I literally post for years the same thing about the need for open source alternatives to social platforms where 1 person controls the algorithm to prioritize what a billion people see. And the response is “meh”. No one even bothers to read past the first paragraph:
But if you really want to see the “immune system” shine, mention web3 and smart contracts, and watch the downvotes pour in. Any time one even mentions “decentralized byzantine fault tolerant” anything, an army rises up to repeat anodyne versions of “grift… no one needs it… banks are great…” etc.
But if you mention any concerns with AI, no matter who or what you cite, the same group goes the other way and always repeats “(insert problem here) has always been possible, there is nothing to see here, move on, AI is amazing, deregulate and let the industry develop faster”:
Having been on the internet for a very long time, I can answer why open source alternatives to social platforms seldom get off the ground: the network effect is huge, and the community of users matters far more than any of the technology.
Don't bother telling people how it works. Show them who's using it and for what.
Oh, and for any kind of "normie" use it must have a decent moderation and anti-abuse system. Which inevitably clashes hard with "decentralized". Bluesky is succeeding because it lives in a contradiction of pretending to be decentralized, but what it really offers is the "pre Elon Twitter" experience. To basically the same people.
> the same group
While there's a certain amount of hivemind, it's rare that you see people directly contradict their own posts here; what you're seeing is different people.
This is the problem we're working on with https://freenet.org/ - a general purpose platform for building entirely decentralized services.
Our thesis is that the client-server architecture is a fundamental flaw in the world wide web's design, which inherently concentrates power in the hands of a few. Freenet aims to be a general purpose replacement for this in which all services are entirely decentralized.
The first non-trivial app we're building will be a group chat system called River[1].
I like the new Freenet! I interviewed your founder, Ian Clarke, 2 years ago on my channel — discussing the original freenet, probably the first truly decentralized content network in the world. Here is the 2-hour discussion:
Look around the 12 minute mark when I start to discuss how “the capitalist system” produces centralized monopoilies that extract rents for their shareholders.
The original Freenet had over 6m downloads over the years - and pioneered ideas like cryptographic contracts which later formed the basis for bitcoin, but it was always a very experimental project, while the new Freenet is designed for mass adoption.
They key differences between old and new Freenet are:
Functionality: The previous version was analogous to a decentralized hard drive, while the current version is analogous to a full decentralized computer.
Real-time Interaction: The current version allows users to subscribe to data and be notified immediately if it changes. This is essential for systems like instant messaging or group chat.
Programming Language: Unlike the previous version, which was developed in Java, the current Freenet is implemented in Rust. This allows for better efficiency and integration into a wide variety of platforms (Windows, Mac, Android, MacOS, etc).
Transparency: The current version is a drop-in replacement for the world wide web and is just as easy to use.
Anonymity: While the previous version was designed with a focus on anonymity, the current version does not offer built-in anonymity but allows for a choice of anonymizing systems to be layered on top.
> But if you really want to see the “immune system” shine, mention web3 and smart contracts, and watch the downvotes pour in
I'm all for distributed / P2P social media, but crypto is full of some of the most scammy and downright shameful behavior I've ever seen in my life. Pump and dumps, rug pulls, money laundering. There is a real reason people hate crypto.
To tip it off, crypto is one of the least meritocratic things there is. The longer you've been in it, the more people you've scammed, the more you hype, the "wealthier" you are.
Crypto smells like a shit and vomit sandwich and people immediately turn their noses.
Build P2P social without the crypto angle and you have my attention. I've been wanting p2p (not federated) social media since the 200Xs and the decline of the indie web. Social and news should work like email and BitTorrent, not Facebook or "federated Twitter".
> I'm all for distributed / P2P social media, but crypto is full of some of the most scammy and downright shameful behavior I've ever seen in my life. Pump and dumps, rug pulls, money laundering.
The SEC's answer no questions, sue first, approach to crypto in general made legitimate players afriad to operate, so the space became dominated by those that didn't care about the law.
This isn't true, and last time someone tried to prove it was, they cited .. a huge PDF of all the questions the SEC had been asking crypto firms prior to action.
Besides, the rules are over now. The US President ran a pump and dump. Can't get more legitimacy than that.
I looked at your links and I still don't get it. I do want to understand. Where is the problem stated, clearly and concisely? What is the solution and why does it require crypto?
