Re:Web3 Is Not Decentralization
by acdha on Thursday December 09, 2021 @06:43PM
(#29504702)
> You mentioned persona, which relies on email. Lose gmail=lose your account on possibly hundreds of websites.
Think about this more: we're not talking about a blockchain where the failure is permanent and irreversible. If you forget your Gmail password or someone phishes you, you can go through Google's reset process and regain control. It's still a mess but it's repairable. Similarly, if you don't like Google for whatever reason, email is a distributed system which means you can run your own server or switch providers easily. Similarly, most sites have the concept of linking multiple email addresses or other means to perform a password reset. Nothing about this problem requires turning your internet experience into a series of microtransactions (often not so micro).
> Cryptocoins are not yet widely used, but there is nothing stopping people from coming up with new ingenious ways to store their hard money safely as they have done in real life.
Yes, and they've largely picked the traditional banking system. Most cryptocurrency users use exchanges because those are hard problems which require 24x7 security and operations, and the vast majority of people choose to outsource it.
This is why I suggested studying the long history of this because while the internet has always been decentralized many things people use have increasingly centralized _by user preference_. OpenID had an unfriendly design but it's far from the only thing people have tried, Persona being an obvious example, and in general the public hasn't cared about this enough to even switch to a free service much less a microtransaction-based one.
> It 's a change of mindset, that it is possible to lose digital assets permanently. I think many people can come to terms with that in the end
People have been getting familiar with that for half a century. The difference is that the proposed systems are designed to be fragile rather than robust, cost more to use, and the proposal is to link more of your entire life into those systems without a recovery path. If there isn't a really clear, compelling benefit this is not going to be a successful sales pitch.
Think about this more: we're not talking about a blockchain where the failure is permanent and irreversible. If you forget your Gmail password or someone phishes you, you can go through Google's reset process and regain control. It's still a mess but it's repairable. Similarly, if you don't like Google for whatever reason, email is a distributed system which means you can run your own server or switch providers easily. Similarly, most sites have the concept of linking multiple email addresses or other means to perform a password reset. Nothing about this problem requires turning your internet experience into a series of microtransactions (often not so micro).
> Cryptocoins are not yet widely used, but there is nothing stopping people from coming up with new ingenious ways to store their hard money safely as they have done in real life.
Yes, and they've largely picked the traditional banking system. Most cryptocurrency users use exchanges because those are hard problems which require 24x7 security and operations, and the vast majority of people choose to outsource it.
This is why I suggested studying the long history of this because while the internet has always been decentralized many things people use have increasingly centralized _by user preference_. OpenID had an unfriendly design but it's far from the only thing people have tried, Persona being an obvious example, and in general the public hasn't cared about this enough to even switch to a free service much less a microtransaction-based one.
> It 's a change of mindset, that it is possible to lose digital assets permanently. I think many people can come to terms with that in the end
People have been getting familiar with that for half a century. The difference is that the proposed systems are designed to be fragile rather than robust, cost more to use, and the proposal is to link more of your entire life into those systems without a recovery path. If there isn't a really clear, compelling benefit this is not going to be a successful sales pitch.