Utopia Talk / Politics / Metaverse: Decentraland Rave

murder Member	Thu Jan 20 10:53:43 This is just sad. :o) http://twitter.com/alexmoss/status/1484138206291443714
murder Member	Thu Jan 20 11:07:35 italien feeld @julianfeeld We need digital covid http://twitter.com/julianfeeld/status/1484201049762283522 lol
Seb Member	Thu Jan 20 13:11:38 I have yet to hear a compelling reason on why we need blockchains to have VR. You can do open protocols without cryptography - not clear at all what it is adding. NFT was rather accurately described somewhere as DRM without content
nhill Member	Thu Jan 20 15:58:35 In other words you have no creativity or vision. We got it, already. Thankfully, the people with vision are the ones you'll be looking up to for the rest of your life, and we'll be generous in helping you along when the time comes. ;)
Seb Member	Thu Jan 20 16:00:58 If you had a vision, you'd be able to articulate it, rather than saying "Imagine <insert some thing that either already exists, or can be done already using existing technology".
Seb Member	Thu Jan 20 16:02:38 "If you don't create on blockchain, you have no creativity or vision". sounds like a manifesto for a cult frankly.
nhill Member	Thu Jan 20 16:03:23 Already been done- you're hopeless with no comprehension abilities. Can lead a horse to fresh water, but can't force it to drink. Plus there's no need for imagination when you're already navigating the cryptoverse. But anyways, I'll be happy to give handouts to get started once you turn around.
Seb Member	Thu Jan 20 16:35:39 nhill: And yet everything you've put up turns out either to exist already, or to be something trivially achievable with existing tech - just not done because it's a terrible business model.
nhill Member	Thu Jan 20 16:39:18 Yeah, hosting servers existed before AWS came into being too. iTs aLreAdy bEeN doNe mR beZos ^Seb's last words before being fired from Amazon.
nhill Member	Thu Jan 20 16:43:41 We've been down this path, though, buddy. And you refused to walk it up from basic fundamentals. Unfortunately your understanding is so pedestrian that the concepts of the more advanced protocols are beyond your abilities. Then you huffed and puffed and cried your way out of the thread instead of keeping an open mind and learning what I had to teach. But I'm a merciful deity, and will certainly help you once you figure it out on your own. I've raised 5 kids, I understand the scene. Some people learn the hard way.
nhill Member	Thu Jan 20 16:51:18 Meanwhile your argument hinges on the incredibly weak assertion of "iT caN bE dOnE anOthEr waY". Oh really? Great. Let's talk about how it's actually being done, now. Lol.
Seb Member	Fri Jan 21 02:49:29 http://twi...?t=5CrIpu4i-tCIMr9iMeXtNw&s=19
Seb Member	Fri Jan 21 02:54:44 Nhill: "Yeah, hosting servers existed before AWS came into being too." Renting compute power at scale? Sure they weren't the first to cloud but public cloud is different service to a data centre. What you often propose is something that delivers the same outcome (sometimes worse) with a different engine under the hood. You can try for avuncular patronising tone if you like - it just looks like you dropped out of a bad John Grisham adaptation c. 1990.
nhill Member	Fri Jan 21 03:16:42 > What you often propose is something that delivers the same outcome (sometimes worse) with a different engine under the hood. No, there are definite cost savings when negotiated p2p. I've mentioned Akash Network many times. It's what I use to host and run AI models through webapps for universities. Works transparently but much cheaper than AWS for obvious reasons. You are getting the computing power, but not having to pay marketing budgets, R&D, etc. Simply paying the provider of the hardware directly. That's the beauty of crypto. Nim brought up Render, another platform with similar cost savings relative to AWS. There's less overhead. And everyone can benefit without having to answer to a boss. http://med...centralized-cloud-fdfce345895c
nhill Member	Fri Jan 21 03:21:21 Not to mention Filecoin, which is currently nearly 100X cheaper than the equivalent, Amazon S3, and is more redundant. But where's the value, eh?
