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.
Oldest comments (89)
Haven't look into Web3 that deep yet, but...
This tweet is probably a great start ๐
it runs on computers
Oh shit
This website puts in a lot of legwork on the topic: web3isgoinggreat.com/
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:
โโโ โโโ โโโ โโโ โโโ โโโ
Unless it has squirrels not touching it.
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 ๐ .
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. ๐
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.
Don't forgot box-shadows. That was an important milestone.
Rounded corners ๐
I just forgive that Web 1.0 gave us Blink.
What was the Web2 equivalent for NFTs?
domain name squatting?
SEO perhaps?
Domain name squatting, that's a good one!
Nft:)
The problem with web3 is that it works through web2.
Web3 is a complete decentralization and now this goal has not been achieved.
Web3 = ย
[DApp (interface) + blockchain (database)]Now it works like this:
DApp (interface) + JSON-RPC (web2) + blockchain (database)But this will be fixed soon, we need to ensure that requests from users are sent immediately to validators/miners from the users' browser. Then we will remove web2 from this chain and achieve full decentralization.
I think the Brave browser should be the first to reach this goal, since they also embed the crypto wallet and IPFS by default.
This (long) read pretty much nails it - tante.cc/2021/12/17/the-third-web/
I just skimmed it, but that was a fantastic overview of the space.
It will not happen in the near future because it will be created by human, and human, not all, but some, strive for power. That is in our nature.
So while human has any possible control over the system it will be impossible to launch something truly decentralized, that is an utopia.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I just think it is a very fashionable term that feels good to show your are 'leveling up' from typical full 'snack' ๐ซ dev etc. Not sure how true that is though as you can't really do any web3 without web2 ๐
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.