It seems we are both cherry picking to back up our beliefs. Just to show the other side of the coin: > the number of [Usenet] hosts nearly doubled to 940 in

It seems we are both cherry picking to back up our beliefs. Just to show the other side of the coin: > the number of [Usenet] hosts nearly doubled to 940 in 1984. More than 100 newsgroups existed, more than 20 devoted How does that compare to the number of Bitcoin miners today? or the number of nodes (11,000)? or the number of users (>30M)? > people have never had a reason to use it other than speculation. I did. I paid small amounts for small jobs in various countries of the world with nearly zero fees. (Back in 2013). Had I used Paypal, 50% of the amount sent would have been eaten up by the exchange rate and fees. Bank transfers between these countries cost 100% of the transaction. I also use it to buy hosting, domains, vpns, etc. > there was clearly a business opportunity if you could bring the access costs down. Well, guess what? If you can bring the fees down in Bitcoin and Ethereum, there are clear business opportunities. And yet, still in the 90s people said "People will never shop online. You need to go to the store to see and try the stuff."