Comparing EOS to Amazon Cloud Computing
Someone in the Facebook CCT channel said EOS is no different than if Amazon released a token and called its cloud services a blockchain.
Here’s my response:
Not quite.
Amazon has full control of their system, answerable to no one but themselves. You might argue the shareholders matter, but when it comes to day to day decisions or forcing actual change, they don’t (IMO).
EOS is a cryptographically secure ledger. You might argue it’s not a blockchain because it doesn’t use nakamoto consensus, but if you go down that route, you might also say bitcoin has no true Byzantine Fault Tolerance (only the probability of such) while DPoS (with the concept of a last irreversible block) does. No matter which labels you use, the truth is EOS is run via many independent, decentralized block producers (21 active with hundreds of backups). These BPs are determined via stake weighted voting and can be removed in minutes if they were ever to do anything against the value of the network and the token holders. Having been in this space since Jan 2013, I saw first hand what happened when PoW systems without onchain governance try to handle conflict (block size debate, DAO hack, etc). The result includes forked chains, infighting, less collaboration, delayed mass adoption, and a decreasing market cap of the main chains.
Some argue EOS is more decentralized due to the risk of centralized PoW mining pools, but I think this argument is a little weak, personally. I remember when miners pulled their hashing power from a pool that was approaching 51%. They can “vote” also. Unfortunately for users of the network, their vote doesn’t align with the incentives of the token holders (one wants high fees and doesn’t concern itself with a mempool full of unconfirmed transactions-hurray job security for miners, while the other wants a cheap, secure, fast network that simple works all the time consistently without wildly fluctuating delays or fees).
Some say the user initiated hard fork means user do have voting rights beyond miners. Well, maybe, but to me it’s a threat of mutually assured destruction. If full nodes decide to stop forwarding blocks along they don’t like, things will get nasty. Also, give a talk at a conference and ask the audience how many run full nodes. I’ve done it. It’s not pretty nor should it be used as an example of decentralized governance.
I’m not an EOS fanboy, but I am part of the eosDAC team building DAC technology communities and governments around the world will eventually use. If you prefer Amazon, use Amazon. If you have no need for transparency, immutability, decentralization, or Byzantine Fault Tolerance, use Amazon.
Those who bash on EOS today sound silly to me. They sound like those I talked to in 2013 who didn’t understand BTC and thought it was just fake internet money.
Reputation matters. My recommendation is to not be so quick to make fun of something which, in the future, you might end up supporting and using. Makes you look like you don’t know what you’re talking about which means people will trust you less in the future.
I’m not a maximalist. I have and use many different blockchains and cryptocurrencies. I’m not (to the best of my ability) blinded by biases or tribalistic tendencies. Different projects have different value propositions. If you think EOS is no better than Amazon, I suggest ignoring it for a few years, come back later, and then see what happened.
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I hold a lot of EOS, but worry what will happen if this blockchain should ever become more dominant than Ethereum or Bitcoin. The question that worries me is "How difficult would it be for a government to buy out 15 block producers?". Hopefully it will be too expensive for any fiat based government to do by the time EOS has taken the leadership role.
I think it would be much easier for governments to influence mining pools (or the power generation large mining farms need). There are hundreds of backups and even if a government was able to somehow stealthily control 15 independent entities (unlikely, IMO), if they ever did anything corrupted, they would be removed as BPs by the token holders protecting their investment.
Buying out a large POS network is orders of magnitude more expensive than a 51% attack in POW. To acquire the coins a government would need buy large sums in the market, sky rocketing the price, making it even more expensive to gain majority voting power. Only to destroy there own stake? Does not make sense anyone would even attempt it. The larger the network value is the more expensive to acquire influence.
I agree, but my concern with pure PoS (compared to DPoS) is that those who have control gain more control where as with DPoS, there's at least a chance to give more control to non-producers (which is how Steem works), but has some issues in EOS right now (as mentioned here).
Agree but only w/ unique human accounts to help balance power.
I'm hearing something different from Cedric Dahl. At 4:30 in this video he outlines why DPoS is destined to fail:
Do you have a rebuttal to this?
Let me just add that I think if the SEC managed to get legal pressure put upon block producers (in the form of cease and desist letters as Cedric says above), it might cause EOS to drift back into Chinese dominance and the remaining block producers to move into immune jurisdictions.
To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.
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You are among top 10 Steem consensus witlessness(at 7th rank to be precise) and I can't really understand why you are endorsing EOS so much more while still mining Steem by producing blocks on daily basis.
I don't really have any issue with anyone who is interested in multiple blockchains and wants to grow to increase his capital gains but considering your rank as witness, some loyalty is definitely expected.
Again, it does not have anything to do with your article, it is good one but because of your rank I just want to know what you have to say for your affiliation.
It's a fair question which I tried to answer here when I joined the eosDAC team. I can't answer for Steem Power holders as to why they vote for me (that's up to them to answer), but I'd guess it's because I'm involved in multiple things (also Dapix to build the FIO protocol) and have a broader perspective and experience in the space which makes me a good, trusted witness. What you call loyalty, I might consider tribalism (and I'm not a fan of it as I think it's primitive). My experience with EOS and eosDAC helps me come up with ideas like running Steem as a DAC which, I'd like to think, has influenced the direction of where Steem is going to further decentralize itself.
I continue to use my influence (for whatever it's worth) to promote Steem because I do believe it's currently the best decentralized social media blockchain.
I don't have a huge following, but every little bit helps, right? This tweet got some love:
What if I post it on the steem blockchain FIRST, and THEN I post it on FB???
Whatever floats your boat. :)
No, but seriously. I actually wanna know. I mean, wouldn't I be able to say it still belongs to me, if I posted it first on steem?
I see property as a scarce rivalrous resource. Once you post anything, it's no longer scarce so I don't see it as property or something you can "own." Unless you post it encrypted and keep the key to yourself.
Interesting. I like that theory. It's workable, and makes sense, and is frankly a new way of looking at certain things.
Hi @lukestokes , very well explained for people who do not know about blockchain and decentralization. Hope the ones that are writting against eos or blockchain read this to understand a bit more and to avoid getting other people confused.
As @ashe-oro mentioned the other day when speaking live with you about REX and Bancor, you are one of the best content creators for the crypto space out there.
Thanks for making this comparison.
Regards, @gold84
Thank you for your kind words.
I just love all the smarty pants talk Luke. Thanks for the write-up. It's good to hear your take on it, espesh considering you've got a bit of inside experience on crypto in general, not to mention EOS.
The same was said when Amazon came into the scene and disrupted commerce by doing things differently!
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