Moxie agrees, as do I https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html
> On Feb 21, 2022, at 06:06, Yosem Companys <[email protected]> wrote: > > I found this to be an interesting post, especially in the context of > Liberationtech's having supported the development of Diaspora, one of the > most successful federated social networking sites. > > Elon Musk is right. Web3 is BS. > By Maciej Baron > Jan 9 2022 > <https://maciekbaron.medium.com/elon-musk-is-right-web3-is-bs-1cdafc3f96f7 > <https://maciekbaron.medium.com/elon-musk-is-right-web3-is-bs-1cdafc3f96f7>> > > To put it mildly, I am not Elon’s biggest fan. He’s an ignorant, > narcissistic, reckless, self-indulgent buffoon who treats his employees like > crap, and who just happens to be amazing at marketing himself, which helped > him become a billionaire, despite running unprofitable companies. > > Musk however, recently tweeted something that I wholeheartedly agree with: > “Web3 sounds like bs”. > > Web3 is an idea, which even Bloomberg admitted is a bit hazy, which suggests > we can achieve a decentralised World Wide Web using blockchains. The > proponents of this concept like to talk about how Web 2.0 became centralised > and controlled by big corporations, and how blockchains, crypto and NFTs can > help “give the power back to the people”. > > This all sounds wonderful and looks good on paper, but in reality, it’s > simply bullshit. > > WebBs > > Web3 is bullshit on several different levels, but most importantly, it > confuses a political and power-relationship problem with a technological one. > According to Web3 believers, blockchain is the technology that can finally > allow the Web to go back to its decentralised roots. The truth is, > blockchains are not only useless in achieving that, we already have the > technology to do that. > > ActivityPub is a protocol that has been available for years, and which > inspired the creation of fairly successful decentralised, federated social > networks such as Mastodon. Any community can create their own ActivityPub > instance which is controlled by them — even a single user can create their > own server instance if they want to, and federate with other instances. It’s > a beautiful architecture that allows people to control who has access to > their feeds, and what sort of feeds they are exposed to. > > So why haven’t we seen a mass exodus of people from Twitter and Facebook to > Mastodon, or similar platforms? The technology is there, the platform is > there — all it takes is to register and switch. > > The reason for this is that platforms like Twitter have already achieved > enormous power and influence, and a large user base that simply stays where > most of the people they follow are. There are plenty of stories of people > switching over to Mastodon, only to return to Twitter shortly after, because > that’s “where all the action is”. Companies like Twitter spend millions on > “customer retention”; they help big brands improve their presence online and > give users plenty of reasons to stay and stick to Twitter. > > The monopolistic nature of the biggest social media platforms is also > beneficial to other companies, which can streamline their advertising and > marketing campaigns — this benefits the wider capitalist system. The monopoly > of the big players is a natural result of the system we have in place. > > The Web3 thinking is based on the naive technocratic assumption that > technology and “smart ideas” can solve most of our societal problems. Its > naivety also expands to the belief that free-market capitalism is the > solution to the encroachment of monopolies, and not the system that is in > fact actively creating and enlarging them. > > There isn’t a technology that will solve this, and this isn’t happening > because of a lack of a certain technology. We already have tools to create a > decentralised web, and blockchains aren’t even the right technology to begin > with. > > Blockchains, NFTs and crypto-bullshit > > A blockchain is a form of a digital ledger, which consists of records called > blocks. Such a database is managed autonomously using a peer-to-peer network, > meaning there is no main, centralised machine controlling the whole > infrastructure. Instead everything is controlled collectively by all the > nodes connected to the network. > > The main purpose of a blockchain, and really the only reason it can be made > useful, is to record transactions. It is admittedly a fairly clever way of > avoiding the double spending problem — when a digital token is spent twice > (or multiple times), that is, transferred to multiple destinations at once. > This is also why, so far, the only major use of blockchains is for digital > currency, and artificially scarce digital assets (Non-Fungible Tokens — NFTs). > > Some people have suggested that NFTs could be used for recording things like > deeds and property titles, but it makes little sense to use blockchains for > recording anything physical or anything that requires off-chain validation, > authorisation, authentication or confirmation — even if we consider the use > of oracles. Blockchains only make sense in a digital-only world, and only for > transactional data — and so far nobody came up with a compelling dapp idea > (decentralized application) that is not tied to cryptocurrency in any way. > > This is why when some Web3 evangelists talk about how social media is > centralised and how blockchains can help, you know they’re bullshitting you. > > Social media posts are not transactional data. You may have “likes” that you > can give to posts, but the double spending problem is not relevant here, > because you have an unrestricted and unlimited supply of “likes”. We already > have decades old technologies like PGP which can prove the authenticity of a > post. We already have distributed, peer-to-peer technologies allowing for > censorship-proof, decentralised storage of data (such as WebTorrent used by > PeerTube). > > Unstoppable Domains looks okay on paper, but it’s a for-profit solution that > isn’t really as decentralised as it pretends to be: you still have to go > through UD to purchase domains. Moreover, getting around a DNS block is quite > trivial, and “unstoppable” domains won’t solve the problem of a hard IP block > by your IPS if used as a DNS provider. > > Projects like the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) are interesting, and were > already used to fight against censorship. However, the pricing model is > slightly obfuscated, the cost of “pinning” (permanent storage) is a few times > higher compared to regular storage solutions. If you’re using a company like > Pinata to host (“pin”) your content and guarantee its permanence while you > pay a monthly fee, you should start asking yourself how much decentralisation > you are really left with if you still rely on your hosting provider and on > the caching policy of independent nodes. Moreover, we already have magnet > links, Tor Onion services and platforms like FreeNet, which is nearly 22 > years old now (the web itself is only 9 years older). > > The technology is already here! We have had similar technologies for decades > now! …and new technology is not what we need to fight the enormous power of > the biggest platforms. That’s bullshit. > > [snip] > -- > Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable from any major commercial > search engine. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: > https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt. Unsubscribe, change to digest > mode, or change password by emailing [email protected].
-- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable from any major commercial search engine. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/lt. Unsubscribe, change to digest mode, or change password by emailing [email protected].
