every word of this title lowers the stakes of whatever the fuck this is about
What is, phrase that would sound like jibberish 15 years ago
I’m reading it now and I still don’t understand it. Was the league hiding?
They didn’t disclose the fact that the passes would be using blockchain technology, apparently. Quite why they thought this was necessary is not clear, but it’s not inherently a bad thing.
Unfortunately for them, however, blockchain/cryptocurrency/NFTs are all interchangeable according to the general public, so this has created a bit of a backlash.
From the quotes in the article, they didn’t just “not disclose” so much as “lied”. Regardless of subject matter, when someone cares enough to make sure something they don’t want to be associated with isn’t involved and then they find out it actually is, they have a right to be upset.
I don’t understand what it is about these media outlets with their allergy to the word “and”
It isn’t print you don’t have to say space or ink just put “and” in the title.
This time still could be easily rewritten to make more sense and if short length is there goal then you could rewrite it to be even shorter and it would still make more sense
“An influencer-based esports league has imploded over NFT controversy”
Mr Beast really just gives me the ick. I can’t really explain it and anytime anyone says anything negative about him tons of people come along to say “but he paid for people’s surgery!!!1!!” Like it makes anything else he does perfectly acceptable.
I just really don’t like him and feel like he would be a shitty person IRL.
In my experience, people who make a big deal out of their philanthropy are typically doing it to compensate for some other moral deficiency.
What really started to bother me was when he started to make a game out of his giveaways, like “Last person to stop touching the Lamborghini gets to keep it!” and things like that. It just feels wrong, and I can’t quite explain why.
I hope I’m wrong, and so far there is no evidence he’s a secret dickhead, but something about him seems off.
It just feels wrong, and I can’t quite explain why.
It’s essentially throwing a slab of meat into an arena and watching the starved poors fight to the death over it, then watching while you’re served the equivalent of thanksgiving dinner by your butler/maids in a safe climate controlled room.
There comes a point where “philanthropy” simply becomes rich people making games for the poors to win a “prize” and seeing how they react for their own entertainment rather than any sort of benevolence. The lambo example seems pretty much spot on for that.
I’m indifferent on the guy.
Glad he’s using his money to do shit that makes some people’s lives better. Strange that he uses it as content… but better than musk hoarding wealth and belittling people on twitter.
So I guess better than my bellwether for a shitty person.
Some of these dudes doing this stuff use it as content so that they can come up with more money to do even more. Maaaaybe. I’d like to believe that.
I’ve only seen like one piece of a Mr Beast video so I can’t say much about him, but I’ve seen a lot of other folks who do that kind of stuff.
I watch one dude who started off making prank videos. He only got about 5 videos out before someone left a comment telling him to do some silly thing and give a person money. He did that silly thing (I can’t remember what) and then the dude hit him with a story about why that money was going to change his life. Dude cried, then stopped the prank stuff altogether. He went out looking for people to help after that. He’s raised 10s of thousands to get homeless people off the streets, helped people with debt and medical issues, etc.
His videos weren’t that special before, but he’s ridiculously handsome so I legit believe that’s why people were watching in the first place.
Now, the cynic in me says, “Well he got a lot of views and that’s the reason for the shift.”
Still though, he doesn’t do anything mean to anyone. No cruel pranks or anything like that. Even when he was making prank content it was silly and harmless. He’s legitimately changing lives big time and he just kind of fell into it.
I watch this other dude who is a Christian and he does really good things for people too.
I don’t know. The system isn’t working or people couldn’t make a living doing shit like this. That bums me out, but I’m happy to see things get better for people.
I usually don’t watch or follow such influencer shit. But couple days back I watched it to see what’s all the fuss is about and his smile gave me chills. I don’t know if anyone paid any attention or if it’s me but his smile looks like something plastered on to his face. Looks so artificial… His smile reminds of the movie American Psycho.
I just can’t stand those annoying ass youtube thumbnails. I only see them when I’m a private browser session (my logged-in suggestions are totally different). But they are so annoying and stupid looking that I never, ever click on them.
Sadly and clearly that stuff works, though, because MrBeast is the most subscribed-to individual on YouTube.
