If you are gonna downvote, say something.

I can’t tell if you’re downvoting because you saw the word “blockchain”, or you really love it.

I’m using quotes in the title, because I suspect a major amount of people use the word “blockchain” loosely to refer to other related things. If you are willing to, please provide a definition of what you mean by “blockchain” as well.

  • slazer2au@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    Blockchain is touted as an immutable ledger of transactions visible to everyone.

    The only proper use case I can see for it is audit logs where you never want to loose what transaction happened. That being said, we have existing technologies which provide this at a smaller footprint.

  • PonyOfWar@pawb.social
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    21 days ago

    I don’t hate the technology itself. What I hate is the whole grifter culture surrounding it. For example there are dozens of examples of people promising some game using the blockchain, touting it as “the future of gaming” or “the metaverse”, creating a token, making millions from it and then delivering nothing, or a barely changed UE template. On the other hand, there are few if any examples of projects using a blockchain that are actually useful, at least for anything besides basic monetary transactions.

    So whenever I see a project mentioning the blockchain, the scam alarm bells go off in my head and my skepticism rises 1000x.

    • NorthWestWind@lemmy.worldOP
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      21 days ago

      This is why I asked this question. I suspected a lot of people are just hating the economic abuse instead of the technology itself.

      Like people are downvoting because they saw the word “blockchain” (I’m guessing. Downvoters tell me why)

      • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
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        21 days ago

        I don’t hate arrays and hashtables, but if a bunch of fools started hyping them as a get rich quick scheme I would reflexively start downvoting the word.

  • tal@lemmy.today
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    21 days ago

    I don’t hate it. It’s technically interesting.

    But I do see a lot of people applying it to things that really don’t need it. I think a lot of people saw Bitcoin and decided “I’m going to go make something that uses blockchains”. That’s a solution-in-search-of-a-problem, whereas you probably want to start with a problem and then look for technology that solves the problem.

    I don’t think that blockchains are a very practical solution for all that many problems.

    • steeznson@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      Yes this is pretty much my take. The technology could be really useful for something dull like ERP systems where you need to keep track of stock across global supply chains but NFTs are not a good use of them.

  • Tsiolkovsky’all@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    The reason I am generally skeptical of the technology is the same reason I’m not going to try to give you a definition.

    I’ve never seen it solve a problem or be proposed as a reasonable solution to a problem. What happens instead is that someone says “could we do BLOCKCHAIN for this, it’ll make it way more modern” and the subset of people that want to look really forward-leaning and cool say “YEAH”. If that subset of people is loud enough, a lot of money gets spent and a bunch of implementers have to figure out how to jam in something they can say is blockchainy… leading to a proliferation of definitions.

    The results have been universally more expensive applications with fewer helpful features. I don’t like “blockchain” because everything that touches it gets worse.

  • hendrik@palaver.p3x.de
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    21 days ago

    It’s all the scams, crypto-bros and stupid, unnecessary “use-cases” that it got applied to, just to make someone a big pile of money. Also: I didn’t get rich.

  • FireTower@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    Don’t hate it.

    A blockchain being essentially a public ledger.

    It’s a good concept that will doubtlessly have several if not many practical uses. I think any hatred it gets is just because like every new thing hucksters try and brand it as the cure to all ills to make a buck.

  • Count Regal Inkwell@pawb.social
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    21 days ago

    As a technology it’s nothing special, a solution looking for a problem.

    As a speculative bubble and tech industry gold rush it was outright destructive.

    Of course, unless it makes a comeback somehow, the days of blockchain as a tech industry gold rush seem to be over. Now the samesuch grifters are pushing AI (ANOTHER solution looking for a problem) where it don’t belong instead.

  • Vanth@reddthat.com
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    21 days ago

    A loaded question is a form of complex question that contains a controversial assumption (e.g., a presumption of guilt). Such questions may be used as a rhetorical tool: the question attempts to limit direct replies to be those that serve the questioner’s agenda.

    • NorthWestWind@lemmy.worldOP
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      21 days ago

      This is an assumption I made from observing users on Lemmy. I want to further understand their reasoning, and therefore put the assumption in the question.

      • hoshikarakitaridia@lemmy.world
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        21 days ago

        This would have been way more engaging without the loaded question.

        It either sounds like you want to stir controversy through the question or you genuinely think most to all Lemmy users hate blockchain, and both is bad.

        Not a fan of this post as it is presented even though the actual question could have been interesting.

  • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.me
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    21 days ago

    I had to download like 60GB worth of blocks over about 2 weeks a couple months ago, just to confirm I’m indeed broke and nobody takes Zcash anymore anyway.

    The only thing it scales well at is needlessly sucking a stupid amount of power. The chains are huge and full of spam. Nobody can afford the gear to mine anymore so we’re back to the rich elites making more money.

  • NeoToasty@kbin.melroy.org
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    21 days ago

    Because it seems to me that the concept of blockchains, only seems to benefit scammers. Look what’s happened with bitcoin and NFTs. They’re made by scammers.

  • gramie@lemmy.ca
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    21 days ago

    About 7 years ago we had some very expensive consultants, hired by clueless management, do a presentation to our marketing team.

    When that consultants declared that, “we see the future of the web centered on blockchain”, the two of us who were developers shared a mystified and slightly horrified look.

    Fortunately, the consultants went away after extracting their $200k and providing our director with some glossy reports. They did have a few useful suggestions that we implemented, but on the whole they were never mentioned again.

  • simplymath@lemmy.world
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    21 days ago

    I think some of the downvotes are from the very biased phrasing of the question. You’ve managed to phrase it in such a way that Blockchain bros and their detractors can both respond strongly in the same direction.

    I suspect a more neural phrasing would not illicit such widespread dislike.

    • NorthWestWind@lemmy.worldOP
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      21 days ago

      The phrasing is intentional. I do just want to see the reasons of hating it, and I think despite the downvotes, it’s working.

  • otp@sh.itjust.works
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    21 days ago

    Downvoted because of the biased question. Its phrasing is presumptive (that everyone hates blockchain) rather than directed (to people who do hate blockchain).