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Ask HN: Were people as skeptical in the early Internet days as of blockchain?

Inspired by this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/7rego7/were_people_this_skeptical_in_the_early_days_of/ For those of you that are in their 40's, do you remember people being very skeptical as well?

itamarst 9y ago
The Internet was very clearly useful in many ways, from very early on. Blockchain has no real use cases so far except libertarian fantasies and get-rich-quick schemes.
- maxencecornet 9y ago
  >The Internet was very clearly useful in many ways, from very early on. I don't agree, take a look at this video from 1994: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVKRSsrIqpA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVKRSsrIqpA It's anecdotal, but people clearly had no idea of a use-case for internet, i.e a billboard ?
- sharemywin 9y ago
  nasdaq thinks there's a couple: http://www.nasdaq.com/article/4-innovative-use-cases-for-blockchain-cm901636 http://www.nasdaq.com/article/4-innovative-use-cases-for-blo... 30 non financial use-cases: https://letstalkpayments.com/30-non-financial-use-cases-of-blockchain-technology-infographic/ https://letstalkpayments.com/30-non-financial-use-cases-of-b... deloitte 5 use cases: https://www2.deloitte.com/nl/nl/pages/financial-services/articles/5-blockchain-use-cases-in-financial-services.html https://www2.deloitte.com/nl/nl/pages/financial-services/art...
  - SirLJ 9y ago
    Blockchain is been around for more than 25 years and nothing practical at scale build yet, except for the token bubble...
babygoat 9y ago
What average person has a need for blockchain? I seriously don't get the comparison.
- maxencecornet 9y ago
  >What average person has a need for blockchain? What average person had a need for internet in 1994 ? People don't used and don't use Internet as it, average joe use internet because of the applications running on it. Pretty much the same things with blockchain tech >I seriously don't get the comparison. A blockchain is a public distributed database, internet was a decentralized public network The trustlessness linked to the use of public blockchain is a major novelty in the tech world.
  - Finnucane 9y ago
    That doesn't explain why the anyone who is not in the tech world should care about it.
    - sharemywin 9y ago
      Why should anyone care about tcp-ip or html outside of tech world? They shouldn't but you can't argue it didn't have a profound effect on their lives.
  - BatFastard 9y ago
    My biggest issue with blockchain is scalablity, which is proving to be a bigger and bigger problem as more people are into cryptocurrencies. Are there actual solutions to this problem?
    - maxencecornet 9y ago
      >My biggest issue with blockchain is scalablity Plasma MVP (built upon Ethereum blockchain) was just released. Plasma is supposed to be able to handle more then 1 million transactions per second, which is way more then what Visa handle right now https://github.com/omisego/plasma-mvp https://github.com/omisego/plasma-mvp https://blog.omisego.network/construction-of-a-plasma-chain-0x1-614f6ebd1612 https://blog.omisego.network/construction-of-a-plasma-chain-...
Finnucane 9y ago
People are always skeptical of new technology. And not entirely without reason. It's not always clear what the advantages are (early versions of new things sometimes are not actually better than the old thing), or what the cost will be: progress doesn't come for free. In the early days of the Internet, part of the problem was that most people just didn't have a way to access it until there were commercial ISPs, and the Web made it relatively easy to find and share stuff. And of course, new things often come with a lot of hype, that may take a long time to really pan out. And nowadays we sometimes use the phrase 'the killer appp--the function that clicks with the new technology that drives adoption. So, if you really want people to get people interested in blockchain, find a way to use it to distribute porn.
- maxencecornet 9y ago
  > find a way to use it to distribute porn. Or a way to use it to distribute drugs Oh wait
- selmat 9y ago
  "find a way to use it to distribute porn." this made my day :) i think if content can be verified via blockchain that doesn't contains any malware it would be much more preferred.
sharemywin 9y ago
