Is Web3 a "scam"?

Web3 is not decentralized.

I think it's true that the article is not worth it at all, but it's a must, because all the tech giants like Reddit, Twitter and Discord have decided to stock up on NFT) . homogenized tokens) to achieve “decentralization”.

Reddit special pissed me off. Around May 2020, Reddit announced a community token system on two subreddits that I had not visited, / r / FortniteBR and / r / CryptoCurrency. As now the deleted tweet from developer Reddit, they plan to convert Reddit content into community tokens. Reddit's overall plan is the same as suggested by our tech company (Twitter appears to have added NFT tags to image uploads, and Discord has given their campaign a behind-the-scenes look). against the audience), so I'll talk about it in detail. on the comments on the matter.

In short, Web 1.0 is a big frontier for decentralization and Web 2.0 is a wall panel with many flaws, and I agree with you. And now Reddit has joined the ranks of “Web3” by distributing an Ethereum-based cryptocurrency, claiming that it hopes to give the site back voting rights for its users. And I will refute the claim in this article.

Decentralization of the site

Now let's go back in history and take the "time web" back to the 1980s, when the Internet was born. At present, the Internet can be divided into two main areas: the College / Military Network of Advanced Research Project Agencies (ARPANETs) and other telephony services.

The ancestor of the modern Internet, ARPANET was designed with network redundancy and routing flexibility in mind. Even if a major city or these important archives are destroyed, electronic data can still be transmitted as long as there is a route between point A and point B (although previously via a microwave wireless connection). However, this type of network has some drawbacks, usually if multiple shared services (such as Gopher, FTP, and later HTTP) still need to reside on the host server. In the event of a nuclear attack and/or a US invasion of California, Stanford data is inaccessible. But at the same time, improved processes such as email, IRC, and especially Usenet have brought changes to the language of servers on the Internet, creating a sense of authenticity throughout the network.

In addition to the specialized ARPANET, there are technology specialists and specialized companies that produce bulletin boards. However, most leaders of these systems develop programs on their computers that allow other computer users to communicate through modems. Individual telephone connectivity is required between the two computers. This always causes problems. To communicate with other computers, you must disconnect from your current connection and call another number. Send to server is typically only used to fetch and return sensitive files, resulting in many file silos, much like Web 2.0 today.

To solve this problem, we have developed several solutions, one of which is UUCP (UNIx-to-Unix Copy, Inter-UNIX Copy Protocol). The UNIX public server is connected to the standard servers, so you can connect to the public server and manually send messages to any of the servers or users. The first email address is www-beaver! Teltone! Dataio! Holly. Later, when the Internet grew and all free servers were connected to other servers, this model was abandoned. Another popular option with BBS startup staff is FidoNet. This process allows synchronization of BBS data and data without the need for long distance calls using the exchange method within the same region.

The entire initial data exchange process was developed over the Internet before intermediary services were provided remotely. In the past, BBS has moved on from internet services and accessing international internet services such as email, Usenet, World Wide Web, and more by simply calling the local number. Some of these resources have grown and become more important over time, such as AOL, which offers specialized content, interactive graphics, and wallpapers, while Geocities (formerly Beverly Hills Internet) quickly ditched anything but the web hosting component. But in the end, the garden walls cracked and were replaced with open structures that did not belong to the ISPs. ISPs today struggle to control and improve their extensive applications and no longer have their own services.

caseCase Study: Usenet (Distributed Internet Communication System)

You can think of Usenet as early as Reddit because it is a network of many "news groups". One of the uses of Usenet is to send information over the Internet, but it has also been used by many online communities, such as entertainment and popular media. Today, the use of Usenet has moved away from its primary focus as a video and software download site. You can also search for the Usenet discussion on Google Groups or read the mid-September news.

Simply put, like an email, you send a message to a group media server, where it can be seen by users around the world. You can reply to other posts by email or email the author directly. The details in the tree look like Reddit quotes. Newsgroup servers can be selected to hold specific news items and keep them up to date by connecting to another network. Usenet messaging is similar to modern FidoNet systems. In my opinion, it's a very nice design system at the time.

However, the biggest problem with Usenet is the lack of proper management. Most Usenet media crews were unaffected and penalized at the time, but all misinformation violated the law. Because Usenet is inherently decentralized, tools for tracking and deleting posts are very limited. It is theoretically possible for administrators to send a deletion message, and although deletion is done by tools such as Cancelbot, this is inconsistent when some believe it to be a violation of freedom of expression. Another option is central media, where the message is first sent to the media chair and then announced after approval.

The growth of large binaries kept ISPs down and too much spam involved, which ultimately led to the downfall of Usenet. At the same time, small newsletters and blogs appeared on the Internet, but these sites were eventually taken down by social networks such as 4chan, Reddit or Facebook.

Case Study: IRC

IRC, also known as Internet Relay Chat, is an instant messaging service established in the 1980s. Initially, the goal of the process was to provide access to the same network to all users, but soon the fragmentation of the community has led to the emergence of several rival networks such as FreeNode (now Libera Chat), EFnet, and IRCnet. . Little people like tilde.chat still exist today.

IRC is a distribution system that allows multiple servers on the same IRC network to synchronize and keep the same channel and cross messages between servers. You simply connect to the nearest server and the backend selects the appropriate server to send the message to. It can connect to any consumer, and IRC is a simple and open protocol to today's complex processes and members. It is also very easy to connect your bot according to your needs (the bot which saves your messages for later consultation, as IRC does not provide message history). Because these are only specially programmed users.

