I know everyone is fed up with the cliche of web3, but having done some side projects with web3 (as in npm i web3) and ipfs, the posted article here is very exciting.
This posted link could be another piece of the jigsaw (Solidity, IPFS, IPNS, ...) that I think will come together to make interesting apps in the future. Solidity doesn't mean necessarily spending $100 to make a function call - there are other chains, off chain stuff being developed, and you could host a private chain for your app.
While none of this stuff can do something new you can't do with Postgres - you can create more open and perhaps 'honest' applications where everyone can see the data-engine and understand it. So it is more of a cultural shift. For example, if you make a Twitter this way, you don't need to rely on an API. The data is there for everyone, all of it.
For example, take Uniswap. It's not a company like Facebook, it's an open protocol. Swapping tokens is now functionally open source because of that. There is no "Facebook of swapping tokens". And this can be used as a building block for other apps. Not necessarily just "gambling" or "trading" either.
Even as someone who profited well from Uniswap's initial token offering I still have to say that "swapping tokens" is an entirely useless functionality. Gambling, trading, scamming, and laundering are the only realized uses of crypto I have seen since I became involved with the ecosystem a decade ago. The fatal flaw of the decentralization argument is that humans are involved. People want to be able to negotiate chargebacks, even if it is a hassle. People are willing to surrender anonymity in exchange for forms of credit. All organizations require trusted parties. DAOs in a real world would still require forms of centralized trust to perform (AWS, Cloudflare, ...) and little stops one member from going rogue, stealing IP, and starting his own (legally recognized) business. This is before you even start opening an Econ 101 textbook to page 1.
While I generally agree with the principle that there is a conflict between things people say they want in terms of anonymity etc and what they do want (security for chargebacks, credit etc etc), there are still increasing trade use cases, especially around sex, that are heavily discriminated against.
What you’re describing is so 101 level, I don’t mean it in an insulting way but in bewilderment from the typical criticisms from within tech from which you’d think what you’re describing is impossible mythology or completely off the mark
Transparency in business is a hugely interesting area, look at efforts around equal exchange and related schemes for honest products that get workers paid. New financial instruments for ensuring this transparently to funders (whether a commercial transaction/purchaser, or public goods funding, or other sources) is transformative potentially on a political scale, or at least more scalable than other efforts with less dilution to practicalities of traditional commerce. Maybe I’ll have more words to share when I can express it through my current project
(which I must add because of concerningly wide quickness to attack, is not eth or ecologically impactful tech)
This posted link could be another piece of the jigsaw (Solidity, IPFS, IPNS, ...) that I think will come together to make interesting apps in the future. Solidity doesn't mean necessarily spending $100 to make a function call - there are other chains, off chain stuff being developed, and you could host a private chain for your app.
While none of this stuff can do something new you can't do with Postgres - you can create more open and perhaps 'honest' applications where everyone can see the data-engine and understand it. So it is more of a cultural shift. For example, if you make a Twitter this way, you don't need to rely on an API. The data is there for everyone, all of it.
For example, take Uniswap. It's not a company like Facebook, it's an open protocol. Swapping tokens is now functionally open source because of that. There is no "Facebook of swapping tokens". And this can be used as a building block for other apps. Not necessarily just "gambling" or "trading" either.