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Ben Halpern
Ben Halpern

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Convince me that Web3 is the worst

Just for the fun of it, I want to hear everyone's arguments for why Web3 is not, or should not be the future.

In case you need a better understanding of what we're talking about here:

This shouldn't be personal, or aggressive. Keep it light, and give me your argument.

Top comments (89)

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webbureaucrat profile image
webbureaucrat • Edited

The advantages of blockchain technology are built on the assumption that "the code is the law" works for some use case. The code is not the law. The law is the law.

For example, take property title insurance, which I used to think was an interesting use case for blockchain. After all, the title insurance industry exists to make sure that the chain of ownership from sellers to buyers is valid and not mistaken or fraudulent. This is, like, the whole reason for being of blockchain--"provable" transactions.

But here's the thing: no blockchain system will ever be able to prove that its own data inputs are correct. If something happens outside the system that is not entered or if some data is input incorrectly, well, garbage in, garbage out. But the law is still the law.

For example, when my family sold some farmland, the land under the homestead was incorrectly titled as being in the sold land such that our neighbors suddenly "owned" my mother's home and started receiving her property tax bills. Title insurance was an important tool for ironing out the mistake (as were things like trust and goodwill between neighbors and institutions, which blockchain supposedly obsoletes), and a cryptographically-secured immutable ledger would have been an active hindrance in the process.

Another occasional use case for title insurance is for something like messy estates. Could blockchain prevent someone from coming forward and proving that they are the rightful owner of my home because they are the long-lost true heir from a secret second family of a previous owner? No, the blockchain is only as good as the data on it.

So provable ownership is there to resolve ownership in the corner cases where ordinary security and record-keeping fail, but... it also fails in those same corner cases, but irreversably and without the protections that the law provides against theft, data-entry mistakes, fraud, etc., which are the comforts of democratic institutions that most of us have become accustomed to.

At best, there may be "web3" use cases where just laws don't exist, in extreme authoritarianism or anarchy where freedoms aren't otherwise protected. As a techno-optimist, I'm somewhat predisposed to this view, but so far committed authoritarians haven't had a lot of trouble suppressing "censorship-resistant" technology. For better or for worse, the law is the law.

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rendall profile image
rendall

"and a cryptographically-secured immutable ledger would have been an active hindrance in the process" ... "...it also fails... irreversably and without the protections that the law provides against theft, data-entry mistakes, fraud, etc."

I'm still agnostic on whether web3 is good or bad or whether block chain is good for title insurance, so my observations here are not arguments in favor of block chain. I do want to respectfully disagree with this assertion, though.

In a world where people have become used to this technology and understand its limitations, the ledger would only reflect that there had been a mistake, and a later correction would clear it. That the mistake cannot be erased does not mean that it cannot be corrected.

The record being on a block chain rather than a paper ledger in a file drawer or in a database somewhere has no bearing on the human side of it.

The rightful claimant can still come forward, the clerical error can still be undone, the goodwill can still be extended. Likewise, with the system that happens now, fraud and injustice and theft still happens, and it's not less easy without blockchain.

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webbureaucrat profile image
webbureaucrat

Yes there is a sense in which, theoretically, a false transaction could be recorded as reversed on the blockchain in the same way that general ledger accounting works now. The problem with blockchain systems is that no one has the authority to do so.

Consider current payment systems. If I mistakenly make a credit card transaction to the wrong recipient or if someone scams me into making such a payment or if someone steals my credit card number and makes such a transaction for me, everything is still going to be okay because the law requires that these transactions be easily reversible. (In effect, this just adds more lines to the ledger, just like you described above in reference to blockchain.)

On the blockchain, if I make a mistaken payment (etc) I have no recourse because no one has the authority to reverse the transaction except the recipient, who won't generally want to do so.

That's what I meant by the law having protections that the blockchain does not.

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empeacareercriminal profile image
Martin Maurer

Maybe DLT conflicts with your views on how the world should be in general. That's fine and nobody should be forced to actually taking part in any web3. Some people like anarchy, others like authority and some like the middle ground. Depending on what you fancy blockchains do or don't fit.