Seb Member	Fri Jan 21 04:03:36 nhill: Air-BnB / Uber for cloud compute is the one business model you've been able to substantiate. As a model it's niche - it allows monetisation of grid compute (Grid compute networks exist already). But ultimately for reasons set out I suspect its economics can't pan out in the long run. Also, a quick google search of this site shows it being mentioned precisely twice outside this thread: once after Nim brought up RNDR, and another time a throwaway mention of a coin you were buying in one of your threads with Nim.
Seb Member	Fri Jan 21 04:05:54 Nhill: Again, you confuse price and value. Take our friends the mortgage backed CDO - did their value suddenly crash, or was it over priced for it's value which was misunderstood? Or, alternatively, were the markets wrong, and actually they should have continued to price them high because after all, they must be valuable otherwise our other good friends (who are now developing Crypto products) Goldman Sachs spent quite a lot of time and money producing them for us to buy?
Daemon Member	Fri Jan 21 04:39:06 I stopped "playing" Second Life after an hour and never came back. That was ... 15 years ago? I don't remember. Maybe I'm not social enough to find such games entertaining. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life
murder Member	Fri Jan 21 05:14:17 "I stopped "playing" Second Life after an hour and never came back. That was ... 15 years ago? I don't remember. Maybe I'm not social enough to find such games entertaining." There's something amusing about people spending their time living a fake version of a life they could live for real ... except that they don't want to. Of course the real money is to be made by whoever comes up with a virtual world for people in the metaverse. It will be raining coins and tokens! ;o)
nhill Member	Fri Jan 21 09:37:22 Seb: Why are you focused on price? I already said many times in this forum that we're in a crypto bubble right now, very similar to the tech bubble in the 90s. My whole schtick here was the tech, not the price of the asset. 99% of projects are overvalued. Perhaps more. And, just like the tech bubble, there'll be gems like Amazon that survive the test of time. My explorations focus on locating those opportunities. The value of any specific token does not matter, nor did it ever. In fact, a lot of these projects work without tokens. > confuse price and value. I find it very valuable to save money on my cloud computing bills, and also be able to leverage a p2p network for redundancy. The fact that crypto is able to practically solve to the Byzantine generals problem, and, not only that, but innovate on it with Tendermint, is nothing short of remarkable. There's other advantages too, e.g. with a decentralized open protocol, you are not beholden to any particular service going out of business or censoring you. The value is it being solved with equivalency and redundancy, while also being cheaper. You think venture backed startups are going to default to AWS if they can save millions of dollars and have additional redundancy through crypto solutions? Dream on. The only thing holding it back right now is the lack of domain expertise in the enterprise industry. Which is obviously shifting.
nhill Member	Fri Jan 21 09:43:10 > Also, a quick google search of this site shows it being mentioned precisely twice outside this thread: once after Nim brought up RNDR, and another time a throwaway mention of a coin you were buying in one of your threads with Nim. I mentioned quite a few times that I was using crypto to host the AI models I write. All the way back to May of last year, I believe. But I'll let this one slide, and give you the benefit of the doubt.
murder Member	Fri Jan 21 10:32:22 I feel like everyone missed the point of this thread. ========================================== This is just sad. :o) http://twitter.com/alexmoss/status/1484138206291443714
nhill Member	Fri Jan 21 10:56:05 Yes, it's sad if you look at it at face value. But if you realize this pathetic looking 3D world (decentraland looks like a cheap second life knockoff) foretells the evolution of our society into a "Ready, Player, One" type world, then it can feel like you're participating in part of history. How bad it is becomes part of the experience, at that point. :p But this is the state of the crypto metaverse right now. Writing smart contracts and crypto infrastructure is a much different skillset than making a 3D/VR game. Right now the universe is being tooled up, and these are tech demos.
nhill Member	Fri Jan 21 10:57:28 Tech demos, as in demonstrating the underlying tech infrastructure and how smart contracts and non-fungible tokens can be integrated with 3D worlds. The 3D world is very much an afterthought, merely proof of concept.