Only tangentially related to the issue at hand, but Mr. Beast’s smile terrifies me
It’s because he never smiles with his eyes, at all.
I don’t watch his content and I’m not familiar with him whatsoever, but every photo I’ve seen of him with that smile just looks like it’s a fake, forced smile. Maybe that’s actually a genuine smile and his face just does that, I don’t know. But yeah, it’s definitely off-putting to me, as well.
So, if I understand correctly, the content passes use a blockchain system for authentication, but aren’t intended to be used as a currency or investment vehicle and can’t be resold or traded. It just uses a blockchain for authentication. The reason why it blew up is because the payment processor was originally meant for nfts and crypto.
Soooo… Basically it sounds like a bunch of people getting upset for no reason because they think blockchain = crypto. Cool. Amazing. Absolutely wonderful. Tbh I don’t really care about whatever the Mr. Beast thing is, but the fact that people are confusing the two frustrates me because I could see blockchains having legitimate uses, it’s just that scam artists and get-rich-quick schemes have fucked it up.
Maybe it would have turned into an nft scheme, but as it stands right now, it sounds like they were trying to use a blockchain in a legitimate manner.
The decision to use blockchain for this just screams bad decisions (and very likely an attempt to push NFTs or crypto later). There is no reason to use blockchain for authentification in this situation and people are right to be suspicious of a event which does that in this manner.
It’s just inherently suspicious, because there is no valid technical reason to do it that way (things just end up being more complicated, more expensive, etc., for no benefit, not to mention the brand damage), unless you have some future plans for it that will involve crypto/NFT crap. The fact that MrBeast has a history with NFTs also doesn’t help.
Or course it’s still pure speculation.
Have they explained why they chose to use it in some plausible way?
What is the legitimate use you see? People in this post keep saying there are legitimate uses and gives no examples of what that is.
There are no legitimate uses, full stop.
As others have pointed out, it’s just a fully public database. Its use case is among trustless parties, and that’s why it fails. At some point, somebody is going to want to take action off the data and that’s going to involve a trusted party enforcing it. Sooo … just have the trusted party host the data (and make it public if you really care). And if all the parties are truly that trustless, 1) why are they dealing with either and 2) get a third party trustee to broker your deals
NFT’s are a form of ownership (I know, I know, of a JPEG). If we leave out the scammy bullshit that NFT’s have been in the past, then there are interesting things you can do with them. One company now is minting NFT plane tickets. The advantage is that if plans change or something you OWN that plane ticket, and could directly sell it on a seconary market or somthing. Another case would be for games. I personally like collector card games, like hearthstone and things like that. However when you play digital card games you never own shit. They could just close ownership down at any point…technically. with a set of NFT cards you 100% own it.
Beyond that, the ownership model in crypto can be empowering to users as well. One insurance company popped up that let you combine your funds with others directly in the form of their risk pools to provide the necessay function that insurance companies currently do and decreasing the amount of liquidity they have to maintain which can lower prices for consumers and provide for growth on your resources.
Not all of these things have succeeded. The main thing is a different take on ownership. Previously it has been that you give money to institutions and it’s yours because you trust them. In crypto it’s yours because that’s how it’s coded in the smart contract. I’m not a maximalist, but I think if that change can be capitalized on in certain cases it could work well.
One company now is minting NFT plane tickets. The advantage is that if plans change or something you OWN that plane ticket, and could directly sell it on a seconary market or somthing
You don’t own the plane ticket though, you own a reference to a URL, usually.
Also, your data would be permanently public on the internet.
I personally like collector card games, like hearthstone and things like that. However when you play digital card games you never own shit. They could just close ownership down at any point…technically. with a set of NFT cards you 100% own it.
With NFT cards you own what? Not the cards, you oen a reference to a URL in someone elses database. All they need to do is chance one character, and suddenly you NFT is pointing nowhere. And of course, the company can just stop honoring your NFT any time they want, just like with traditional digital content.
Owning an NFT doesn’t guarantee anything.
