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Solarpunk and web3 (slrpnk.net)

submitted 8 months ago by thisfro@slrpnk.net to c/solarpunk@slrpnk.net

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Note: I might just be uneducated on the subject.

When I read about web3 with blockchains, smart contracts and dapps, all sounds very promising. But once you look for any real world applications it is just some obscure things that kind of only exist to support the decentralized system. I guess that makes sense, but are there any actual real world uses for that? Like day-to-day things that make a persons life easier, not harder?

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[–] FluffyPotato@lemm.ee 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

There is, as I said: Database engine focused on data integrity and transparency. My favourite real world example is a database for vehicles to show previous owners while being incredibly simple to look up. Currently if you wanna buy a used car and want to look up previous ownership you need to make an application and wait for at least a week while people stich the data together. That would be a built in feature in a blockchain, zero additional work required. Also plenty of open source front ends to modify and show the data.

[–] thisfro@slrpnk.net 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

But that is only useful if a centralized authority enforces the use of it?

[–] FluffyPotato@lemm.ee 2 points 8 months ago

Yea, decentralisation isn't that useful for stuff like blockchains.

[–] danielquinn@lemmy.ca 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You can do this in about 20min with an actual database.

Blockchains aren't capable of storing any significant amount of data, so at best you'd still have a normal database and an overengineered verification layer. Even then, you still haven't solved the actual problem: availability of the data.

The reason it takes a long time to retrieve the information you want is that it's not already in a searchable database, so someone has to be paid to look it up by hand and create a report for you. If the people with the data were to simply publish a CSV, you'd get everything you need without having to waste time, money, and energy on a blockchain.

[–] FluffyPotato@lemm.ee 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It actually ran on MSSQL, the issue was connecting every previous owner and service report to that vehicle. They did that by hand because it was cheaper.

A blockchain is just a very different database engine and it would be easy to deploy for this with very low cost. With a traditional DB you need a developer for both a front and backend so customers can get the data themselves while most blockchains are pisseasy to set up and configure to your needs and have a ton of open source frontends to choose from and you only end up needing someone to redesign the page.

[–] danielquinn@lemmy.ca 6 points 8 months ago

Um, no.

Blockchains aren't databases because they can't store any useful amount of data. It's just a publicly-verifiable, append-only list of very small data points. To do something as simple as "look up who owned vehicle X on Y date" you still need a relational database engine like PostgreSQL, MariaDB, MSSQL, etc. Unless of course your application involves people downloading the entire chain locally and running your software on their machine to look up vehicle history. That'd work I suppose, but good luck deploying it, and it's a lot more work than an actual database.
Even if all you needed was a blockchain (you don't) the suggestion that they're easier to setup and publish on the web for public access than an actual database is laughable. You can get Wordpress up & running in about 10 minutes complete with a database, webserver and human-friendly UI to access basic tools. The idea that you can setup anything blockchain-based to be accessible to non-technical people in less than 10 minutes is just nuts.

A blockchain provides zero value to solving this problem. It's more complicated, doesn't lend itself well to web-based deployments, can't store the data we need, and requires the consumption of more energy than necessary while slowing down the process of adding records and making them more expensive.