murder Member	Fri Jan 21 11:00:39 "Yes, it's sad if you look at it at face value." No I mean that someone considers that having fun. That would be sad even if it wasn't virtual. That it is virtual is just the sad cherry on top.
nhill Member	Fri Jan 21 11:02:05 I understand that. But it being sad is part of what gives it its allure at this point, if you understand the massive undertaking underpinning the experience. It's appeal is how lame it is :p
nhill Member	Fri Jan 21 11:02:10 its*
Seb Member	Fri Jan 21 12:36:57 Nhill: Christ. "Not to mention Filecoin, which is currently nearly 100X cheaper than the equivalen" "Why are you focused on price? I already said many times in this forum that we're in a crypto bubble right now". Put two and two together man.
murder Member	Fri Jan 21 12:56:15 Bee Gees "You Should Be Dancing" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-nDru5K7MA
kargen Member	Fri Jan 21 13:11:16 Is the sad part that some people think the noise in the original link is music?
nhill Member	Fri Jan 21 13:27:41 Seb, I thought you were talking about the price / market capitalization of the tokens/projects. What did you mean, then?
nhill Member	Fri Jan 21 13:28:37 Now please comment on what actually mattered: I find it very valuable to save money on my cloud computing bills, and also be able to leverage a p2p network for redundancy. The fact that crypto is able to practically solve to the Byzantine generals problem, and, not only that, but innovate on it with Tendermint, is nothing short of remarkable. There's other advantages too, e.g. with a decentralized open protocol, you are not beholden to any particular service going out of business or censoring you. The value is it being solved with equivalency and redundancy, while also being cheaper. You think venture backed startups are going to default to AWS if they can save millions of dollars and have additional redundancy through crypto solutions? Dream on. The only thing holding it back right now is the lack of domain expertise in the enterprise industry. Which is obviously shifting.
murder Member	Fri Jan 21 13:59:55 "Is the sad part that some people think the noise in the original link is music?" I can't even pretend that I relate to modern music, but whatever the fuck that is I have to assume that younger people enjoy it ... but there's no evidence that they do. WTF is the point of a "rave" if no one is enjoying the music? It's just "people" standing around staring at nothing in particular and not interacting with anyone else. Basically this ... bЯyan @murderxbryan Hell yeah, in the metaverse a rave looks like the lobby in an arena while the headliner is on stage. http://twitter.com/murderxbryan/status/1484208130129109004 And no, @murderxbryan is not me.
murder Member	Fri Jan 21 14:10:17 On second thought, yes it is. Go give him shit! :o)
Seb Member	Sat Jan 22 08:53:59 nhill: I'm saying I think that compute power in Akash is probably under-priced because of the financialisaton of the service. We've seen that in e.g. Uber with simple disintermediation where the price of the service is well below the actual cost of delivering the service in some markets because the drivers do not account for the depreciation of their vehicles. This can occur at even greater levels when people by tokens on the expectation of appreciation - it effectively provides short term subsidies for service providers. Yes, it's valuable to you to have cheaper hosting - but there is a difference between an economic analysis of the true cost of hosting/compute provided via such systems versus the price charged. The true value of say, Akash vs AWS, would be found by looking at the difference in full economic cost of provision; not the price differential at any given time. There have been quite a lot of studies (quite old now) about the full economic cost of grid computing back when people were just altruistically donating their services for credit like on BOINC. "you are not beholden to any particular service going out of business or censoring you." Well, you kind of are, in the sense that you might find the whole service defunct - we've seen that happen. Censoring isn't a mainstream concern, it might provide some value to some organisations. I don't think many worry about AWS censoring them. There are other means of doing secure multi-party computation and solving the Byzantine generals problem. I was looking at something circa 2013 for the Troubled Families programme; and privacy protecting research on large data sets (e.g. National Pupil Database and NHS datasets). At the time it wasn't really viable due to cost implications (and the govt preferred more pragmatic approaches like trusted research environments) - there is a lot more options for cryptographic methods than "muh blockchain".
nhill Member	Sat Jan 22 12:54:38 Too bad the blockchain won then eh? So let’s talk about how it’s actually solved, not how you wish it was solved. You only wish it was solved a different way because this entire revolution blind sided you and you hope beyond hope it goes away and proves you right. Sorry kid, this is an L for you any way you spin it.