- I remember getting on mosaic and thinking what is that ugly thing. Besides there are plenty of free editors out there already. -couple years later, the internet that could be a pretty cool yellow pages. - couple years later, I remember a lot of people saying why would anyone buy XYZ online with out touching it first.
tabeth 9y ago
It seems that the majority of "legitimate" uses surrounding blockchain concern "trust", or rather try to eliminate mechanisms such that trust is inherent. Imagine some authority, perhaps a non-profit that was 100% trustworthy. What could blockchain [*] do that said "authority" could not? I'm curious if blockchain could be used within an organization to make an organization itself trustworthy, as opposed to make trustworthy tools. - keep in mind even if decentralized, many blockchain tools will likely have some authority managing it, or have mechanisms such that a small collitation could take control --- I'm really curious if blockchain is superior to a traditional approach for the following scenario: 1. You're a nonprofit 2. You take donations on your website. 3. You advertise that money donated will 100% be used for a stated purpose (categorical in nature). 4. You also say that you can see exactly when your money is spent and how it is spent, including the quantity. I see a way to build this with traditional tools, but it seems complicated and also is prone to fraud. The problem with using Bitcoin is that your endowment would be too volatile for your finance team to really manage. I suppose the nonprofit could do an ICO, but you don't want people to actually own a portion of your non-profit (as they cannot, by definition). How can you ensure compliance, have transparency and minimize complexity?
apohn 9y ago
I think hype results in skepticism, and things can be hyped on a far larger scale now than ever before. If I think back to my early internet days, I remember email (Eudora!!) being the most useful and exciting thing. After that I remember Yahoo and ICQ being really important for me. People were certainly excited in the 90s, but I think the hype was less around the internet in general and more around some of the things it would enable (e.g. Gateway PCs and PCTV or whatever it was called). I remember more hype around the CD-ROM and CD-R's than I do hype about the internet. The capacity of CD-ROMs and the ability to play video reminds me of the current talk about VR/AR. What we got out of CD-ROMs was Windows 95 being easier to install and cutscenes in video games - not what happened to Edward Furlong in the "Brainscan" movie or Lawnmower man. Compare that to blockchain or any of the current hyped technologies like Deep Learning or Big Data(3 years ago). "Thought leaders", tech and non-tech companies (small and large), journalists - everybody wants to show they are the leaders and have the answers. You then have a strong reaction of skepticism against this. I feel old writing this post. I remember Brainscan and hoping something like that was right around the corner...ouch.
potta_coffee 9y ago
I don't see much skepticism about blockchain technology itself. Skepticism regarding the value of bitcoin and other crypto-currencies are warranted, IMO.
hluska 9y ago
I grew up in Regina, Canada. Regina is a rather conservative big Government town where things change even slower than the climate. Consequently, my experience may not be typical so do with this what you will. The shortest possible answer is yeah, people were very sceptical of the Internet in the early days. In the early 90s, I remember one very senior government official who my parents knew say "there is nothing of use on the internet." I would have been about fourteen then and had never even imagined such blasphemy, but here was a guy who had done well for himself shitting all over the only place I had ever wanted to work! I remember how dismissive my Dad was of email when his employer gave him his first email account. "Why the hell did they do this to me?" he'd fume. "Interoffice mail used to take a few days, but at least I could open the damned thing." Yet a decade later, he retired and bought himself a computer so he could keep using email! Ky biggest takeaway from those years is that only the most technical people had any vision of what the web could become. In that early state, the web kind of sucked. It was hard to even go online and once you were there it was even harder to find anything of value. Thanks to some true visionaries, the web has become indispensable. And I'm convinced that the same kinds of visionaries will do the same with blockchain.

