Comment on Whatever happened to the blockchain/smart contract 'revolution' we were told about?
halloween_spookster@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Blockchain is just a ledger. Most systems don’t need a ledger, they need a database. It was a solution looking for a problem in most cases and the marketing/business types don’t listen to the engineers if the engineers are even in the room.
pupbiru@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
it does still hold value, but the value is super niche and generally shouldn’t be exposed to the user… it’s an implementation detail
TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
If I understood it correctly, the main problem it can solve is lack of trust. If the involved parties can’t find a single authority to trust, they can use a blockchain instead.
Finding cases like that is a bit tricky. For example, you trust your ISP, your bank, maybe even your government… to some extent… They’re not your best friend, nor do they have to be. You can still trust them enough to take care of certain jobs. You pay your ISP via bank transfer, and they provide the service you signed up for. As long as there’s just enough trust, the system still works and there’s no need to use a blockchain.
Same goes for banks. Most people trust that the bank isn’t going to run away with your money. As long as that trust exists, there’s no need to use a blockchain.
pupbiru@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
that’s absolutely the main thing yup… in almost every circumstance where people implement blockchain, a trusted entity is involved so there’s no point to the blockchain
almost always there’s a single entity issuing a thing, and then that same entity also consuming that thing
TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
When it comes to AI, I’m seeing a variety of different hype levels. As far as consumer products are concerned, it’s mostly just hype and vapor. However, on the B2B side, it can be a lot more grounded. Recently, I’ve been talking a a few AI companies, and they aren’t promising completely absurd things. Most of them know exactly how hard it can be to implement AI and squeeze some benefit out of it. IBM guys were the only ones who were still hyping it hard. Everyone else seems to have their feet on the ground. Those IBM guys were all like: “Just dump all of your data on the model, and it will work things out”. Yeah, sure… With those references, we’re not starting an expensive project just to see if it’s true.