Seb Member	Sat Jan 22 14:07:41 nhill: "Too bad the blockchain won then eh?" It hasn't. Various secure multi party computation services are offered by loads of providers and used in practical applications where the underlying data and attributes that a calculation or analysis depends upon needs to be unknowable, but parties need to know the result. Byzantine generals is a subclass, cf. also millionaires problem etc. Blockchain is just a very narrow application to create decentralised ledgers - and then seized upon by a bunch of people caught up in the hype-cycle and who have bought into the idea that everything needs to be financialised. Many of the applications look like the law of the golden hammer.
Seb Member	Sat Jan 22 14:08:15 I will take your silence on the price vs value point as acceptance.
nhill Member	Sat Jan 22 14:27:42 Nope, on the road right now. Can respond when I get stationary.
nhill Member	Sun Feb 13 00:33:42 Whoops, forgot about this one. Is your point that the only reason I'm obtaining a better value on my purchase of computing power because the provider of the computing power is pricing in appreciation of the token in which he is paid?
nhill Member	Sun Feb 13 00:34:16 *is because the provider of the computing power is pricing in appreciation of the token in which he is paid?
Seb Member	Sun Feb 13 05:53:13 Nhill: I'm saying mark-to-market is an extremely poor method of assessing underlying value and you use price pretty much interchangeably as a concept when talking about value. Grid computing economics have been analysed previously, and one would expect that there is some additional costs from the protocol that will make it less efficient. Starting from those analysis and a sensible approach rather than "the price is low!!" Cf. Uber.
Seb Member	Sun Feb 13 06:09:11 Also that you seem to be blissfully unaware of other cryptographic techniques that allow you to do useful secure multiparty computation without a blockhain.
nhill Member	Sun Feb 13 12:23:29 First you said that you didn't believe the crypto-powered cloud computing solution was more inexpensive. Then I proved it was. Now you say that it being inexpensive is irrelevant? Make up your mind.
Seb Member	Sun Feb 13 17:29:52 nhill: See, this is what I mean. You don't understand the distinction between saying that "I do not think it can cost less"; and "I do not think it cannot be priced below". I am talking value, you are talking price. These are two different concepts - for successful businesses in steady state, you would expect price to be above cost - but this is not always so. Some businesses will sell at a loss to achieve volume. Some platform businesses are able to price below cost by pushing loss making activities onto other actors (e.g. Uber). But make no mistake, price and cost are different things - and the potential value of a business is related as much to the cost as it is the price. The value of Uber, to me, might be quite large in that it lets me take cab rides at below the actual cost of providing a cab ride, let alone what a black cab will charge. That does not mean Uber necessarily has a value proposition - it may only be able to do that because the drivers are all losing money and don't realises it, and the Uber's investors are chasing a flawed strategy of achieving scale and then a moat before raising prices. And I can jump up and down and yell all I like about how much value uber adds to me as a consumer; but it does not necessarily make Uber valuable if, all in, I am always paying below the cost it takes for the whole uber network, including the drivers, to provide a ride. And that is the mistake you are making. You keep coming back to using price in place of the full cost of provision.
Seb Member	Sun Feb 13 17:31:09 These are basic concepts. We shouldn't be having this conversation.
nhill Member	Sun Feb 13 18:12:54 > And that is the mistake you are making. You keep coming back to using price in place of the full cost of provision. No, this stems from me saying I found the usage of Akash valuable due to the cost savings I'm reaping compared to alternative cloud providers, such as AWS. You doubted it, and then when proven wrong you went on this anal-retentive harangue. But I'm happy I was able to facilitate your favorite pastime-- being condescending and pedantic.
