The first video actually perfectly describes the difference.
In the 1995 internet, *you could already do stuff*. Of course, Letterman jokes about it, but. You could already write to people at news groups. As Gates replies, you could already read information about your weird interests. You could listen to baseball games. You know, do *actual stuff*.
With all this web3 stuff, you can just gamble. Gamble with NFT "investments", with DAOs, with different cryptocurrencies converting to each other (what's called "DeFi").
There is nothing really there.
What you *can* do, and what is new, is transferring money around regulators. Which is both good (getting money out/in of oppressive regimes); and of course bad (ransomware would not exist without crypto).
But that's not really "web3", is it.
So yeah if there is anything "there" there, it's just that - a way to transact on the internet without regulators. (There is still heavy weirdness around that there; all the goldbuggery, all the scams, but at least I can see *something* in the middle of the bullshit.)
Thanks so much for writing this, this was an excellent distillation. Writing like this is grounding and therapeutic when you’re in a meeting room full of bullishness, which I happen to be all day every day this week. Thanks again.
This is exactly what I’ve been wanting to write!! Thanks for compiling all of these thoughts. Very clearly stated and gets to the core of the doubts that I feel like everyone should have.
The reality is that the blockchain might indeed be immutable and the consensus algorithm infallible, but that doesn't stop the system from being changed by a majority of the miners or a strong-willed founder (e.g. Buterin) pushing through a change the wider community doesn't want to make.
This isn't practically different from the banking system. We trust the value we store there is safely protected by the local bank, but you then also have to trust the FDIC and Federal Reserve won't seize that bank and change your account's value. And before you cry out "federal insurance", ask the people in Argentina how well that worked for them when the government seized all their USD, or ask the people in Cyprus how they liked it when their banks put a hair cut on every account.
Something similar could very well happen on Bitcoin tomorrow if enough of the miners wanted it to. Or if a nefarious group with a few billion dollars built out enough mining infrastructure to own a majority of the nodes.
The code-as-law didn't stop Etherium from rolling back an unmutable log and no set of meta-rules to stop code changes will stop the meta-meta-rules from changing the meta-rules either.
The first video actually perfectly describes the difference.
In the 1995 internet, *you could already do stuff*. Of course, Letterman jokes about it, but. You could already write to people at news groups. As Gates replies, you could already read information about your weird interests. You could listen to baseball games. You know, do *actual stuff*.
With all this web3 stuff, you can just gamble. Gamble with NFT "investments", with DAOs, with different cryptocurrencies converting to each other (what's called "DeFi").
There is nothing really there.
What you *can* do, and what is new, is transferring money around regulators. Which is both good (getting money out/in of oppressive regimes); and of course bad (ransomware would not exist without crypto).
But that's not really "web3", is it.
So yeah if there is anything "there" there, it's just that - a way to transact on the internet without regulators. (There is still heavy weirdness around that there; all the goldbuggery, all the scams, but at least I can see *something* in the middle of the bullshit.)
This is probably the best essay about Web3 I've read! Fantastic job on breaking this down.
Thanks so much for writing this, this was an excellent distillation. Writing like this is grounding and therapeutic when you’re in a meeting room full of bullishness, which I happen to be all day every day this week. Thanks again.
This was a really valuable read, thank you for ta the work you put into it.
Jay, in summary, I feel like you're interviewing me for the CEO position but looking at the resume of my 2-month-old self. Some good points though!
This is exactly what I’ve been wanting to write!! Thanks for compiling all of these thoughts. Very clearly stated and gets to the core of the doubts that I feel like everyone should have.
Note: I'm a crypto fan and blockchain skeptic.
The flaw in the story and the flaw in the blockchain-maximalists is the idea that the code is the law, and that such an idea will suffice. Etherium disproved this idea back in 2016 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum_Classic). Bitcoin in 2017 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_Cash).
The reality is that the blockchain might indeed be immutable and the consensus algorithm infallible, but that doesn't stop the system from being changed by a majority of the miners or a strong-willed founder (e.g. Buterin) pushing through a change the wider community doesn't want to make.
This isn't practically different from the banking system. We trust the value we store there is safely protected by the local bank, but you then also have to trust the FDIC and Federal Reserve won't seize that bank and change your account's value. And before you cry out "federal insurance", ask the people in Argentina how well that worked for them when the government seized all their USD, or ask the people in Cyprus how they liked it when their banks put a hair cut on every account.
Something similar could very well happen on Bitcoin tomorrow if enough of the miners wanted it to. Or if a nefarious group with a few billion dollars built out enough mining infrastructure to own a majority of the nodes.
The code-as-law didn't stop Etherium from rolling back an unmutable log and no set of meta-rules to stop code changes will stop the meta-meta-rules from changing the meta-rules either.
I believe that ENS FAQ is outdated, the powers have been transferred to the ENS DAO: https://twitter.com/BrantlyMillegan/status/1463351016573779969