The main thing is a different take on ownership. Previously it has been that you give money to institutions and it’s yours because you trust them. In crypto it’s yours because that’s how it’s coded in the smart contract.
That’s the thing. Crypto doesn’t change it. You still have to trust the same institutions.
So these are the points I can gleam from you.
You can own plane tickets:
No you don’t. Airlines own planes and if they want you to be able to sell your plane ticket they will just allow that. People sell and change their plane tickets all the time. What you cant do if you have your ticket on the blockchain is easily change it to another flight because a storm cancelled the first one because allowing the airline to have that control over your ticket breaks the system.
You own things in games:
The company owns the game. if the company restructures at any point and closes down the servers you will find out that you actually don’t own a game card. You own a very long string of numbers that are useless without the game and the intellectual property of the game
You don’t have to rely on institutions to enforce contracts and ownership:
Nothing makes me sound like an anarchist faster than this kind of bullshit. Contracts are enforced by the dominant state apparatus trough the sanctioned use of violence. No other magic can make you own stuff.
Ownership and contracts as we currently understand them must work like this because most of society is still made out of flesh stone and metal.
I don’t own my house because I pay money for it. that is part of the deal when I moved in, but the main part of the ownership is that I have a deal with the government that they will send armed men to the building I live in if someone else tries to live in it without my approval. I dare you to name any ownership that doesn’t work like that.
That’s a nice pipedream, but why would airlines move to this system? They seem perfectly happy with the current system where you have to pay to change anything.
And the game thing doesn’t make sense. If the game shuts down, where are you going to use your NFT? There’s a few crappy crypto games that have tried making it so items are transferable, but for larger games it sounds like a nightmare to implement.
NFTs are like crypto, a solution in search of a problem. I’ll be honest, I’m anti-crypto and NFTs, but if a valid usecase presented itself I’d be happy to be wrong. I just haven’t seen it yet.
Basically it sounds like a bunch of people getting upset for no reason because they think blockchain = crypto.
Pretty much, yeah. Seems that people heard the phrase “blockchain” and instantly assumed the idea was to flog NFTs, which is unfortunate for the people behind the platform.
That said, this seems to be yet another example of people using blockchain unnecessarily. Wouldn’t a centralized database/authentication server have been a simpler choice?
Wouldn’t a centralized database/authentication server have been a simpler choice?
By far, which is why many people assumed that the plan was to start flogging NFTs later (once it became more difficult to back out).
Isn’t blockchain the un-editable database that tracks changes by appending new ones?
How does this benefit an authentication server? Needing it to be decentralized with multiple accurate copies sounds like a recipe for forking your auth server.
I keep saying this; blockchain is just a database and a particularly inefficient database at that. That’s it, that’s all it is, I wish people would stop wanking off over it.
As you say it appends changes, which is a stupidly poor way of doing it because your file size just gets larger and larger over time. It’ll literally never be able to get smaller because of the way it works. It’ll consume more and more resources until eventually the whole planet is either blockchain or we get bored and give up with it.
The only problem it solves is the necessity for decentralisation, but that’s not really a requirement for 99.99% of projects. So it doesn’t really solve that many problems. It’s nice that it’s an option that’s there if you need it but it ridiculous the general public even know about it. It should just be one of those projects that only people who browse GitHub know about.
It’s past the point where if people want to use block chain tech for a practical purpose they just need to shut up about it and no one will even think about what’s on the back end making a system work. The crypto-bros have been so loud and annoying for too long. No one wants anything to do with it now.
Blockchain is so rarely the right tool for the job that I would be generally skeptical of any project which uses it.
Event tickets are definitely not a good use case.
I agree one time use events are not a good use case. The main solution blockchain brings to the table is to be a long-term record keeping system for where blocks in the chain are either non-fungible or act as historical progression of actions. This usage as a short-term verification for a one-time event is not a good fit for blockchain technologies. There is a good reason why it is good enough for banking, but people associate the value on a token as what blockchain is used for when the value is self created by people in control of the blockchain(which is usually the token holders). Blockchain is simple, and people just overthink it as having more than it is because it is “computer stuff.”
Ya, from the article it sounds like people just don’t know what blockchain is?
