Almost every day there is a front page story on HN about some service shutting down, some account being locked without recourse, some purchased (licensed) media being clawed back from its owner (user) because the usage no longer serves the interests of the platform (or, is no longer estimated to be an optimal service of the platform's interests).
But at the same time the overwhelming sentiment here (I know - plurality of opinions, no true news-hacker, etc) is that decentralized compute platforms with strong guarantees on durable permissionless interoperability are, at best, a solution looking for a problem.
If this Amazon story disappoints, frustrates, frightens you, please consider for a moment that this is the problem that web3 wants to solve.
No one is saying that decentralized compute platforms are a problem.
Torrents, IPFS, seti.home etc... were quite popular.
It's blockchain that is the problem. It is the inherent massive massive waste and inefficiencies in that technology that prompts everyone to say that there are more efficent ways to do it, and in the end something that can do the same thing more efficiently is better.
I don't agree with this. web3 does nothing to be the size of a big box store (amazon, wal-mart, etc.) or creating the hardware to read it on, or having publishers sign up for it, or any of the marketing that goes along with it.
An drm-free .epub file is all someone needs for this to be solved. It's overkill to have some immutable record running until eternity for those that purchased People magazine.
But at the same time the overwhelming sentiment here (I know - plurality of opinions, no true news-hacker, etc) is that decentralized compute platforms with strong guarantees on durable permissionless interoperability are, at best, a solution looking for a problem.
If this Amazon story disappoints, frustrates, frightens you, please consider for a moment that this is the problem that web3 wants to solve.