this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2024
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I want to see what you mean in practical terms, because the only other example that I know besides questionable crypto currencies is NFTs and that was an epic lesson on what not to do. 😅
An NFT is a deed. Do you see any uses for a deed that is not in control of a central authority?
Not really, no. Who's going to honor the deed? There's your central authority that can control it.
There are other uses. Like making a system that is interconnected and resistant to hacking. For example an interconnected traffic light system that can prioritize transit/emergency vehicles could be managed by a block chain to ensure the system stays in sync with itself for traffic flow/prioirty while being resistant to hacking or malicious activity.
This is a classic solution in search of a problem. The problem with stop lights isn't that corporations control them, the problem with stop lights is that the general population thinks that cars are the only way to get around and demand that city officials optimize street and roads for cars. Adding a bunch of crazy verification steps will not solve this problem.
This is another social problem that technology just can't solve.
How does adding more computers, more points of failure, make infrastructure less prone to exploitation?
Because it’s a trustless system. In order to override the system you have to take over 50% of the nodes, and in large enough systems it’s infeasible to get that much compute power. This means that no one person or organization can actually control the destiny of the system, only the consensus can.
I can’t believe that here, in the fediverse of all places, we need to have a discussion about the benefits of having a system that corporations can’t control.
It's almost like different types of systems have different requirements, and a communication platform benefits from decentralization, where traffic lights and vehicle routing does not.
Ok explain to me the advantages of a decentralized traffic light system that controls public traffic on public streets?
What advantages does a blockchain traffic light system have over a centralized server controlled by those who are responsible for maintaining the physical hardware?
Nah that one makes perfect sense to be centralized. I’m saying in general you’d want a system to be decentralized if you want it trustless.
Who controls the streetlight blockchain in your idea? You think the government is going to responsibly manage a system that is large enough to be impractical to alter? My local government is barely responsibly enough to manage basic utility maintenance, we’ve had 3 water main bursts in a month and it hasn’t even been below freezing that whole time.
I can’t believe a human being living in the world doesn’t see that any implementation of a secure blockchain requires massive funding for infrastructure. That money comes from 1 of 2 places, illegal enterprises that maintain control for security and manipulation, and legal corporations that will maintain control for financial security and manipulation. Modern governments don’t run projects like this anymore, they contract them out to corporations.
Keep in mind that the only practical use of blockchain that anyone has found so far, has been as a currency that requires no ID. The most famous use of these currencies was by John Mccaffee, who used crypto currencies to help him evade authorities for nearly a decade. So I don’t have much faith in a technology that has only shown a benefit to criminals with so much money that cash becomes impractical. Nor do I have to remind you that wealthy private individuals have been able to manipulate crypto markets with hilarious ease, like how Musk pumped and dumped Doge Coin years ago with a single tweet and most likely made millions in private, untraceable money.
Just because something sounds cool on paper, and makes it seem like it skirts governments and corporations, doesn’t mean it works in practice. Large entities inherently have more resources, and are primed to steal new technologies for their own use, especially when implementing that technology requires huge funding for infrastructure.
Yeah I realize now I responded to a thread about traffic lights instead of systems in general. Obviously centralized systems are far superior for that.
No, NFTs do have good uses, but things like image NFTs are just a misappropriation, like SPAM is to email.
One use case, is clear, independently verifiable ownership of non-tangible things, like Intellectual Property rights. Movie rights for a book adaptation for instance moving between companies in IP sales and mergers/acquisitions.
I don't know the value in a decentralized IP rights system. If the key holder gets phished, you can lose your rights to a TV series you've been working on. (Like Seth Greene)
He wouldn't have lost it and had to pay back the ransom in a traditional contract. Having a contract centralized and enforced by the legal system has many perks and I can't ever see how a decentralized rights platform can enforce itself.
"Intellectual Property[sic]" is dishonest loaded language, but yes, I agree with you that blockchain could be a good way for a copyright holder to prove their monopoly. 'Course, that's also what registering your copyright with the Library of Congress is for, so...
And it's ALWAYS the same problem. You can have all the lists you want. A central authority has to recognize and enforce that list. At which point, the structure of your list is completely irrelevant. It could be ANY list. What matters is that it's chosen to be enforced. And currently, most power structures are happy with plain old databases. Or pen and paper.