Building protective smart contracts that even exceed what the law could grant and enforce for a citizen is doable though.

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webbureaucrat profile image
webbureaucrat

Literally no computing system can be better than its own data inputs, though, which is my whole point. Like, that's not a subjective value or a preference. That's just provable.

For example, smart contracts can assure me that if I pay money into a system, I will get the NFT that I intend to buy (assuming I am the one who initiated the transaction and not someone who has stolen my key and assuming I didn't fatfinger the transaction) but they can't prove that the actual originator of the artwork is the originator of the NFT, which is why there are so many fake NFTs.

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grahamthedev profile image
GrahamTheDev • Edited

Let’s see:

  • too many scam artists around at the moment
  • β€œstable coins” are nearly all based on the dollar, which is very likely to drop in value given the sheer number of dollars printed in the last year (and if you don't know about that 80% of all dollars ever printed were produced in the last 12 months (there are 5 times more dollars today then there were in 2019), prepare for some mega inflation and some serious devaluing!).
  • β€œtether” is suspicious at best if you look at their practices and terms and conditions, the current largest stable coin.
  • Crypto has undone all of the good electric cars have done for the environment.
  • Not one person has ever convinced me that blockchain is actually useful, decentralised apps (or more precisely distributed apps) work for checking validity of transactions just fine
  • the dream of an unregulated market place is just that, the second it gets any real traction governments will intervene (see China)
  • NFTs (in their current form) have no real value and are being propped up by hype.
  • A public record of financial transactions is the worst idea I can possibly think of, do you want people to see what weird and wasteful things you spend your money on? What happens if you have never used crypto before and you want to make a significant purchase, you have no history so people may not trust you, it is even worse if you want to seel high value items as the whole "based on trust" system relies on some history!
  • Not being able to delete data without destroying a whole block chain is just stupid what happens when people add paedophilia to the block chain (as has happened a lot!)
  • Young developers are failing to learn basics as all of the web3 zealots are constantly filling their head with web3 is the future so they are learning that without learning fundamentals
  • the whole crypto space is glorified gambling and can be manipulated without any recourse (as it is unregulated) - see Elon Musk and Doge for example!
  • The processing time for a transaction (even with a proof of stake model) is far too high for any app at even a medium scale
  • The whole proof of stake model is a ponzy scheme where you have to leave your money in to earn money from the gas fees and so it artificially inflates the value of a coin until such time that the big players are ready to cash out and the average trader is left holding worthless coins.

And that is from someone who actually quite likes what web3 could be, at the moment it just feels like the dot com bubble and the CDOs that fuelled the banking crisis, a lot of people gambling on a future that they think will happen, without any monetisation strategy that is feasible, that are all caught up in a hype train and making money from less educated investors.

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olyno profile image
Olyno

too many scam artists around at the moment

Agree, a moderation system should exist.

β€œstable coins” are nearly all based on the dollar,

For the most, yeah, but not every stable coins. Some of them, like DAI or more recently UST, have a custom algorithm to avoid any price drop

NFTs (in their current form) have no real value and are being propped up by hype.

Simply because everyone say "omg, this image has been sold for 2k$". NFT are not only simple images to sell, it's simply a unique digital item. It could be an house property, a simple game, characters skins and so on

A public record of financial transactions is the worst idea

This is a fact, most blockchains are public, and i agree this is not a good idea. BUT, some others are private, like Monero or more recently Secret. Those blockchains are private by default, and have an algorithm to avoid anyone to know anything

Not being able to delete data without destroying a whole block chain

You can make the content private. All files are often stored on IPFS, simply deleting from there should work. Moderation is something complicated, and i totally agree, it needs to change. The main issue with moderation is simply: you can't make real moderation. How many YouTube videos have been demonetized because of robots, or digital artists who got their arts stole on other social medias....
Right now, you can't moderate the web correctly, this is simply not possible, on the blockchain, or on the classical web.

the whole crypto space is glorified gambling and can be manipulated without any recourse

Anyone has the possibility to pay a crypto, or not. If some people think Elon Musk is right, they can follow him, or not doing it, it's their personnal choices.