IRC (usually) can only send text and does not have proper procedures for registering users, comments, or other discussions such as MSN, Slack, Matrix, or Discord. In 2003, IRC began to decline with the advent of a new generation of applications. Although still used daily by the open source tech community and services like Twitch.tv chat.

Case Study: IPFS

The full name of IPFS is Interplanetary File System, the root process. Solves the problem of a single location for data and information by allowing anyone to maintain copies of data to provide network connectivity.

The operation of IPFS is poor because it is important to regularly use the hash of the file as an address. There are several ways around this problem, for example IPNS combined with DNSLink can provide a static address for the DNS entry, which can be used to transfer a file into IPFS.

This search is short because there is not much to search for. IPFS is for data hosting. Neocity supports this approach. Surprisingly, most NFT products are kept here. The real problem is only the lost data when all hosting owners have lost it. But that's not a real solution. IPFS itself is good.

Concept of "decentralization" of Web3

Above we spent a lot of time discussing various policies 20-40 years ago, let's take a look at the current situation. In a rapidly growing crypto environment, there is the idea of ​​Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO). Ethereum.org describes it as an "integrated, member-driven online business." On the surface, DAOs are a bit like colleagues.

As a cryptocurrency, Ethereum's primary role is to execute code on Ethereum virtual machines. To be fair, this is a weird architecture (stack based, 1024, 256 bit deep word, weird). Its state can be shared with all Ethereum miners around the world, and its components and output are tokens made up of: two types of homogenized tokens (e.g., ether) and non-fungible tokens.

By keeping the strict rules of the blockchain by smart contract, it is possible to obtain votes for each investment in a project. Here, the voting (including numbers, money, etc.) is completely transparent, but the smart contracts that establish the DAO cannot be changed.

I won't discuss the pros and cons of smart promises in this sentence. Investors), think it will be more interesting to talk about practical use.

Case study: Decentralization

Next, let's talk about the example of Decentraland. It is DAO which aims to create the virtual world (metaverse).

Decentraland allows users to vote on a variety of policies and ecosystem changes, including new product additions, special ops grants, marketing costs, content servers, and more. There is also the Security Council with the power to delete existing contracts to correct invalid contracts.

Decentraland operates a homogenized token called MANA, which is used for all systems in the system. There are no exchange fees (like the cost of fuel) for voting using Snapshot, but the weight of the vote depends on the number of game tokens the user uses. In theory, existing users with multiple tokens are more important than new users, and the system is similar to proof of ownership in the cryptocurrency process.

The traditional voting model for DAOs is square voting, but there is no evidence that Decentraland used this method. This vote counts the boxes of each vote in the financial statements, for example 1 vote = $ 1, 2 votes = $ 4, 3 votes = $ 9, and so on. The goal is simple binary yes or no. This voting method is good if all voters have the same number of votes, but when attached to a room it creates more problems.

Another problem is that the entire structure of the system can benefit from low power consumption. In Decentraland, voting for land, clothes, or something are really just digital numbers that can't be printed or enlarged. I hate NFTs for many reasons, but most of all I hate the idea of ​​creating less capital. Our industry sees the situation as a gift to the world that needs to be supported, and is a resource that can be used to its limits without support in mind. The abuse of natural resources and uncontrolled energy claimed to increase the value of Internet products is ultimately catastrophic, and all that matters to humanity is whether the return on investment outweighs the investment.

Obviously, Decentraland has not abandoned this notion. If DAO cannot generate enough revenue from the operation of the platform, the Decentraland server itself cannot operate. Plus, of course, every election was decided by the most successful people in Decentraland, which caused a lot of controversy and injustice because they loved to vote. race.

So, although Decentraland is a platform extension, I think it has its own hierarchical structure influenced by early platforms. Basically, Decentraland is just a website with a set of rules. The system is no different from any other system, instead using blockchain, Club Penguin currency or money from your Steam wallet stored on Decentraland servers and managing the company's contracts. When the Decentraland servers went down, everything in it lost value and nothing benefited outside of the ecosystem. In short, I don't think it's decentralization.

Case study: points from the Reddit community

Next, let's talk about the changes in Web3 and social media.

Reddit is a Usenet-like root system with a very different distribution. Reddit hosts individual subreddits and provides management tools to support both subreddit voting/approval and administration. Reddit strictly restricts the administration of up/down votes, and webmasters have the tools to restrict this. So, subreddit communities, whether anonymous users or active members, are all up to you to decide which content is best and take it first. This is the foundation of Reddit and so far it has worked well.

However, with the introduction of community content, Reddit is looking for community members to be “owners of their favorite community,” as well as participating members within a business. Content is only a measure of your reputation and is a great way to show "wealth" such as votes or rewards like banners, emojis, GIFs, etc. Voting is an independent election and involves two options: one person, one vote or one vote. The terms are not used when voting. Every 4 weeks, the Reddit site publishes a list of the content received by each user. The content of this list may change if you use 1 vote per ballot.

Obviously, Reddit isn't even being distributed so far. Decentraland raises many considerations. Reddit's system also doesn't allow new users to vote. Of course, you can't create your own subreddit servers and host community, you can't disconnect from the main reddit network and create your own subreddits separately, and you can't delete reddit admins. There is no denying that Reddit is a profitable business, but people have no vision of buying bogus content on the internet.

The same goes for Twitter and Discord. This is not a distribution unless you allow third parties to connect to other users using the same rights.

Web3 is not decentralized. Not all systems owned by the organization are decentralized. None of these systems are decentralized because the purpose of these systems is simply to create value for the owners. So can we stop assuming that they are decentralized?