I say that as someone who read the Bitcoin paper in 2012 and was pretty excited back then.
Meanwhile online scams are a bigger industry than the illegal drug trade and bigger than the Australian economy. There are thousands of modern day slaves in call centers in Myanmar and the Philippines with fake social media profiles running pig butchering scams. That industry runs on crypto 100%. I guess that's one "problem" crypto solved.
You need some pretty convincing arguments at this point to convince me (and many others) that getting rid of this stuff wouldn't be a big win for humanity.
Here is the problem statement and solution for community leaders, the same class of decision makers who exited “AOL Keyword NYTimes” in favor of “nytimes.com” on this newfangled protocol called HTTP, with its servers and clients called browsers that people were downloading
When they asked for a clear and concise description of your problem and solution, they are probably looking for a problem statement: a focused, 1 or 2 sentence explanation of the problem you intend to solve. You then present your proposed solution in the same form.
Hypothetical example problem statement:
We want to promote ycombinator to everyone that could benefit, but banner ads make us look chintzy, directly engaging in the feral discourse on Slashdot would inevitably look unprofessional, and engaging directly through dozens of purpose-built blogs and websites is too onerous.
Hypothetical example solution statement:
We should create our own simple, well-designed news site built on user submissions, and include threaded discussion capability with moderation built in at both the community and company level to keep things relatively civil. Then our audience will come looking for us.
What you offered is not a problem statement. It is a sales deck offering a, frankly, convoluted explanation of how starting a currency will solve a largely unrelated problem backed up by an unsupported assertion about the least representative sample in the world— Donald Trump.
I read it all. It's apparently supposed to be a way for celebrities to extract money from their audience by having them buy into their currency.
If you're satisfied with calling that useful, okay, I guess - to me it's deeply alarming that this is presented as a good example of a useful application of crypto.
In the broader context of crypto demand being driven essentially by digital crime and gambling, there would need to be some seriously glowing example of something good that can be done with it to shift my judgment.
For example, in the early days of Ethereum, I thought it'd be possible at some point to build truly open source, decentralized SaaS, where the deployment happens to the blockchain, and that this in turn would enable open source projects to finance themselves.
I've yet to see an example of this where the crypto aspect isn't a figleaf.
I'm very concerned that people arguing for exciting applications of crypto are involuntarily legitimizing the online crime ecosystem. Crypto in practice seems to lead to a massive transfer of assets to criminals. To an extent where that may end up destabilizing whole countries, given the market cap trajectory.
It doesn’t explain anything. It asserts a lot. Sorry I took the time to critique and give examples as a freelance business communication designer. Effective business communication requires frank feedback, and mine usually isn’t cheap, but if protecting your ego is the goal here, just keep assuming you’re doing everything right and it’s everybody else’s fault it’s not landing.
> We started using it when Jack who founded Twitter, started bluesky, promoted nostr started using it
Jack Dorsey is certifiably insane. His obsession with cryptocurrency is a warning to anyone that throws away success to live as a crypto maxi. You will lose the only things that matter to you in life, your business will be taken away from you by shareholders if you own one. Your control will be hated by users that accuse you of trying to ruin the internet with NFT profile pictures and crypto tickers. Many users outright left as a consequence, others would leave after the takeover. But Dorsey set the stage for the enshittification of Twitter, and anyone that's forgotten that should face the music.
Web5, no matter who utters it, is a phrase that means nothing. A person walking on the street would not be able to define it for you. Me, a programmer, cannot define it for you or even explain what it looks like. It is a marketing term as applied to Free Software, which will alienate Free Software users and disgust/confuse common people. If you cannot find a better phrase to describe your philosophy then people will forever associate you with the myriad grifters that shared your "Web(n)" branding.
This is interesting, but it feels too platformy for my use. I'd really like to see something 100% like BitTorrent.
Instead of trying to build a "you.com" (as in your pdf example), I want a place we're all just a simple disposable signed hash address (that you can change, make public, keep pseudonymous, etc.) - easy and disposable if needed, but also possible to use as the building block of an online presence or brand if your hash becomes well known. Kind of like email, in that sense.
The platform doesn't need real time streaming video or video calls. Just text and images to start. P2P Reddit or Twitter.
