[WaylonKenning]

(Disclaimer - I work in this space, but these words are my own).

My understanding is DIDs are a unique identifier. There's a few methods that can be used regarding the construction of the identifier. It could be a unique key (did:key- https://w3c-ccg.github.io/did-method-key/). It could be using web infrastructure (did:web - https://w3c-ccg.github.io/did-method-web/). It could be using blockchain infrastructure (did:ion).

Whatever it is, it becomes an identifier used to receive credentials and send messages to. For example, your digital wallet can have a DID which can be used to store credentials. Your digital wallet can have many DIDs which can be useful to avoid correlation of identities.

The credentials (and the identities they represent) themselves are normally bundled into things like Verifiable Credentials (https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/) which have to be issued to something - like a DID.

[jiggawatts]

On second reading with that background knowledge, the crypto pedigree reveals itself: "decentralized", "distributed", "independently of any centralized registry", "distributed ledger", "non-registry based", etc...

It all makes sense now! It's yet another attempt at making Web 3.0 happen.

Sigh...

[bawolff]

9 billion buzzwords for basically "url-like string that starts with a vendor prefix"

[helpfulclippy]

I'd argue that of those, "distributed ledger" is the only real red-flaggy one -- and even then, only because of its association with blockchain. I think when engineering web technologies, we should hope to find a lot of talk about decentralized, distributed stuff independent of central registries.

[reflexco]

It's common courtesy not to interject in a technical discussion with identity politics.

[EGreg]

Why sigh?

Why are Bitcoin maxis and HN Web 2.0 people so intent on keeping everyone from advancing to the next phases of the Web?

Do you like centralized VC-funded “cloud”-hosted startups incubated in Silicon Valley that get gobbled up by big tech or dumped on the public? You like the extreme power inequality between those who run these systems and the public? You think the best our systems can do is extract rents at the behest of Wall Street? People who bought the shares at $100 dont want them to drop to $50 so Uber will take 50% of all drivers’ paychecks, while a decentralized autonomous network wouldn’t. Selling tokens is a one-time deal that makes the founders rich and then the network belongs to the participants.

What happened to the open source, hacker ethos? You know, counterculture, hacking on something, or at the very least not buying into the corporate morass? What happened to cypherpunks and people who wrote M$ and worked on Free Software alternatives to Big Tech?

Once upon a time America Online, Compuserve and Prodigy were today’s Google, Facebook etc. People left for the open, decentralized protocols like HTTP, as soon as good enough clients (browsers) appeared. Web 2.0 companies like FB or Google could have never even gotten started if they needed permission of AOL or MSN … the permissionless nature Web 1.0 made it possible.

Once upon a time, long distance calls cost $3 a minute. Then the decentralized file sharing network Kazaa guys made Skype, and it became so widespread that VOIP dropped the cost to zero. We can all videoconference now and the telcos are reduced to providing dumb pipes.

So why if Web 1.0 broke barriers and allowed anyone to write some HTML and serve via HTTP a website to the whole world … why is it sooooo terrible that in Web 3.0 people can write a smart contract and deploy it on some EVM compatible blockchain making the rules or payments instantly accessible to people around the world who control their own keys? Do you really think this won’t have any real applications?