this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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As best I can guess, it looks like they're just throwing the word blockchain in there so that a16z will hand them $40m in funding.
I'm amazed there are still people out there who consider blockchain a positive buzzword.
There aren't. a16z are a crypto company. They're almost certainly tying the funding to CCP putting the word blockchain in there in the hopes of tricking people into thinking there's still some life in this dead horse they're flogging.
Why couldn’t it be a positive word? Assuming you’re disassociating it from bitcoin
Because there have yet to be any valuable applications of blockchain. It's an interesting idea in computer science theory, but you can't do hardly anything useful with it in the real world.
Minor/pedantic addendum: For all uses of "blockchain" in this thread, I assume we can all agree that we're talking about "public ledger blockchain" specifically.
Private blockchains absolutely have their uses, such as being the technology that powers Git. But those uses are still strictly limited to situations where an append only ledger is actually useful, and those are very few indeed.
But yes, in regards to public ledger blockchain, there are absolutely no valid use cases.
The value of blockchain is to provide immutable ownership of something. Whether that be music, a tv show, movie, music, video game, etc. There is music on the blockchain, and the artists who have created that music can sell their music to fans without having to pay egregious fees to corporations. As well, they can determine if they'd like to include royalties, so every time their song is resold they can get a percentage of that transaction. TV show and movies are far less common, but the fact that you can own media on a decentralized platform that won't go down because, a cloud service is having trouble, or the company decides they don't want to host that particular media anymore even if customers have already bought it, means that you have access to what you purchased. The same can be said about games. Moreover, assets you either collect or purchase for that game can either be traded or sold. And, apparently the US Gov feels like there's beneficial use cases for it, too: https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-104625.pdf
If I have a movie downloaded on my computer I own it, I don't need a link on a decentralized ledger to prove it to anyone lmao. The movie itself (or the music) isn't even "on the blockchain". It's clear you don't understand the technology.
So, slightly pedantic correction. You can store the data on the BTC blockchain, there’s really nothing preventing it. It costs in fees, it’s not at all what Bitcoin was designed for, but it’s been done in the past.
You technically can but it's not practical for the mass amounts of data and practicality is critical. Heck, bitcoin is barely practical as a currency. Can you imagine someone who isn't tech savvy managing their own wallet? Imagine what happens when their funds are gone, there's nobody to call, and even if there were somebody to call, all that person could say is "sorry, all transactions are final and non-reversible".
It's not about proving anything. It's the fact that society is moving towards subscription based models in any facet of life they can possibly work it in. Software, hardware, tv, cars... Are you upset with the way I referred to how the data is stored? Typically that's the most cut and dry way of getting the point across. But since you're an expert on the matter, why don't you elaborate on why you're so against technology that benefits people?
The data wouldn't be stored "on the blockchain", that would be incredibly inefficient. Even with NFTs which were mostly only JPEGs, the blockchain only stored a hyperlink to the file on a server somewhere. You couldn't keep a 2GB movie file on a blockchain. So it really doesn't solve any problems, as you're still relying on a server somewhere to host your media for you. How exactly does that benefit anyone?
I, totally, get that you can't store large files on the blockchain. It's just how I generally refer to it. What I had in mind was something more along the lines of the file, or what have you, being on the blockchain but hosted on IPFS or something. I get peer-to-peer isn't ideal, but I've always like the idea of decentralization. I think the only significant things to actually be on the blockchain would be contracts and things of that nature. I regards to how it could benefit someone, there's definitely utility in it for financial matters. Such as stock market transactions. It would be nice if there was more insight into how companies use ATSes, or swaps (considering things like swap disclosures for certain things tend to get pushed back years and years, and the Swiss gov doesn't want to disclose certain financial matters about UBS absorbing CS for 50 years). But, all that aside, I think the most promising aspect is the ability for it to be incorporated into games. Having gamers be able to obtain skins, weapons, armor, etc. and have that be traded outside of a walled-garden. And, hopefully there's some interoperability with those things, between games, in the next few/handful of years. Not saying it's destined to happen, but it certainly would be nice to see.
You're just saying a bunch of things that don't actually mean anything now. I don't even know what you're trying to say with the financial stuff, but with the games stuff, how is there utility in trading a skin outside a game when you can only use it in that game anyway? Besides companies would have to adopt that tech. How is having a public ledger proving you own a skin in BigShinyGame worthwhile if in order to use that skin you have to log into your account on BigShinyGames servers and use their matchmaking service. If you're relying on a company to host a multiplayer game for you anyway, why not keep relying on them to host your items? If the game goes away so does all the value of your stuff.
I'm sorry if you think financial accountability and the ability to trade/sell items outside of a walled-garden don't mean anything. And, I don't know if you missed it but the fact that there could be interoperability in games answers your question. I know, it's not a thing now, but that doesn't mean it can't be. The internet wasn't a thing in the early 90's and no one could have imagined what utility it would have brought 20-years down the line, but here we are. Let me put it to you like this, regardless of how you feel about it, does it negatively affect you to have more options? Why are you on Lemmy when there's Reddit and Facebook? The tech doesn't negatively affect you, and regardless if you think it has any utility or it's dumb, that doesn't mean others share your opinion. Even if those people are the minority, does it mean we should tell them they can't do something just because we don't like it or can't see the benefit in it? Literally, of all places I would have assumed Lemmy users would have been more open-minded and tolerant of things. lol... Have a good day.
But you don't need blockchain to solve the issue with the push for subscription business models, it actually has zero impact on whether or not companies want to use that model. I can buy a digital file (providing someone is selling it of course) without blockchain, it's mine without blockchain, and I can use it however I want without blockchain, I can sell it without blockchain...so why would I need blockchain for this scenario? It doesn't provide a solution to a problem.
Companies will push for subscription models because they love that recurrent revenue and lock-in of the userbase it provides. blockchain isn't going to stop them from having this preference.