nhill Member	Sun Feb 13 18:22:20 Riddle me this-- if the silicone being provisioned is being done so at a loss (which is the only way your point makes sense), why are so many people participating in the network? This isn't Uber where venture capital is footing the bill hoping the business model scales. This is a decentralized network being actively used peer-to-peer. Are you comparing each participant in the network to being a venture capitalist? Is that why someone in a rural village of India is provisioning and selling their computing power? Lol.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 14 05:44:00 nhill: " I found the usage of Akash valuable due to the cost savings" You say this in direct response to my question as to whether this business model has value. Pointing this out is neither condescending or pedantic. "You doubted it," I said I doubted they could provide it cheaper. That is a different thing from saying they can price it cheaper. "This isn't Uber where venture capital is footing the bill" Indeed. However I explicitly said this is more like Uber where providers (of CPU cycles, or cars) are providing their services at below cost due to obfuscation of the total cost of providing the service. I mean, do you think an Uber driver operating in India is a venture capitalist? Because if you can accept that then I have no idea why you think that a provider for CPU cycles must by necessity be equivalent to a venture capitalist. Again, I can only assume you haven't grasped the distinction - though possibly you have and you are playing bad faith word games. However, people buying tokens (or providing their CPU cycles) in hope of token appreciation would also function in exactly the same role as retail investors of Uber in this case. The coin issuers are the equivalent of Ubers VCs that are trying to flip their shares, sorry coins, onto retail buyers based on high valuations not supported by rigorous economics and market analytics. The difference is that it is entirely possible that the coin issues are inept rather than malicious. But we are getting ahead of ourselves - looking to understand why these things might be priced below the cost of provision - the key point is that they are: there are well developed bottom up economic models and analysis of the cost of providing grid computing with lower protocol overheads than required. These, generally, do not show that the cost of provision is less than AWS - it effectively works because the providers are donating their service and can afford to do so based on underutilisation (putting a fixed cap on the maximum level of service that can be provided). The question then ought to be how it is that they are able to beat grid computing in terms of cost per cycle while adding overheads. I.e. "Where is the value?" and no, the fact that you find it valuable to be cheaper to buy than AWS is not proof of the value of the business model.
nhill Member	Mon Feb 14 09:39:23 > providing their services at below cost due to obfuscation of the total cost of providing the service. Huh? They are providing their services because it allows them to make money on their underutilized computing power. > an Uber driver operating in India is a venture capitalist? Sans the tip, the Uber driver is getting paid by the venture capitalists. > Because if you can accept that then I have no idea why you think that a provider for CPU cycles must by necessity be equivalent to a venture capitalist. That was my point. The analogy breaks down very quickly. > Providing their CPU cycles in hope of token appreciation would also function in exactly the same role as retail investors of Uber in this case. Why would someone provide their CPU cycles in hope of token appreciation? That makes no sense and shows that even simple economic models are too much for you. If they wanted to make money on token appreciation, they would buy the token. Dur. > looking to understand why these things might be priced below the cost of provision ... blah blah blah words. Because crypto gives everyone in the world an opportunity to turn their spare electricity and computing power into money through decentralized protocols and market making. > the fact that you find it valuable to be cheaper to buy than AWS is not proof of the value of the business model. That wasn't the point. I told you why I, as a customer, find it valuable. We were working up towards how this value is created, but as usual you had to take the pedantic end around instead of addressing the obvious.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 14 10:07:23 Nhill: "Huh? They are providing their services because it allows them to make money on their underutilized computing power." It allows them to monetize their underutilised computing power, Vs traditional grid computing where the service isn't monetised. The question is whether the revenue exceeds the providers costs, because underutilized capacity isn't free - an idling processor consumes less power than one working. Like I said, there's quite a lot of work already done working out what the marginal cost to a provider is to make their unused cpu cycles available. Fundamentally that should apply here. Tl;Dr in terms of cost, in purely input terms grid computing isn't much cheaper to provide than cloud. "the Uber driver is getting paid by the venture capitalists." Irrelevant to the point. The point is the price you as a rider pay, and the price that the Uber driver gets paid, is often below the fully loaded costs per ride that the Uber driver needs to cover (the obfuscated cost being things like vehicle depreciation). "That was my point. The analogy breaks down very quickly" No, you've misunderstood the analogy by focusing on venture capitalist rather than the provider. The analogy was whether the providers costs were fully factored into the price they get paid. The fact you think the VCs are relevant here because "they pay the provider" again hinges on a confusion between price and full economic cost. "Why would someone provide their CPU cycles in hope of token appreciation?" Is this a joke? " their spare electricity" Electricity is metered. " I told you why I, as a customer, find it valuable." Great, but it's irrelevant and I don't care. We were originally talking about whether the business has a value proposition - and aside from having the word value in it, these are entirely different concepts.
