No! We need more "web3 nonsense" like this. This is the closest the internet has felt to the cyberpunk dreams of the 90s. Outlaw Hackers exploiting bugs in automated smart contract to hijack cryptocurrency is the future Gibson promised us.
Isn't this what Web 3.0 was supposed to be before crypto-fans stole the term?
> I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A "Semantic Web", which makes this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The "intelligent agents" people have touted for ages will finally materialize.
Web3 will only succeed if it adds this layer of awe and excitement that the Web had in the 90s and the launch of the iPhone. We are still far away from that point. What makes this even worse are all these opportunistic cash-grab projects that just exploit users. On that note, I am glad that most large crypto businesses are imploding right now.
Even if we pretend for a moment that there was some merit to the “web3 smart contract”, by now it should be painfully clear to anyone involved that this is a technological dead end.
There are a many more realistic ideas to explore and research instead of wasting time on crypto unicorns.
Whether it is AI or Crypto, Blockchain or whatever, please stop saying 'Web 3.0' or 'Web3' and trying to make this happen, this is getting very tired and cringeworthy.
Crypto opened a pandora's box for ransomware scams and OpenAI 'opened' a pandora's box for fake news, fake images and disinformation campaigns to amplify the scams.
Crypto created this mess and AI is just wiping the mess everywhere while at the same time both of them require mass amounts of energy and waste to function.
Sure, but I wouldn't call the stuff that happened in the last 20 years on the internet as sound, even if it was often law abiding.
Web3 is full of ponzi schemes and, at least to me, the rich people web2 "created" tell there is something wrong too.
Decentralization is an opportunity, and I know this doesn't require blockchains, but I had the impression that OSS, and software in general, lacked in terms of "payment on the protocol level".
So, I think, this could lead to a new, better, era, for the internet. If we take the right steps.
I do love where web 3 is going but I wouldn’t want to underestimate the problems that its complete reliance on cryptocurrency also brings.
Cryptocurrencies used to be decentralized but it isn’t the case anymore (if you hate banks prepare to hate large mining farms… until proof of stake allow the top 1% to be in charge),
It’s anonymous (but governments don’t want anonymous money movement… I personally don’t want that either) and public (but if it stops being anonymous then who wants everybody to know they bought a sex toy online?).
Contracts are awesome but still cost a fortune.
All successful cryptos do not inflate which means the incentive to spend it does not exist, you’re better off investing in the currency itself than using it (you want a light inflation of your currency to help your economy by sponsoring real companies)
The only thing worse would be this “on the blockchain.”
On second thought it seems likely that some charlatan has already years ago raised a couple of millions in an ICO for such a project. “We’re making the entire Internet web3-compatible!”
I personally think web 3.0 is overhyped and almost anything involving NFTs are basically ponzi schemes. But the premise is decentralizing the web, which if it even partially delivers could in theory chip away a lot of most tech giants. Combined with regulation things could change.
I think the web is quite safe from being disrupted by incoherent crypto utopians.
I'm more than happy to let the web3 people make their point; or not. I'm not sure there is any. The way that would happen would be by delivering something that people actually want to use. People vote with their feet on the web. A lot of weird and wonderful stuff gets used. And some other stuff never gets used.
All this web3 stuff reminds me of the capital S Semantic web that was fashionable 15 years ago. Never really happened. Some people got obsessed with sparql and that was about it.
So-called "web3" is still early-stage and amorphously defined, born of the tensions between web1 (a user-sovereign Commons, but lacking identity and value transfer) and Web 2.0 (payments and identity, at the cost of surveillance, enclosure of social Commons, and Metcalfe-monopoly Platform Capitalism).
I understand the pushback against the "crypto grift", and as a critique of Actually Existing Crypto-Anarchist Political Economy, I completely agree. But the race for the future is happening with or without us. We can either cede the territory to the bad economics (and worse ethics) of Austrian-school neo-goldbugs; or, we can get involved and leverage the tools towards democratic principles, human values, regenerative ecology, and genuine disruption of unproductive rent-seeking.
I'd view anything pitching itself as an investment with extreme suspicion. (And by all means: carbon-tax or fully outlaw "Proof of Work" mining.) But there are countless projects that are truly decentralized, not profit-oriented, and community-first/tech-second: Panvala, Breadchain, CommonsStack, Green Pill Party, Basis Project, /r/CryptoLeftists, lots more. By all means, be skeptical, call out moral hazards and perverse incentives, that's all to the good. But let's not ignore the huge opportunity to disintermediate private Capital (old and new), and in the spirit of copyleft/FOSS, to "lock open" our digital and economic infrastructure.
Web3 is not going to happen. The crypto economy is failing. The promise of crypto was (and still is among the devoted) to provide a viable alternative to government backed currency. At this time, crypto accounts for a fraction of a percent of global economy and is already plagued by so many technical issues to make it almost impossible to actually use for anything.
HN's constant unsubstantiated, unimaginative, and irrational hate towards anything crypto related is the reason I almost never frequent this site anymore. If you're going to write a critique, at least put some effort into it.
When the first bullet point of the article is "it's being driven by predatory marketing tactics", it's already clear that this is merely a hit piece with an agenda.
Anytime one is critiquing a futuristic idea that sounds outlandish, they should first stop to ask themselves if they're really given the concept a fair chance. Every major technological revolution was initially considered outlandish and criticized by the mainstream - calculators, computers, the GUI, the internet, cars, planes, remote work, etc.
I'm not saying that web3 is the next evolution of the web. But this article is a very elementary take that suggests the author has no understanding of web3 and hasn't made any effort to.
I don’t know. This hype-crypto-machine is not catching up with my “feelings” about the future of the Web. Maybe I am getting old, but aside from some communication protocol usage and some form of authenticity (which is questionable), I don’t see web3.
I would go out on a limb and say that if this is web3, I don’t want to have anything to do with it. This is an outrageous waste of resources and energy with awful environmental impact, driven primarily by pure greed and wishful thinking.
Looking at mindset of the VC’s, which are giving this “things” validation, scares the living sh*t out of me.
More and more, implementation of modern ‘tech’ is pushing me towards abandoning the ship and moving into the woods somewhere.
Don’t let me start with NFT’s. It is horrible. The impact of this thing over a lot of my friends is getting ridiculous. I somehow understand “the money” aspect (ponzi scheme, money laundering), but recently I got “the cult” vibes from some of them and closed the door permanently.
So hard “no” from me. I already have a “Metaverse” in which I feel comfortable, it is called reality.
If what bothers you about the web today is the centralized dominance of capitalist giants, web3 will be so much worse. The crypto community is maybe the most concentrated incarnation of pure capitalist energy ever. It’s all people inventing new ways to get rich without doing anything at all. Making small numbers into big numbers.
Web3 is going to be the most greed and profit-driven tech the internet has ever seen.
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