I see a lot of reflexive negativity here. It reminds me of the kind of negativity I received on my blog when I said that eventually, music streaming would overtake music sales—including in a comment from Steve Jobs himself while Apple was still selling music. It also reminds me of the negativity I received from most people when, in (probably) year 2000, I was talking about the possibility that ads would be distributed to web sites through what I called "hubs" and by targeted by means of activity tracking through cookies, including from a VC who had recently been on the cover of Business 2.0 Magazine and called there the "top-performing U.S. venture capitalist for 1995-1999", who told me, "I don't see much money in that."
Trust me, you should take a serious look at this. A lot of what may sound like gobbledegook to you, such as "zero-knowledge proofs", is definitely not gobbledegook and is likely to be very important as time moves on. If you don't have the background to understand what the authors are talking about, it will sound like GPT-3 nonsense. Get the knowledge if you are in the internet industry.
[Update: I see that even this is being voted down. Well, I guess the downvoters just have more of a track record and more experience in the industry than me, and more knowledge about blockchain, zero-knowledge proofs, etc., so I should forget all about this stuff. Not. I'm trying to help out here. Don't downvote what you don't understand. If it isn't what you expect to hear, that's when you have a chance to learn something. If you understand it more than Buterin and Weyl do, well, tell us all about it, I'm all ears.]
> it reminds me of the kind of negativity I received on my blog when I said...
Cherry picking examples of your past predictions that may have turned out to be correct as a way of defending something in question today is obviously fallacious - hopefully I don't have to explain why that proves absolutely nothing.
> Trust me, you should take a serious look at this... get the knowledge if you are in the internet industry.
Trust isn't necessary when something is actually useful. Explain how the technology is actually useful rather than demeaning the supposed lack of knowledge in others.
> Well, I guess the downvoters just have more of a track record and more experience in the industry than me
Sarcastically appealing to your own authority while claiming your critics just don't understand is another bad faith rhetorical tactic that is often used by cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
> if you understand it more than Buterin and Weyl do, well, tell us all about it, I'm all ears
I read the paper, understood it, and responded with a clear critique to you in a different comment, your response was "Couldn't disagree more. I'm not going to argue about it here though". So what I'm getting from you is "I'm a tech expert, if you disagree you don't understand, I also don't have to prove anything or defend my position, just trust me". Sounds like the typical cryptocurrency grift...
[Replaced the comment I had here earlier after thinking about it a bit more. I initially responded too reflexively.]
The comment you are criticizing above was not meant for you. It was to give a counterpoint to your dismissal so that other people wouldn't lose their chance to learn about this just because a few naysayers on HN think they know better.
My pointing out some of my past experiences with naysayers was not offered as proof of being right, since you are correct that it isn't. I was partly offering my personal experience that naysayers shouldn't be assumed to be right. They may be, but shouldn't be assumed to be. Prominent examples include famous dismissals on HN of the original iPod and of DropBox.
In fact, in my experience, the greatest opportunities are when the naysayers are rampant in response. It's related to the famous saying from Howard Aitken: "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."
Also, I do have a track record (not remotely as cherry-picked as you might want to assume it to be—in act I could give more supporting examples and I don't have many misses at this level). While it's not proof, it is evidence that some people (not you) might want to consider in judging whether they want to spend their time reading a paper like this, instead of rejecting it only because of comments from people who do not display any kind of relevant track records or any other basis for assuming their comments should be seriously considered.
I understand that you think you know better, and that's fine. I would have bet a substantial sum of money that my comment would have no influence on your dismissal. Still, as I said in my earlier response, I did learn something from your comment in terms of how some people might react to certain approaches, so, thank you.
I won't have any other comments in response to you in this thread, period. Life's too short.
Trust me, you should take a serious look at this. A lot of what may sound like gobbledegook to you, such as "zero-knowledge proofs", is definitely not gobbledegook and is likely to be very important as time moves on. If you don't have the background to understand what the authors are talking about, it will sound like GPT-3 nonsense. Get the knowledge if you are in the internet industry.
[Update: I see that even this is being voted down. Well, I guess the downvoters just have more of a track record and more experience in the industry than me, and more knowledge about blockchain, zero-knowledge proofs, etc., so I should forget all about this stuff. Not. I'm trying to help out here. Don't downvote what you don't understand. If it isn't what you expect to hear, that's when you have a chance to learn something. If you understand it more than Buterin and Weyl do, well, tell us all about it, I'm all ears.]