> some proponents who present web3 as bringing about a libertarian nirvana.
What bothers a lot of us isn't the libertarian nirvana ideal, it's the fact that most loud proponents have a financial interest and stand to gain by increasing adoption, even if only temporarily. Even if they truly believe the technology is pointless and has no future, they are incentivised to pretend that it is revolutionary in order to increase the value of their investments so they can offload their holdings. This makes it difficult to trust anybody writing positively about cryptocurrency-related topics. It's like knowing a manufacturer pays people to write positive reviews about their product and then suddenly seeing lots of blogs and comments raving about how great the products are with little justification.
If you can separate the distributed database technology from the financial speculation then I will be a lot more enthusiastic about it. However, without the get-rich-quick aspect I suspect such a technology won't get nearly as much excitement overall. Mastodon and Diaspora are already working examples of decentralised social networks and this article doesn't state what advantage web3-based products would have over them and people generally don't seem very excited about them.
You make a good point, and you deserve appreciation for your ability not to confuse all of Web3 with the vocal majority behind Web3 right now - who I agree are empty salesman.
> If you can separate the distributed database technology from the financial speculation then I will be a lot more enthusiastic about it.
Tough pill to swallow for you: the consensus mechanism fundamental to Bitcoin and blockchains in general (assuming they are fully decentralized) is economic. It relies on block producers spending or staking their money for no profit if they lie or cheat. The tokens or coins associated with the network are the digital collateralizations of that money, and are therefore subject to shift in valuations relative to anything else you might trade it for.
Crypto is inherently financial as long as its consensus mechanism is economic - that is not a bad thing, but it should inform how communities interact with the topic. Despite believing in crypto, this is why I believe some spaces should not consider it polite to talk about specific crypto-currencies versus others, as it quickly deteriorates into shilling of one's own holdings. This is the same reason novice's can't reliably make money in the market - since everyone advertises coins/tokens they hold as the next coming of Jesus, the only productive way to make decisions about which are good or bad is to not only have a deep understanding of them but also their context in the market as it is currently. Even then you might fall victim to the 'clown market' when hype trumps fundamentals.
Long story short crypto-currencies are inherently economic and therefore financial and subject to price fluctuations which attract speculators. This does not make "crypto" a scam, but it does mean that novices have little recourse for understanding the space sans becoming more independently competent or having a trusted advisor.
The standard you want is not reconcilable and you will simply have to find other signals to pay attention to.
The general idea amongst crypto enthusiasts is:
no conflict, no interest.
So its not about just listening to someone and trusting them, its about having the tools to find something that works for a goal you have, within that ecosystem.
What bothers a lot of us isn't the libertarian nirvana ideal, it's the fact that most loud proponents have a financial interest and stand to gain by increasing adoption, even if only temporarily. Even if they truly believe the technology is pointless and has no future, they are incentivised to pretend that it is revolutionary in order to increase the value of their investments so they can offload their holdings. This makes it difficult to trust anybody writing positively about cryptocurrency-related topics. It's like knowing a manufacturer pays people to write positive reviews about their product and then suddenly seeing lots of blogs and comments raving about how great the products are with little justification.
If you can separate the distributed database technology from the financial speculation then I will be a lot more enthusiastic about it. However, without the get-rich-quick aspect I suspect such a technology won't get nearly as much excitement overall. Mastodon and Diaspora are already working examples of decentralised social networks and this article doesn't state what advantage web3-based products would have over them and people generally don't seem very excited about them.