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Blockchain is to crypto what AOL was to the early web. We've had hashing, dencentralisation, public key cryptography etc for years, but all of it was kind of a

by Zhyl 9y ago

Blockchain is to crypto what AOL was to the early web. We've had hashing, dencentralisation, public key cryptography etc for years, but all of it was kind of academic, kind of out of reach. Similarly AOL brought email, the web, IM together into a nice package that people could get behind and use even though there wasn't obvious inherent value to those who were using the internet beforehand. AOL brought the news homepage, Ethereum has brought crypto-cats. AOL gave 8-year-old me an interest in dial-up connection sounds, bitcoin gave me an interest in staring at financial graphs.

CryptoPunk 9y ago
AOL was a company, not a class of applications or a technology. It's totally incomparable to a distributed blockchain.
- lelbloster 9y ago
  he means philosophically, not literally/technically i actually think it's a pretty good simile its bringing a new tech development to the masses in a very clunky way - just what AOL did.
  - CryptoPunk 9y ago
    The technology here is far greater than the sum of the parts (public key cryptography, hashing, etc). The innovation of the blockchain is distributed consensus, and none of the component technologies can provide that alone.
    - lelbloster 9y ago
      huh? you're missing the point here dude; me and the other guy are just saying that it's a similar situation: > X brought Y together into a nice package that people could get behind and use even though there wasn't obvious inherent value to those who were using the Z beforehand that applies to AOL and blockchain.
      - CryptoPunk 9y ago
        "huh" doesn't really tell me anything about your understanding of my point. If you could specify what part of my statement doesn't make sense for you, I could at least try to clarify it. >>X brought Y together into a nice package that people could get behind and use even though there wasn't obvious inherent value to those who were using the Z beforehand If AOL provided a major innovation not available in either X or Y, then it would be analogous to the blockchain. The reason why AOL faded away and the blockchain won't is that the latter solves a major problem that could not be solved by any previous technology, including any of its component technologies alone, while the former did not.

by Zhyl 9y ago

CryptoPunk 9y ago

AOL was a company, not a class of applications or a technology. It's totally incomparable to a distributed blockchain.

lelbloster 9y ago
he means philosophically, not literally/technically i actually think it's a pretty good simile its bringing a new tech development to the masses in a very clunky way - just what AOL did.
- CryptoPunk 9y ago
  The technology here is far greater than the sum of the parts (public key cryptography, hashing, etc). The innovation of the blockchain is distributed consensus, and none of the component technologies can provide that alone.
  - lelbloster 9y ago
    huh? you're missing the point here dude; me and the other guy are just saying that it's a similar situation: > X brought Y together into a nice package that people could get behind and use even though there wasn't obvious inherent value to those who were using the Z beforehand that applies to AOL and blockchain.
    - CryptoPunk 9y ago
      "huh" doesn't really tell me anything about your understanding of my point. If you could specify what part of my statement doesn't make sense for you, I could at least try to clarify it. >>X brought Y together into a nice package that people could get behind and use even though there wasn't obvious inherent value to those who were using the Z beforehand If AOL provided a major innovation not available in either X or Y, then it would be analogous to the blockchain. The reason why AOL faded away and the blockchain won't is that the latter solves a major problem that could not be solved by any previous technology, including any of its component technologies alone, while the former did not.