The processing time for a transaction

I already wrote a small reddit post about it, but right now you can't scale in any blockchain. They all use technologies that can't scale. Rust is not adapted to scale, and Go too. To have a real scalable blockchain network, we should use scalable technologies, as Elixir/Erlang for example, which already showed its power.

I don't answer to others points because i think you're totally right, or because i don't have enough knowledges to answer

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grahamthedev profile image
GrahamTheDev

Bear in mind that my comments are deliberately β€œto convince Ben that Web3 is the worst” so I am deliberately leaving out the β€œbalanced” side of each of the arguments. However I think you covered most of them beautifully! ❀️

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olyno profile image
Olyno

I know that was the purpose of the post, but I thought it was interesting to react to the reasons you mentioned in order to have a part for too :p

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jkhaui profile image
Jordy Lee • Edited

edit: apologies to OP of this comment, as I only just saw that they intentionally omitted counter-arguments

I disagree with almost all your points, except for a couple such as the space being filled with scammers.

You’re clearly a smart person who’s aware of traditional finance’s inherent flaws. Which is why I find it puzzling you make claims such as PoS being a Ponzi scheme; no it’s not, and it’s basically analogous to earning interest on your savings in a bank account (at least, that’s what savings accounts used to do). So are you saying that earning interest is also a Ponzi scheme? Because - by definition - it’s the same thing. Both mental models share the same antecedent: locking up your wealth/capital which is leveraged for other use-cases, and for which you are rewarded/incentivised with passive income.

Now, for a real-world example that counters almost every point you raised, I suggest looking into the Terra ($LUNA) ecosystem and the Anchor Protocol built on top, which is probably the best example currently of a decentralised algorithmic stablecoin protocol - and its seminal decentralised application - gaining mass adoption by providing a real advantage over traditional finance. Its only slight shortcoming is that its validator set is slightly centralised atm (but still much better than most other solutions).

Try googling it, or even browse the open source anchor web app repo. I know this is a lazy answer, but it’s no lazier than spouting some well known flaws of gen 1 & gen 2 blockchains and extrapolating it to say the entire space is flawed.

Finally, just be cognizant of the fact that when something causes an extreme polarisation in opinions and sentiment, the truth is likely somewhere in the middle, with rhetoric at either end typically based on misinformation.

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superdeterrent profile image
SuperDeterrent

Blockchain traces origins (e.g. property ownership since it was built), certifies authenticity of transactions, tracks custody, and verifies integrity. In order to do that, the whole history needs to be maintained, just like with General Ledger in (double entry) bookkeeping. You can keep only hashes on the chain and everything else off-chain.

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matthieu_rolland profile image
Matthieu Rolland

Can't we imagine a web3 future that wouldn't rely on the blockchain but rather traditional peer to peer technologies ?

Things like onionShare allow anyone to host a website on the Tor Network in one click, zero server configuration...

Nowadays internet connections are getting so good that even surfing the web on the tor network is fast, it makes me believe that we are ready for a full P2P internet experience

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grahamthedev profile image
GrahamTheDev

This right here, blockchain doesn’t solve anything that couldn’t be done with P2P and a consensus mechanism. The β€œimmutable” part of blockchain has already been proven pointless with hard forks!

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nombrekeff profile image
Keff

This, couldn't agree more.

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aravindsasok profile image
arvnd

how to get a dp like yours

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grahamthedev profile image
GrahamTheDev
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kanishkkhurana profile image
Kanishk Khurana

100% agree!

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094459 profile image
Ricardo Sueiras

Energy consumption and efficiency is my primary concern. The secondary one, is that when you take a step back, the de-centralised vision appears just as centralised - just a different set of actors. What has changed?

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jenlooper profile image
Jen Looper

This is my perspective as well

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jgaskins profile image
Jamie Gaskins

it runs on computers

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

Oh shit

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valeriavg profile image
Valeria

I cant help myself but quote this article by Moxie Marlinspike:

People don’t want to run their own servers, and never will... Even nerds do not want to run their own servers at this point. Even organizations building software full time do not want to run their own servers at this point. If there’s one thing I hope we’ve learned about the world, it’s that people do not want to run their own servers.

