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Comment by numtel | Hacker News Reader

A few issues with this:

1. Not all crypto currencies are public. See monero, haven, secret network. Although that last one depends on some specific features of some Intel processors... I'm of the opinion that the pseudonymous nature of public blockchains is very beneficial to society. I would love it if I could see what companies, governments, and people near me were spending their money on. It would enable me to make better decisions.

2. "Web3" is about decentralization but it doesn't necessarily mean storing data on a blockchain. The most important aspect is that users no longer have to sign up or log in. They submit responses which are signed by a key pair, which is their identity instead of a record in a "users" table.

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> "Web3" is about decentralization but it doesn't necessarily mean storing data on a blockchain. The most important aspect is that users no longer have to sign up or log in. They submit responses which are signed by a key pair, which is their identity instead of a record in a "users" table.

It is a record in a "users" table. It is just that this table is the publicly readable blockchain.

Exactly. And, if everyone is using the same blockchain for names (to get the universal login experience), then that becomes centralized source for user accounts. Compare that to today where I have distinctly separate accounts on nearly all platforms.

This one I find especially hilarious given the complete hatred people had for the unification of user profiles among Google products that happened a decade ago. "You are telling me that my gmail account has to be linked to my youtube account, wtf" was a common complaint. Now, this is seen as somehow desirable?

You can create infinite identities :shrug.

How do you figure that public blockchains provide a more pseudo anonymous experience than anything we use today?

I can go to a website today and register any name I want. The main thing that can break that is IP. How does a public blockchain solve the problem of routing a request to a device? How does consolidation of all user accounts to a single public ledger offer _more_ anonymity than exists today where I can have a random distinct account on any website I use?

> I'm of the opinion that the pseudonymous nature of public blockchains is very beneficial to society.

Have you tried to “steelman” this? Because I don’t think it will pass basic scrutiny.

The same companies and governments you want track have more incentives and resources to hide their transactions than any individual, so, either all transactions are public or they’ll be able to hide while most individuals won’t.

Well, except for ransom attacks, nobody is forced to use a public cryptocurrency.

For it to be common and being proud of one's economic transaction history would be awesome.

In the 90s, experiments in publicity like reality TV and the Truman Show movie gave way to social media in the next decade. We are constantly finding new ways to publicize our lives because there is value in publicity.

Privacy shouldn't disappear absolutely but we've got a long ways to go towards greater publicity before reaching the limit of usefulness.

> being proud of one's economic transaction history would be awesome.

I sincerely doubt we'll ever see that. First off, Venmo has already tried to apply the social media formula to transactions. I don't know of a single person who reads their Venmo feed just for fun. Next, most transactions are boring and not worth sharing. "John bought toilet paper and Q-tips. [Like] [Retweet]".

You state that the move to hyper-publicity that we've already seen hasn't reached it's peak for usefulness and yet there are already widespread conversations about the dangers and pain that this hyper-publicity has caused.

If we reach a future where people are "proud" of their transactions and are sharing them everywhere then we've made a horrible mistake.

> I would love it if I could see what companies, governments, and people near me were spending their money on. It would enable me to make better decisions.

I dont get this. I mean, spend your money on the things you need, and if there's money left after that, spend it on things you want. Dont spend it on something your neighbour wants. Let them spend their money on that.

Open ledgers could indeed be a good thing, but no need for blockchain for that, the legislature could simply require all banks to dump all tx daily in a standard format (a payment system version of what the SEC's EDGAR does for US public company disclosures).

That wouldn't track informal trades made with cash. With a common ledger there would be no way to circumvent the system.

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