nhill Member	Mon Feb 14 11:02:21 So...your grand thesis is that people are bleeding out money providing spare CPU cycles and electricity simply be because they think the $AKT token is going to appreciate in value...and you're going to run with that...ok. > Electricity is metered. ??? what sort of weird statement is this. There are many scenarios where people are incentivized to use surplus electricity or electricity is cheap. For example, I get a rebate if over a certain kWH per month, so I'm literally incentivized to push it over that limit. I have a buddy in Washington that pays ~$0.05 / kWH because he's near a surplus of hydroelectric power (but forget the anecdote, you can look up the rates yourself). That's 4x cheaper than other areas of the USA and over 2x cheaper than the average here. Crypto enables people to take these types of competitive advantages and leverage them. Not too mention it incentivizes people to figure out how to reduce the cost of provision once they are onboard. This is economic activity. Value, if you will. > Great, but it's irrelevant and I don't care. We were originally talking about whether the business has a value proposition - and aside from having the word value in it, these are entirely different concepts. We were working up to the value proposition, as you can see now. So impatient.
nhill Member	Mon Feb 14 11:11:36 The very fact that we're having this discussion is proof alone of the immense value proposition offered by crypto. A few years ago we'd be talking about the ethics and value of running folding@home with spare cycles. Today, instead of subsidizing research with our purchasing power, we are able to get remunerated for the contribution and still provide researchers with discounted computing power. A huge step forward. People can be altruistic with folding@home, or, according to Seb, semi-altruistic w/ Akash (because apparently everyone providing the computing power is dumber than him, lol).
nhill Member	Mon Feb 14 11:20:07 There's more too-- you vastly underestimate the amount of overhead in salaries, marketing, etc. that is priced into the AWS services. We used have a steak brand here in the USA called "No Name Steak" (still do, but they have since pivoted models in the digital age and now have twitter/etc). Came in a non-descript box that just said "No Name Steak". No marketing budget, just quality steak in the frozen goods section. It was a bit cheaper, but also better quality than the mass-produced crap from Tyson. I suspect most of the successful crypto protocols will follow a similar model, where cutting out the middlemen, salesmen, and marketing budgets passes along cost savings to the end user.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 14 11:56:06 nhill: "So...your grand thesis" No, I'm saying the documented facts are that total cost models for grid computing regularly show that provision costs are not very competitive with public cloud in terms of cost of provision. Which means likely there is a scale limit on how big this decentralised market can be - and the there are numerous ways that current prices on the decentralised networks can be below cost. "is that people are bleeding out money providing spare CPU cycles and electricity simply be because" It's not that surprising - there are numerous examples in platform type business models where service providers don't realise they are actually subsidising consumers. "??? what sort of weird statement is this." The one where you keep invoking this idea that "electricity" is spare and otherwise going to waste. "For example, I get a rebate if over a certain kWH per month" Do you mean a discount on the rate, or an actual situation where they pay you for electricity consumption? Only the latter matters - cheap electricity is still an avoidable marginal cost to you. And I guarantee you you are paying more for your electricity on average than AWS pays for its. "~$0.05 / kWH because he's near a surplus of hydroelectric power (but forget the anecdote, you can look up the rates yourself)." The American utilities are so fucked up - this is like the whole thing how you thought instant payments were some killer app for crypto. Build a decent grid. "We were working up to the value proposition, as you can see now. So impatient." No, you are gradually getting back on topic. We were talking about all of this before you started going "look I pay less". Or at least I was. "Today, instead of subsidizing research with our purchasing power, we are able to get remunerated for the contribution" What you mean is "whereas in the past we freely gave such resources away, now we can try and monetize it instead and reduce the amount of research that can be done because research budgets are fixed" - or rather, what will continue to happen is people will using facilities like BOINC. Though speaking of this, look at these chumps who have created an entirely free crypto-token layer on BOINC - though given BOINC is free, it is not at all clear why anyone would buy a grid coin or what you do with it other than vote on what other peoples idle processing power gets contributed to (and of course, you could just download and run the BOIC client natively). https://gridcoin.us/assets/docs/whitepaper.pdf Gee... given that there is no monetization mechanism for GRC - what's all that volatility. Surely nobody could be buying them speculatively. https://www.coinbase.com/price/gridcoin "you vastly underestimate the amount of overhead in salaries, marketing, etc. that is priced into the AWS services." Lol. Again, you are looking at price comparison, not economic cost of provision. Salaries and marketing are a negligible fraction of AWS's cost base.