And because of that there will always be some centralised authorities: NFT marketplace, wallet, exchange service, etc. Which kills the only possible advantage of Web3 and leaves you with disadvantages: complexity, heavy resource consumption and black-market friendly anonymity.

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cjsmocjsmo profile image
Charlie J Smotherman

But I like running my own server 😭

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labspl profile image
Wojciech

I too like it.

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jrop profile image
Jonathan Apodaca

Hehe, me too

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madza profile image
Madza • Edited

Haven't look into Web3 that deep yet, but...
This tweet is probably a great start πŸ˜€

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link2twenty profile image
Andrew Bone • Edited

I'm not really for or against it but I would say its being marketed wrong.

The web is a system on the internet.
Web2.0 was a new way for applications on the web to work, namely AJAX.
Web3 is a new place to put the web, but still runs Web2.0 applications.

My understanding is Web3 is a decentralised internet using block chain to encrypt peer to peer traffic. A new internet of sorts but, of course, this needs to sit on the existing internet until it reaches critical mass.

In my opinion Web3 will never reach critical mass but I've been wrong before and I have no doubt I'll be wrong again πŸ˜….

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jgaskins profile image
Jamie Gaskins

Web2.0 was a new way for applications on the web to work, namely AJAX.

This! I've heard a lot of web3 advocates say things like "web2 was all about centralization!", but honestly all I remember about that era was the transition to rounded corners and AJAX. πŸ˜‚

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

Honestly, the branding of "Web3" is kind of a co-opting of language which could be applied to any number of trends.

If I'm remembering correctly, Web2 was the labeling of something that was clearly happening and didn't need the massive hype. Beyond the misaligned incentives for creating hype, in general the clever adoption of this term is one of the weirdest things.

Early 2000s: The web is starting to be used for so much more than just static web pages, let's normalize a word to describe this trend.

Early 2020s: Let's create a word to help bring hype to a trend which may or may not happen.

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jamesthomson profile image
James Thomson

Don't forgot box-shadows. That was an important milestone.

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shadid12 profile image
Shadid Haque

Rounded corners πŸ‘

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mfurmaniuk profile image
Michael • Edited

I just forgive that Web 1.0 gave us Blink.

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manutopik profile image
Emmanuel Salomon

web0 manifesto

web3 = decentralisation + blockchain + NFTs + metaverse
web0 = web3 - blockchain - NFTs - metaverse
web0 = decentralisation
web0 is the decentralised web.

In other words, web0 is web3 without all the corporate right-libertarian Silicon Valley bullshit.

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anisbarghouthi profile image
Anis-Barghouthi

Now this sounds interesting.

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booboboston profile image
Bobo Brussels

This website puts in a lot of legwork on the topic: web3isgoinggreat.com/

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valeriavg profile image
Valeria

I read it and now I'm shivering in terror. I'm not sure what's scarier: that minors pull off multimillion scams or that there are parents investing college funds in NFT.
So I feel it's important to give whoever wants to click that link a fair warning:

Caution, your faith in humanity may cease to exist. Proceed at your own risk.

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aleksandrhovhannisyan profile image
Aleksandr Hovhannisyan • Edited

I don't believe in Web 3's vision of decentralization. Some level of regulation will always be needed to prevent bad actors from exploiting the system and defrauding people. One example that comes to mind is the rampant theft of artwork via NFTs. If this is what the decentralized web looks like, then it's ripe for grift and exploitation. And if blockchain can't prevent these types of crimes, then it's not really the fool-proof system of provenance that people claim it to be because anyone can "own" and sell anything, even if it's not theirs.

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heritio profile image
Heritier Akilimali • Edited

So one con with web3 is the token system, people with more tokens will get more of a say when change needs to be voted for. Just imagine a rich guy with shit tons of crypto coins out votes you and fk's up the system for his own advantage. This alone is enough to be wary of this new stuff comming. Isnt reality good enough as it is? Just because we can doesn't mean that we should.

