Re:Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors
by tsimionescu on Tuesday April 30, 2019 @08:16PM
(#19793327)
It's just so hard to imagine, at least in the current version of the world, a problem for which a distributed trust algorithm is the right solution, instead of a centralized one, probably state-owned if high levels of trust are needed. This is especially true given the advantages that a trusted authority has over blind consensus (e.g. the ability to revert fraudulent transactions).
Re:Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors
by spookthesunset on Tuesday April 30, 2019 @09:16PM
(#19793680)
> that there are also some problems for which blockchains are the only solution
Name a single actual problem that is only solved by the blockchain.
Re:Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors
by firebones on Tuesday April 30, 2019 @10:09PM
(#19793920)
The forces of capitalism and most existing forms of government are anathema to decentralization (inherent in the crypto-blockchain premise). The idealism of decentralization exists only until it meets the overwhelming real world gravity of money. At which point blockchain tech and crypto could only thrive if carried out by hand-calculated hashes on paper transported by motorcycle and carrier pigeon.
I'm equally convinced - and I suspect I disagree with most HNers here - that there are also some problems for which blockchains are the only solution - they just don't work with centralized data stores, mostly because nobody would trust a single entity to manage that data store. Google isn't even looking for those problems. In general, Google does not look for problems, it takes problems that everybody knows about and looks for solutions. There are thousands of entrepreneurs in the cryptoverse who are looking for those problems.
There was a time, early in its history, where Google was willing to take a solution - download the web and keep only the links - and then find the problem (search) for which it was the solution. And then they leveraged that solution into all sorts of other problems - webmail, navigation & directions, news, academic papers, video, etc. But the thing is that this is a risky business: most solutions in search of a problem don't actually solve anything, so the time spent solving them is wasted.