Kai Stinchcombe

I'm curious why the site is called Hackernoon. Here's a few of my favorite posts that I've seen on Hacker News:

Making My Own USB Keyboard from Scratch - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19181473

Hacking the Casio F-91W to Handle 1000 Psi - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20079488

Merging a Hasselblad 500C/M and a FujiFilm Instax 9 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18180760

Integrating a VT220 into my life - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11339909

Open-Source Controller for the IKEA Bekant Standing Desk - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19020257

To me, these articles really represent what "hacking" is - using technology exactly the way you want to, usually through modifications - and why this site deserves the title of Hacker News . They inspire us to see technology as a tool that serves us, like furniture or cooking utensils, not something you have to be generally "into" or some ecosystem to follow. Hackernoon's website predominately features articles on cryptocurrencies and blockchain, two things that really don't serve the general public [1] [2]. What's "Hacker" about an entire section dedicated to FAANG [3]? The Coding category of the site has sections on corporate philosophies like agile and scrum, but nothing on projects people have made - is that intentional? Who is the kind of person you imagine visiting the site?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/17/bitcoin-big-oil-environment-energy
[2]…

> I want novel use-cases outside of just finance. There was a layman's NFT video suggesting they'd work as a way of doing concert tickets

Most of those "novel ways" either make no sense or make trivial things hard and hard things nearly impossible. Most people peddling (there's no other word for it) these solutions have no idea how the real world works, or what the real world needs.

> I'd love to see a readable, not-super-technical blog post that lays out the ideas people came up with (and which, if any, panned out)

6 years ago these two articles already described how many "novel ways" make no sense, no matter the intention. All the issues described remain, regardless of how many new buzzwords people come up with in the crypto space:

- https://hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-a-use-case-for-blockchain-ee98c180100

- https://medium.com/@kaistinchcombe/decentralized-and-trustless-crypto-paradise-is-actually-a-medieval-hellhole-c1ca122efdec

For newer descriptions of how these systems fail, see Molly White: https://blog.mollywhite.net/is-web3-bullshit/ (and other essays and talks)

Edit: There's also The Edited Latecomer's Guide To Crypto https://www.mollywhite.net/annotations/latecomers-guide-to-crypto/

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Blockchain and decentralization does not produce trust and integrity. In this article the author gives a statistic: that fewer than 1/3 of Americans trust the financial system. And yet 95% of American households have bank accounts, thereby relying on it and giving it trust their trust through their actions. The key advantage of the current financial system is that there is somebody to keep accountable: the government and banks can be pressured and sued if they renege on their promises, and insurance/regulation can minimize loss.

For a cryptocurrency, if a smart contract has a bug, a hacker steals your crypto, you forget your wallet key, or an ICO goes bust you have zero recourse. Millions can be lost. Therefore, zero trust. By not placing trust in any one actor or system of recourse, you lose all hopes of accountability and are forced to view every person you transact with suspiciously. It's a shitshow that has generated the very thing it hoped to avoid: centralization into exchanges and government regulation. Read more about crypto's issues here:

https://medium.com/@kaistinchcombe/decentralized-and-trustless-crypto-paradise-is-actually-a-medieval-hellhole-c1ca122efdec

> there are enough who also agree that it's a mess, have closely studied the successes and mistakes of the past, and are building a solid foundation for doing this right.

People who "closely study mistakes and successes of the past" are in a very rare supply in the crypto space, and for a good reason: because people who actually closely study mistakes and successes of the past don't want to touch that space even with a 10-yard stick.

The reasons were spelled out in no uncertain terms 7 years ago in https://medium.com/@kaistinchcombe/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-a-use-case-for-blockchain-ee98c180100 and followup here https://medium.com/@kaistinchcombe/decentralized-and-trustless-crypto-paradise-is-actually-a-medieval-hellhole-c1ca122efdec 17 years in, all those reasons remain the same.

> I feel like there should be more tangible and clearly successful examples by now, if the technology was really promising.

Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain: https://medium.com/@kaistinchcombe/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-a-use-case-for-blockchain-ee98c180100

And the followup, Blockchain is not only crappy technology but a bad vision for the future https://medium.com/@kaistinchcombe/decentralized-and-trustless-crypto-paradise-is-actually-a-medieval-hellhole-c1ca122efdec