A plain old database also has ways of dealing with theft.
If someone steals your crypto keys and sends your assets to themselves, they have no legal ownership over those assets but they're listed as the owner in the blockchain, so blockchain isn't even any good at being an accurate, verifiable record of ownership.
Yes, you can't make changes to the blockchain, but that also means you can never fix anything. So you actually can't rely on the blockchain to be accurate.
I hear that now since 12 Years. Its not going to happen.
The perfect use case is tickets to live events. One entity creates one NFT for each seat or spot available and can initially sell them. The owner of that NFT (ticket) can then do whatever they want with it without the need for a third party (Ticketmaster) to scalp the shit out of any subsequent transactions.
Proof of ownership of a single ticket at the time of the event is the end goal, which is what NFTs do.
Why this hasn't been done is pretty baffling to me.
What's better, is if artists want to provide a subset of tickets that are not resellable they can. Those tickets will only be accepted if a single transaction has taken place.
That's not a perfect use case for it. That's a central authority (venue) selling tickets to anyone who wants to buy them. But instead of using a local database and approving transfers from person to person and losing the ability to reverse transactions due to fraud, it's hosted in the wild west of crypto.
There's nothing stopping a venue from offering your perfect use case in a centralized system, but they outsource it to Ticketmaster (namely because Ticketmaster owns like 80% of music venues or something) so they don't have to deal with it.
Your scenario outsources it to the block chain, who will charge gas for the transactions instead of ticketmaster charging fees.
Duranium-on-the-Mohs-scale hard pass. Tickets work fine.
What's baffling to me is the ramping up of the 21st century penchant for mindless wheel-re-inventing.
That is an absolutely TERRIBLE use case because it is by definition centralized. The venue already has ample control over who tf gets in and there is little problem with counterfeit tickets.
How is that supposed to prevent scalping, exactly?
And that's better than physical tickets, because...?
That's also already a solved problem: write a name on a ticket and validate that name with an ID.
paper tickets are relatively easy to counterfeit, especially for the purposes of selling the counterfeits as scalped/unwanted tickets.
Again: that's a solved problem with holograms.
Just responding to the “scalping” quote. It absolutely wouldn’t stop scalping, what I HOPE op was trying to say was that it could be used to prevent Ticketmaster, or any entity like it, from charging fees on every exchange of said ticket.
Would it? Or would Ticketmaster just buy all the NFTs and then have even less regulation on their scalping?
I forgot to say IN THEORY again. My bad.
The sounds like scalpers paradise. They can buy multiple tickets and sell it without thinking about any authorization (id card or something) when using that tickets
Because the blockchain needs an incentive. Who is going to be taking part in the blockchain if there is nothing in it for them? That's why these tokens are often tied to crypto currencies, as mining is the incentive.
Yeah why would ticketmaster, who makes a killing having their ticket monopoly and control, develop a system where they lose control?
Without really having an opinion on the matter - I think there's a difference in having a use and being adopted.
Something can be absolutely awesome in theory but useless if no one is using it.
Yeah I think a lot of people don’t understand that “good for x problem”, “better than existing solution”, and “switching to this solution is better than staying with the existing solution” are three vastly different things
Blockchain fails because switching to it is consistently worse than sticking with current solutions, and often it fails at being better than current solutions in the abstract
IP rights is not a problem that needs solving. In fact, the existing legal system has ways of punishing copyright violations whereas the Blockchain does not.
Supply chain validation is also an example of the block chain "in action". But the people that are entering the data on the Blockchain are the same people that were typing it in an email yesterday.
I used to be a fan of the technology as well but so far it hasn't show itself to be useful. A solution in search of a problem.
Why is your system better than the existing one?
There is, for example, the first-owner problem in a public blockchain. What happens if I make an NFT saying I own you property? Without an external system, how can you prove your NFT is real and mine isn't? And if there's an external system, why not use that instead?
I thought of that problem the moment when they started explaining their use case. I had no idea there is a name for it, kinda cool. If the blockchain people have a real solution for it, it would be a pretty big deal
It's a term from copyright. The First Owner of a work is usually the person who makes a work, and they can then do all sorts of things with that.