It shouldn't be about building a platform where you attract others to your brand. That can come later. It should be about participating in a swarm and building up a mass of people. An exchange of ideas and information, but where it feels like being in public. Like BitTorrent. Once network effects kick in, you can find the nodes (people, topics, etc.) you care about and want to prioritize in your interest graph.
It's remarkable to me how "Web3 is a grift" has seemingly become tribal consensus here, without any real basis in reality. I think the last administration's explicit efforts to block crypto legitimization played a big part in this. It's clear that if you tried to follow the law and operate as a legitimate player, you risked being debanked or legally targeted by the SEC—and they made little to no effort to answer questions or help you work within the law's constraints. They wanted to sue first. As a result, those who ignored the law ended up dominating the space. This reflects policy failures, not issues with the tech or its legitimacy. I'm hoping the Trump administration shifts this dynamic, but now there's a reputation problem that needs correcting as well.
To quote Patio11, "It's not a conspiracy if they really are out to get you."
Crypto in general and Web3 as well, all have mostly delivered scams. To the tune of billions stolen from everyday folks. Everything (to within a rounding error) that hasn't been a scam has delivered nothing else but being a speculative asset at best. Everything else has been a barely working toy that's better served by non-distributed implementations of the same thing.
People shit on crypto. government, regulators, and the public, all dislike crypto because the only thing that ever happens to us with it and the only thing we ever hear about happening, is folks losing money to scams.
There's no mystery here. Crypto doesn't need a policy shift. Crypto needs to stop fucking over folks. Yes it's cool technology, yes it also seems to just be a way to part folks from their money.
That's like saying the only thing that ever happens with AI is people losing their jobs to AI. And unlike Crypto, they didn't opt in and literally buy digital assets and send them voluntarily somewhere. They get negatively affected regardless of any choice they have made. "Get on board, or get rolled." People worldwide would lose a lot more money to AI growing than crypto growing, regardless of never opting in. It will just be a giant wealth transfer to the already-wealthy and corporations. What about that? Oh, crickets. Dismissal from the HN crowd.
If I am going to put my money at risk, I expect it to be at risk. I'm happy to have a regulatory framework around that from the SEC, for instance, and there are. For example, since the JOBS Act, the SEC has greatly expanded the opportunities to raise money in a regulated way. I even interviewed the actual authors of Regulation S at the SEC, where I go into depth for an hour about how to raise money legally:
And frankly, most true adherents of crypto have been yelling from the rooftops that Celsius and FTX and Binance are not actual DeFi. They are not decentralized, they simply tell you to do the very thing crypto was designed to avoid -- i.e. send them money and "trust them". This is the very thing Bitcoin and Blockchain were designed to avoid -- the middleman.
FileCoin and UniSwap and Aave Marketplace and so on are real crypto, and they have never had any scandals and billions of dollars, bits, etc. are entrusted to them every day. Ditto for most altcoins and networks, including Hedera Hashgraph, Polygon, COSMOS, Polkadot, etc.
Any shade thrown at, e.g. Telegram's TON or Ripple's XRP, is due to regulators. I can understand why Facebook's Libra was shut down. But it has to do with them becoming "too powerful" and "not subject to national oversight". Kind of like Facebook and Twitter and Google themselves.
Everything that you just mentioned, as far as "what it's actually doing" is either speculation/speculation accessories or is a not-as-good-version of existing offerings. Where is the value?
UniSwap: a marketplace for speculation on arguably scam crypto products.
Aave Marketplace: a marketplace for speculation on arguably scam crypto products.
FileCoin: file storage at rates 50% higher than e.g. BackBlaze/DigitalOcean.
There's no actual value here other than as scam, speculation (nearly a scam), or products that are flimsy pretenses at not being scams (but which don't deliver a lot of value). Why should anybody care (other than transparent greed)?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43036350
But if you really want to see the “immune system” shine, mention web3 and smart contracts, and watch the downvotes pour in. Any time one even mentions “decentralized byzantine fault tolerant” anything, an army rises up to repeat anodyne versions of “grift… no one needs it… banks are great…” etc.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43073421
But if you mention any concerns with AI, no matter who or what you cite, the same group goes the other way and always repeats “(insert problem here) has always been possible, there is nothing to see here, move on, AI is amazing, deregulate and let the industry develop faster”:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40900155
It’s groupthink at its most obvious, repeatable, always on, and I wonder how much of it is organic.