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johncarroll profile image
John Carroll • Edited

I've never thought about this before but it's so obvious when I read your comment. Wish I could give it +1000. I don't want the wealthy to literally have more votes in how the economy works (obviously they already do in practice...).

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kamiquasi profile image
Luke

Solving the "financial freedom" problem for the 1.6 billion "unbanked" people with a technology that requires internet connectivity when 2.9 billion people don't use the internet seems a bit tone deaf. news.un.org/en/story/2021/12/1106862

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johncarroll profile image
John Carroll • Edited

Edit: sounds like this comment may be dead wrong. See Ski’s reply.

I was about to +1 this comment when I thought more about it. Are you sure "blockchain" requires the internet? Based on my (admittedly very limited) understanding, the primary advantage of decentralization is actually that you don't need the internet. You do need some kind of networking where you can connect to the devices around you, but since everything is decentralized you don't actually need to connect to the internet. More broadly, I think the whole point of blockchain is that you can have verifiable transactions between two people who are offline without needing a centralized authority (i.e. without needing the internet).

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kamiquasi profile image
Luke

Yeah, my limited understanding is the same. My comment comes from this post's question that they're apparently trying to answer, and is similar to other comments I've heard from web3 advocates "How can we build a global economy where anyone with an internet connection can participate, where property rights are enforced, and where money preserves its value?" - blog.coinbase.com/how-crypto-enabl...

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skyjur profile image
Ski • Edited

How would you handle situation, if someone offline tries to spend same money twice in different remote cities? This is so called double-spending problem. The way blockchains solve it is by all nodes coming online and synchronising and agreeing on events before accepting any payment as valid. You can't run transactions offline.

There are certain techniques that can take some transactions out of blockchains. But this requires initial deposits and money being locked up with strict transaction rules attached. For example, let's say you want to pay your neighbor $5 for a chicken offline - first you' need to create an account that basically locks up money for away for any other purpose other than paying money to your neighbor, then you deposit at least 5$ to this account, once this is done and this can only be done online - only then can you pay to your neighbor offline. Problem is, this money will be frozen away for any other use, for certain period of time, to guarantee your neighbor that when you pay him you do have real funds online.

Being always short on cash being able to deposit and guarantee funds early on in business deals is typically is what these poor people without internet access struggle the most.

Current blockchain tech (bitcoin, ehtereum, etc) is built on assumption that internet is always there. It's not even clear what would happen in case of major network division was to occur for noticeable period of time, for example either because of event of war or a natural catastrophe, or major sun flare event. In a possible scenario two partitions would continue to run transactions and would not be able to merge resulting in blockchain branching out - for example it could result in 'bitcoin west' and 'bitcoin east' if a major military conflict would broke out that would sever internet connection between two blocks.

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johncarroll profile image
John Carroll

Thanks for the info, I edited my comment. It’s even more unclear to me now what value blockchain has. It seems like the value is solely to avoid regulation, but I like regulation. I don’t want people skirting taxes or doing illegal things, for example.

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kamiquasi profile image
Luke

I'll take the Semantic Web any day though, so I can have canonical places to reference web assets from and schema to define and utilize for all kinds of great things.

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grocker42 profile image
Grocker • Edited

Just name me one product that is some how popular in the Crypto space and that has absolutely nothing to do with gambling and is based on web3. As long you can not do this, web3 is a very very bad idea.

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mdamaceno profile image
Marco Damaceno

For me, Web3 pass through vanilla web components, but frontend developers generally insist using Angular, Vue and React. They took over the way the web is meant to be built and showed. There is a long road to revert this scenario. I will believe in that when a job title does not contain "React Developer", but "Javascript developer".

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leewynne profile image
Lee • Edited

I just think it is a very fashionable term that feels good to show your are 'leveling up' from typical full 'snack' 🍫 dev etc. Not sure how true that is though as you can't really do any web3 without web2 πŸ˜‚

One things for sure though, all the tech in 'web3' is mega interesting and exciting to learn and it is powered many exciting defi and utility based nft projects.