nhill Member	Mon Feb 14 12:10:45 > Again, you are looking at price comparison, not economic cost of provision. Lol, again you don't realize that salaries and marketing need to be included in a practical discussion. > Salaries and marketing are a negligible fraction of AWS's cost base. Citation please. Amazon spends over 20 billion dollars a year on their marketing budget, and napkin calculations conservatively estimate their AWS segment spends over 2 billion a year on salaries. > The American utilities are so fucked up - this is like the whole thing how you thought instant payments were some killer app for crypto. Build a decent grid. Thank you for the concession. I appreciate that you think this value proposition shouldn't exist, but it does. Deal with it.
nhill Member	Mon Feb 14 12:13:31 You keep back pedaling like this, you'll fall off the cliff, lol. Your entire argument has distilled into "it shouldn't be valuable, america is just bad!!! oh and the market has a ceiling it's not infinite!!! take that!!" Embarassing.
nhill Member	Mon Feb 14 12:13:41 Embarrassing.
nhill Member	Mon Feb 14 12:19:18 > Do you mean a discount on the rate, or an actual situation where they pay you for electricity consumption? Only the latter matters - cheap electricity is still an avoidable marginal cost to you. They pay me for electricity consumption. I'm going to fudge the numbers for the sake of illustration, but basically if I use 2000 kWH in a month I get a $40 rebate. If I use 1999 kWH in a month I get no rebate.
nhill Member	Mon Feb 14 12:26:24 Not that my electricity contract particularly matters. I'm helping you understand why your blank "Electricity is metered" statement doesn't hold water. Someone in New York paying $0.22 per kWH is probably not profitably providing spare computation, but I know for a fact that people near hydroelectric dams paying $0.05 per kWH can and do make a profit on it. You can cry all you want about it. But, to your point, yes AWS pays less than even my friend near the dam. Most their shit is subsidized by the tax payer. You want to dive into the ethics of that versus an open, fair, free-market and decentralized protocol? Because we can go there.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 14 13:28:36 nhill: ""you vastly underestimate the amount of overhead in salaries, marketing, etc. that is priced into the AWS services." No, marketing is not a cost of provision -it's discretionary. Staff costs are a miniscule part of AWS's operational cost base. As I said, there is plenty of stuff that has been done already about comparative fully loaded costs of provision - the assertion that they have left out costs is absurd. " Amazon spends over 20 billion dollars a year on their marketing budget" Lol. Ok, yeah, sure, use the total Amazon advertising budget and say it's part of the operational costs for providing cloud compute. That's credible. "and napkin calculations conservatively estimate their AWS segment spends over 2 billion a year on salaries." Citation please - how much of that is on providing AWS high order services, vs providing basic PaaS and IaaS type services? This is why you need full economic analysis to compare apples with apples. "but it does" It exists in the tiny scope of places with subsidised electricity costs in the US due to the US's spectacular failure to provide decent public goods. I.e. it is niche and largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, not a game changer. Saying that "My mate lives near this dam and he can get some really cheap electricity, and I get the first 40$ worth of my electricity over 2000kw free - together we can provide valuable distributed business model" ... well I will let the reader decide what is embarrassing. "You want to dive into the ethics of that versus an open, fair, free-market and decentralized protocol?" Ability to access low cost electricity is a major decision point for AWS - if there are places with consistent surplus electricity and good heat dissipation, chances are public cloud will stick a data centre there. "You want to dive into the ethics of that versus an open, fair, free-market and decentralized protocol?" Or the ethics of BOINC and just doing it for free?
