As a foreword, yes I am very aware of resources like https://web3isgoinggreat.com You don’t need to spam the comments with the link.
I am not asking about your general opinions on why crypto kittens is a jerk fest for crypto bros. Please cut the automatic generic rant on why cryptocurrencies is the sandbox of brainless dopamine monkeys. I am asking about your sentiment on a specific scenario, that tries to solve a real problem.
This is just an example, for oversimplification.
In a trust-less environment, one person shares some of their cloud space for a fixed amount of time, with another person they don’t know much.
The person asking for the cloud space, promises that they will use it only for X,Y or Z. They both agree to leave all the data in clear text (it is easy to prove whether there has been a breach of trust).
If the person doesn’t respect their engagement, they must be penalized. In this scenario, there is no legal tool to ensure this.
Enters the smart contract. The individual asking for a share of the cloud space, deposits a certain amount of ETH in a smart contract. The smart contract itself ensures that the owner of the cloud space will NEVER have access to the deposit fund.
Both individuals sign the smart contract. After a fixed amount of time, the depositor can retrieve their deposit back.
However, if for somewhat reason the depositor breaks their engagement (and do something outside X,Y, Z), the person sharing their cloud space can refuse the refund of the deposit.
Both individuals must then reach a consensus, or the deposit will stay frozen on the smart contract forever.
In this case, would the use of a smart contract be a reasonable solution to you?
Isn’t this the point of escrow? I trust that more than I trust anything remotely related to crypto.
Do you have examples of an escrow in this scenario? Smart contracts are opensource and can be deployed by anyone, like for example one of the two individuals aforementioned. This is the advantage I see in this case.
I am not trying to start an argument, only looking forward finding a proper solution.looking forward to finding a proper solution
To the contrary, I think you have a solution in search of a problem.
Your solution is smart contracts, and you’re asking us if we agree that your cloud storage example would be a good use case for that solution.
What do you mean by “cloud space”? Is it on a cloud drive somewhere or my own computer?
Because if they want extra cloud space it’s cheaper and safer to just buy it from an established provider.
If they want to store their data on my computer, what guarantees do I have to offer in therms of availability and speed of access?
Do I have to keep my PC turned on at all times? What happens if I lose internet connection? Can I restart my pc after an update? Do I have to ensure redundancy? How do I compensate them on data loss?
If they don’t want to use a provider like Google, Microsoft or Dropbox, then why? Do they want to store something questionable or illegal?
I don’t really understand your point. The scope of this conversation is not about cloud shopping, but trying to find the middle ground in trust-less environments. This is why I specified that this is an oversimplification, and not a real world example.
Take IPFS for example https://www.scaleway.com/en/blog/ipfs-the-real-web3-explained/
The data on the network can not be modified and tampered with, and nothing is encrypted. This answers the problem of “questionable content”. You are not responsible of its uptime, and you are not even required to host the data yourself.I assumed you meant file/data storage because you were talking about “cloud space”.
My issue with these solutions is that you have to trust that your data will be available on the other person’s machine whenever you want to access it.
Imagine something like a torrent. They only work as long as there are people seeding it. As soon as nobody’s interested, the torrent file is useless.
If I agree that I’ll host someone’s data on my computer for money I’ll have to guarantee that it will be available, otherwise why would they gamble that they might lose their data?
My impression with all these web3/crypto projects is that aside from crypto currencies everything that I’ve seen so far can be solve in a better way with conventional methods.
If your point is doing web3 for web3’s sake then go ahead, it’s an interesting concept and thought experiment, just not that useful yet in my opinion.
No because it can’t be revoked when unintended consequences that neither party wants occurs
This may be overkill, but this is the point of a trust-less environment. Both parties ought to be extremely careful of what they sign, I agree.
Yeah and the problem is, the real world kinda doesn’t care. Code gives zero fucks. If I have to be 250% sure the code is correct because no court can fix it if we screw up that’s just not worth it to me. I’d rather trust in unbiased humans
Plus, there will always be people who will exploit hard coded loopholes in the system where no sane, logical third party official would.
The first thing that comes to mind is various ‘police agencies’ in MMOs. Way, way back in the Ultima Online Beta, you’d be walking through town and another player would come up and attempt to pick pocket items out of your inventory. If you turned around and smacked them, the guards would spawn and instantly kill you, which caused everything you were carrying to fall to the ground beside your corpse, and then the thieves would just pick up anything valuable and walk away free and clear. They were counting on this behavior of course, and they’d antagonize new players until they got what they wanted. There was a similar example in EVE Online, where pirates who knew the system would open up floating cans left by players who were mining, causing them to flash red to the miner. If the miner fought back, the police would show up, your ship would be destroyed, and the pirates could pick through all your stuff.
Given OP’s example, I can guarantee scenarios like this with Smart Contracts will be fairly easy to pull off.
I get your point, I agree to some extent.
I don’t know much about MMO, but given your example of in-game situations, there are cases of moderators/admin treating you unfairly because of a misunderstanding, or because they “don’t like you”. Or other cases where you are locked out of a MMO because you were flagged as an abuser, and you need to jump hoops, to prove yourself, and get your account unfrozen.
So I would argue that in this case, nothing is bulletproof of “bugs” or “abuse”, and it is not a black or white situation.
However, it is true that we need a balance between automatic system parsing bazingas of datas everyday, and humans having authority on the outcome, when needed. Harder to know where to draw the line.
Yeah and the problem is, the real world kinda doesn’t care. Code gives zero fucks. If I have to be 250% sure the code is correct because no court can fix it if we screw up that’s just not worth it to me
Fair point, the advantages are not worth the struggle of triple checking everything and ensuring there is no bug.
I’d rather trust in unbiased humans
This is my personal opinion, but I disagree on this one. I’d rather choose a well written, unbiased piece of code, over a human that cannot be unbiased.
Ah, but how do you know that the code is well-written?
There have been multiple cases in smart contracts where the code looked good, but a subtle bug ended up being exploited.
