored to continue participating in that network. It's just that to participate they must accept that the consensus of truth has changed.
Don't attribute to malice what could simply be ignorance. Right now, people need to pit in some serious time (upwards of 100 hours minimum) learning about true decentralized open technologies like bitcoin, so I think uninformed ignorance is far more likely than malice in almost all cases... unless the uninformed person stands to profit from his or her ignorance.
I'm not sure Ethereum is anywhere near as decentralized and bitcoin, because the Ethereum foundation and the large stakeholders (now that they have the miners the boot) appear to wield a huge amount of power.
The most likely reason almost all of hackernews wants to do nothing but make fun of crypto and the people involved is they just don't understand it.
If only they invested the 100+ hours learning it like we did then maybe they would understand its value. I mean thats the only option - either its uninformed ignorance (which we think) or actual malice. There can't be a third option.
The thing I don't understand is the concept "majority" in the crypto space. There is no way to prove that one person doesn't control the majority of the voting power.
If I own a large portion of the supply split across several hundred wallets and I vote one way, smaller owners may be influenced by the appearance of hundreds of votes being cast one way vs the other. We see this in the real world, where some people are willing to just vote for what they think is the majority sentiment when they don't have strong opinions on a matter.
I've heard arguments along the lines of "those with more invested into the project should have more voting power" but that to me just sounds like an incentive to centralize.
If I'm a small player, I either go with the majority or see my investment become worthless, or in a fantasy world where crypto is used for anything other than wild speculation, I see my utility greatly diminished as I'm no longer able to interact with the "majority". Sure, I might still be able to interact with those left behind, but the pressure to move over to the majority fork is going to pull more and more people towards that.
I see federation of content as a much more approachable means to re-decentralization of the internet.
We still rely on centralized DNS. As we still rely on ISPs to make sure our packets can leave our local networks, and on international treaties to make sure we can communicate with networks in other countries, but unless you want everyone to start developing and maintaining a decentralized physical computer network for free, we'll always need to trust a number of institutions to do this thing where we can communicate with someone on the other side of the world within a few milliseconds.
Voting has nothing to with the consensus mechanisms to determine who is allowed to choose what block is appended to the chain. Why are you bringing up "voting" into the discussion here?
Noone is out to get you. The world is not trying to "FUD" their way to your own demise.
Its just... noone wants to hear people hawking their pedo pesos constantly and how "WEB3 (powered by pedo pesos) will help us all!".
Its tiring. I'm over it. Most of us are. We wish you no ill will or harm, heck most of us hope you all wake up, but in the meantime we don't want to hear it.
That's clearly not what forking means in this context. You can't make the existing "instance" run different code, and it's users don't have to care if you run your own modified copy.
If a project is actually decentralized, you can't simply fork the code to fork the community. In truly decentralized systems, the consensus rules define whether one is into the system or not.
The big problem here is that most of the systems in crypto are really startups run by a small group of founders. Very few of these projects are really decentralized.
Until the owners of the network run away after extracting all the value they can, or they decide to fork it because it’s in their best interest, or they end it because it’s not as profitable as they wanted, or your exchange decides to halt trading so they don’t lose money, or, or, or.