nhill Member	Mon Feb 14 13:40:07 > It exists in the tiny scope of places with subsidised electricity costs in the US due to the US's spectacular failure to provide decent public goods. I.e. it is niche and largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, not a game changer. Yes, I'm sure the USA is the only place in the world that would ever benefit from this. > Saying that "My mate lives near this dam and he can get some really cheap electricity, and I get the first 40$ worth of my electricity over 2000kw free - together we can provide valuable distributed business model" ... well I will let the reader decide what is embarrassing. That was two easy examples to help you understand how electricity surplus works. Appears it was too much for you to grok nonetheless. Not sure how much easier I can make things for you. > Ability to access low cost electricity is a major decision point for AWS - if there are places with consistent surplus electricity and good heat dissipation, chances are public cloud will stick a data centre there. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about electricity subsidies that come straight out of the taxpayers pocket. One of many reasons Amazon never publicizes their electricity costs.
Seb Member	Tue Feb 15 13:03:31 nhill: "benefit" is an odd word to use for stranded electricity capacity due to third world grid infrastructure. With regard to your high-school-debating level rhetorical twist of taking a sarcastic comments as literally as possible and then claim I'm not understanding; let me clarify for you: this is an incredibly small market of potential providers - and even then I doubt they are competitive on a full cost model for the reason we've talked about. And cloud providers deliberately site at such locations where they can - and yes sometimes that leads to local subsidies to try and attract them elsewhere. Either way, low electricity costs does not look like fertile grounds for competing on cloud provision.
nhill Member	Tue Feb 15 16:29:37 > this is an incredibly small market of potential providers - and even then I doubt they are competitive on a full cost model for the reason we've talked about. This is an incredibly large market of potential providers - and even then they could charge more based on the value they are delivering. Now we both have useless unsubstantiated postulations stated, and can move forward. Now please provide evidence for your assertion that the cost of provision is higher. You seem very confident, so it should be easy. Now, I'll be fair and assume this checks out. AWS makes around 30% margin on their products (as far as I can tell, exact numbers are hard to come by, but please issue a correction if this seems wildly incorrect). Even if the cost of provision cuts into that margin, it's still possible to turn a profit by reducing the margin. This delivers value to both providers (who previously didn't have a simple way to monetize their cycles) and consumers (who are able to save money because the providers are willing to take on a smaller margin).
nhill Member	Tue Feb 15 16:35:00 > "benefit" is an odd word to use for stranded electricity capacity due to third world grid infrastructure. That's not how I applied the word. The people in areas with competitive advantages in electricity prices (or perhaps a surplus from solar/nuclear/volcano/etc) can benefit from that advantage. Crypto enables this. But going back to your "third-world" comment. Funny how wherever there's a plus for people in third countries you take on this condescending tone. Do you have a problem with people pulling themselves out of poverty?
Seb Member	Wed Feb 16 03:18:00 Nhill: For someone that regularly announces that they should be listened to as a learning opportunity and people should do their own research, it's a bit rich. There are plenty of easily searchable papers on the economics of grid compute. My guess would be providers will wind up losing money in the long run.
nhill Member	Wed Feb 16 12:07:51 I see we have come to an impasse, then. We'll see how it turns out over the next few years and revisit this. :)
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