Comment by berberous | Hacker News Reader

Comment by berberous | Hacker News Reader

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This comment is no different than the following infamous comments

1. “No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame”; from Slashdot, dismissing the new Apple iPod.

2. "For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software"; from HN, on the launch of Dropbox.

Yes, DAOs may be similar to corporations mixed with a SuveyMoney, and the above comments also have some truth to them. But all three entirely miss the forest for the trees, and miss that there are qualitative changes that make the impact of the new version much greater.

DAOs allow a disparate group of people to raise capital and execute towards a shared idea far faster and greater than was previously possible. That is a qualitative difference worth paying attention to.

And while you are correct that the legal frameworks backing DAOs currently have many problems, that is something that will change.

And for the HN skeptics, over 1,000 YC founders disagree with you: https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/24/hundreds-of-y-combinator-a...

Selling unregistered securities is not a new concept lol. It went unbelievably poorly last time we tried it which is why we stopped.

It was a major contributor to the Great Depression.

So my question to you is: what has changed since last time we tried this? Why am I to believe that "this time is different."

[edit] Your suggestion that an idea cannot possibly be bad because 1000 startups are chasing it holds no water, it's an appeal to authority. Worse than appeal to authority: it's an appeal to the wisdom of crowds. Crowds of course are notorious for making great decisions. Hundreds of thousands of individual investors thought that sub-prime mortgage backed securities were a brilliant plan.

I don't see this conversation going anywhere productive, but do you not think anything has changed since the Great Depression?

Your arguments can (and have been) those that applied to Uber or AirBnB; namely, that the only value they had was in skirting regulations, and that eventually the regulations catch up such that Uber or AirBnB is no better than the predecessor taxi and hotel industries. And I think there is certainly a lot of truth to that, but I also think this is normal human progress. As times change, we try something slightly different, and where old pain points arise again, we re-regulate accordingly. You are left with something that is indeed quite similar to the older industry, but with a fresh coat of pain and some improvements. You can dismiss that as entirely worthless, but I see it as normal and part of progress: two steps forward, one step back.

Similarly, I think having financial regulations that were created in 1933 be static forever is a mistake. As technology progresses, there can be room for changes. So I see DAOs and crypto in a similar light: yes, certain actors violate existing laws, but there is a freedom to explore a new design space, and then the regulators will catch up and reign it back to something more reasonable.

As for my link to OrangeDAO, it is not about 1,000 YC founders with Web3 startups, but 1,000 YC founders that are members of a DAO that seeks to invest and help other Web3 startups.

As for what's different, my answer would be scale. DAOs make it easier to coordinate large groups of people. Take a look at what OrangeDAO seeks to fund:

https://orangedao.notion.site/0516999b88534575bf759323f5e9fe...

Many of them are targeted towards corporate infrastructure; replacing traditional processes with software-first functions, which allow a lot of disparate people to function together more easily, and reduces the friction of "a group of people working together towards a common goal" from that of an existing corporation.

> I don't see this conversation going anywhere productive, but do you not think anything has changed since the Great Depression?

In the sale of blue-sky securities? Not a darn thing.

> As for what's different, my answer would be scale. DAOs make it easier to coordinate large groups of people. Take a look at what OrangeDAO seeks to fund.

Sounds like a VC fund. Just wait until you see the list of those projects!

> Many of them are targeted towards corporate infrastructure; replacing traditional processes with software-first functions, which allow a lot of disparate people to function together more easily, and reduces the friction of "a group of people working together towards a common goal" from that of an existing corporation.

So like, Zoom and GSuite? I'm not sure how "Waze for moving crypto assets" fulfills that goal.

Those comments are both shallow dismissals so I would wager that it is _your_ comment which is no different. You have offered zero evidence of a successful DAO, merely defined what a DAO is, and appealed to the authority of a bunch of people who are likely to profit directly from the cryptocurrency bubble.

On the other hand, ConstitutionDAO - the most noteworthy example to date, was a complete failure and hasn't even been able to handle refunds.

> that is something that will change.

"Talk is cheap. Show me the code."

Don't forget, there's also SpiceDAO which bought a Dune sketchbook and learned that it doesn't give them any rights to produce derivative works.

They didn't "learn", SpiceDAO was just a straight up scam. They raised like $8m dollars, spent $3m on a book, (100x expected auction value) and then decided to pay themselves $30k a month from the remaining proceeds and presumably just collect interest on the rest. It's been HUGELY profitable for the people who set it up. Ahem, the "core team".

How could I!? Last I checked they were basically using their received funds to create a fucking powerpoint to show to streaming providers? A show which obviously can't use any of the Dune IP so...why did they buy the sketchbook?

The sheer incompetence/negligence/malice would be funny if it weren't so sad.

That is a fake narrative spun from a screenshot of a tweet[1] taken out of context by people unfamiliar with IP laws.

I'm familiar with this DAO, they have been advised by a competent IP lawyer before even bidding on the book. There is a crucial legal difference between derivative work, and work "inspired by" another.

[1]: https://twitter.com/TheSpiceDAO/status/1482404318347153413

> That is a fake narrative spun from a screenshot of a tweet

Not by a screenshot of the tweet, but by the tweet itself. And it was rightfully ridiculed for it.

And now they are "producing an original series" and don't have the money for a writer's room? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30046358

For three million dollars they could've created not just "a package with a powerpoint", but half of an animated series, probably.

I still think there is something else (I don't know what) about that book auction, who was the other bidder?

Or how (the heck) did offers raise to almost three million dollars?

Just provide a source - no one knows you so your familiarity with the DAO is useless.

edit: Thanks - that tweet doesn't inspire confidence. Why would you need to overbid on a sketchbook in order to make a show which is inspired by it? Why not just, you know, make the show...

Constitution Dao is not the most notable at all, just one that caught the dumb dumb news cycle.

Sorry but that is what I meant. Was that not obvious?

And DAOs are of course the next iPod or Dropbox, and not the next Juicero or Enron... why?

Orange DAO is very interesting. Thanks for sharing I hadn't seen it. I have been wondering if crypto represents a "rift" in the HN/YC community that simply widens into a chasm.

Orange DAO being completely separate from YC suggests this is a possibility. Imagine the year is 2030: Orange DAO has more assets under management than YC itself, and has proven greater returns for investors in both percentages and absolute dollar value.

> Imagine the year is 2030:

And I am elected God Emperor of the Known Universe.

Open to other ideas. I'm just person yo! Snark not needed.

Here's an alternative: The year is 2030. Orange DAO is a distant memory, and cryptocurrencies have all gone to zero. YC continues to grow.

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