The blockchain is going to destroy everything

Cybersnark

Well-known member
Citizen

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Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
Me every time I try to do anything from the command line.
 

KidTDragon

Now with hi-res avatar!
Citizen
The company says a coding error accidentally — and permanently — shut the entire Solana blockchain-based platform down, wiping out $661,000 worth of a stablecoin called USDC.

 

Ungnome

Grand Empress of the Empire of One Square Foot.
Citizen
Seems that it's not as decentralized ast the cyptobros like to claim.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
Well, I have been informed that hell finally froze over. Etherium actually switched to proof-of-stake, which I think means the very existence of NFTs no longer hinges on the expenditure of entire countries' worth of energy. I've been told that it also means the value of graphics cards is going to plummet since no one is going to buying them for mining anymore, but it's more likely the three big manufacturers will just mutually agree to let the current prices be the New Normal because it's not like there's any incentive not to.
 

Ungnome

Grand Empress of the Empire of One Square Foot.
Citizen
Nvidia is getting rightly blasted for their decision. AMD could easily take advantage of the situation(and I think they will). They've already hit Intel where it hurts.
 

wonko the sane?

You may test that assumption at your convinience.
Citizen
Huhn, I pretty much randomly selected AMD as my graphics card of choice ages ago. Nice to see that kinda decision pan out for me for once.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
Nvidia has always kind of been the BMW of video cards, targeting people who think it's worth paying three times as much for a card that's 1½ times as good. AMD only has to remain comparatively affordable to keep their own niche. Ironically if anyone's going to shake things up it's going to be Intel, which recently moved into the dedicated-GPU space with their Arc lineup and is poised to go head-to-head with AMD. And because it's a new brand trying to compete in an established space (especially with games being specifically optimized for the existing architectures), competing on cost is probably the only option they have.
 

wonko the sane?

You may test that assumption at your convinience.
Citizen
I did not even know intel was doing that.

Next time I'm up for building a PC, I'll have to investigate. I'm no raving fanboy, but if there's a comparable output and price: there's no reason not to try it.
 

wonko the sane?

You may test that assumption at your convinience.
Citizen
Whatever it will be, I suspect it will last about half as long simply because of the memory of NTF's.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
Now the fun part: sitting back and watching what happens to the tech industry's master plan for a dystopian future where everything is based off those stupid things. Do they backpedal, or do they forge ahead on the hopes that they have the power to reshape the world according to their will whether or not the public wants it?
 

Ungnome

Grand Empress of the Empire of One Square Foot.
Citizen
From what I can see, there's still a lot of scumpanies still trying in vain to push blockchain tech, especially in the gaming sector. They're gonna milk it for all it's worth until the next magical-technological ponzi scheme comes along.
 

wonko the sane?

You may test that assumption at your convinience.
Citizen
Of course they are: do you have any idea how much money they've (as individuals and as corporations.) sunk into the tech SPECIFICALLY because it's basically the super evolution of microtransactions?

This wasn't just locking people under psychology or addiction: this was going to lock them into contracts over non-existant property.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
The funny thing is, NFTs actually represent a step backwards for microtransactions, if anything. Because under the current system, the game's publishers hold all the cards. In-game items are often not transferrable at all, forcing anyone who wants one to buy it directly from the in-game store for whatever price the publisher demands; and if they are transferrable, it's always through official channels where the publisher can either restrict players to trading items for other items (Team Fortress 2) or demand a cut of the resale price (Diablo 3, before they shut down the real-money item market). If items are on the blockchain, players will likely be able to bypass that.

It always seemed to me that video game companies' push for NFTs was either them falling for a dumb idea through the power of tech-industry buzzwords, or a marketing move to wallpaper over a controversial feature/business model by attaching it to something that appeared to be trendy at the time. Except it turned out that NFTs were just as controversial as microtransactions, if not moreso, and now they're not even trendy anymore either.

Whatever direction the industry heads at this point, it was bound to end up there with or without blockchains. Most of the worst things people can imagine them doing have already been attempted and failed so hard they had to be removed. In-game currency being resellable? That's just gold farming. World of Warcraft did away with that. In-game items being resellable? Again, that was Diablo 3. Obvious pay-to-win schemes? Battlefront 2. And now the Trojan horse they tried to use to sneak all that jive back in got torched before it could even get in the door, which I consider a pretty decisive victory for Troy.*

*Apologies for the somewhat confusing metaphor. Despite being called the "Trojan horse" for some dumb reason, it was the Greeks who built it and the Trojans who fell for it.
 


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