itamarst 9y ago

The Internet was very clearly useful in many ways, from very early on. Blockchain has no real use cases so far except libertarian fantasies and get-rich-quick schemes.

maxencecornet 9y ago
>The Internet was very clearly useful in many ways, from very early on. I don't agree, take a look at this video from 1994: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVKRSsrIqpA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVKRSsrIqpA It's anecdotal, but people clearly had no idea of a use-case for internet, i.e a billboard ?
sharemywin 9y ago
nasdaq thinks there's a couple: http://www.nasdaq.com/article/4-innovative-use-cases-for-blockchain-cm901636 http://www.nasdaq.com/article/4-innovative-use-cases-for-blo... 30 non financial use-cases: https://letstalkpayments.com/30-non-financial-use-cases-of-blockchain-technology-infographic/ https://letstalkpayments.com/30-non-financial-use-cases-of-b... deloitte 5 use cases: https://www2.deloitte.com/nl/nl/pages/financial-services/articles/5-blockchain-use-cases-in-financial-services.html https://www2.deloitte.com/nl/nl/pages/financial-services/art...
- SirLJ 9y ago
  Blockchain is been around for more than 25 years and nothing practical at scale build yet, except for the token bubble...

babygoat 9y ago

What average person has a need for blockchain? I seriously don't get the comparison.

maxencecornet 9y ago
>What average person has a need for blockchain? What average person had a need for internet in 1994 ? People don't used and don't use Internet as it, average joe use internet because of the applications running on it. Pretty much the same things with blockchain tech >I seriously don't get the comparison. A blockchain is a public distributed database, internet was a decentralized public network The trustlessness linked to the use of public blockchain is a major novelty in the tech world.
- Finnucane 9y ago
  That doesn't explain why the anyone who is not in the tech world should care about it.
  - sharemywin 9y ago
    Why should anyone care about tcp-ip or html outside of tech world? They shouldn't but you can't argue it didn't have a profound effect on their lives.
- BatFastard 9y ago
  My biggest issue with blockchain is scalablity, which is proving to be a bigger and bigger problem as more people are into cryptocurrencies. Are there actual solutions to this problem?
  - maxencecornet 9y ago
    >My biggest issue with blockchain is scalablity Plasma MVP (built upon Ethereum blockchain) was just released. Plasma is supposed to be able to handle more then 1 million transactions per second, which is way more then what Visa handle right now https://github.com/omisego/plasma-mvp https://github.com/omisego/plasma-mvp https://blog.omisego.network/construction-of-a-plasma-chain-0x1-614f6ebd1612 https://blog.omisego.network/construction-of-a-plasma-chain-...

Finnucane 9y ago

People are always skeptical of new technology. And not entirely without reason. It's not always clear what the advantages are (early versions of new things sometimes are not actually better than the old thing), or what the cost will be: progress doesn't come for free. In the early days of the Internet, part of the problem was that most people just didn't have a way to access it until there were commercial ISPs, and the Web made it relatively easy to find and share stuff. And of course, new things often come with a lot of hype, that may take a long time to really pan out. And nowadays we sometimes use the phrase 'the killer appp--the function that clicks with the new technology that drives adoption. So, if you really want people to get people interested in blockchain, find a way to use it to distribute porn.

maxencecornet 9y ago
> find a way to use it to distribute porn. Or a way to use it to distribute drugs Oh wait
selmat 9y ago
"find a way to use it to distribute porn." this made my day :) i think if content can be verified via blockchain that doesn't contains any malware it would be much more preferred.

sharemywin 9y ago

- I remember getting on mosaic and thinking what is that ugly thing. Besides there are plenty of free editors out there already. -couple years later, the internet that could be a pretty cool yellow pages. - couple years later, I remember a lot of people saying why would anyone buy XYZ online with out touching it first.

tabeth 9y ago

It seems that the majority of "legitimate" uses surrounding blockchain concern "trust", or rather try to eliminate mechanisms such that trust is inherent. Imagine some authority, perhaps a non-profit that was 100% trustworthy. What could blockchain [*] do that said "authority" could not? I'm curious if blockchain could be used within an organization to make an organization itself trustworthy, as opposed to make trustworthy tools. - keep in mind even if decentralized, many blockchain tools will likely have some authority managing it, or have mechanisms such that a small collitation could take control --- I'm really curious if blockchain is superior to a traditional approach for the following scenario: 1. You're a nonprofit 2. You take donations on your website. 3. You advertise that money donated will 100% be used for a stated purpose (categorical in nature). 4. You also say that you can see exactly when your money is spent and how it is spent, including the quantity. I see a way to build this with traditional tools, but it seems complicated and also is prone to fraud. The problem with using Bitcoin is that your endowment would be too volatile for your finance team to really manage. I suppose the nonprofit could do an ICO, but you don't want people to actually own a portion of your non-profit (as they cannot, by definition). How can you ensure compliance, have transparency and minimize complexity?

apohn 9y ago

I think hype results in skepticism, and things can be hyped on a far larger scale now than ever before. If I think back to my early internet days, I remember email (Eudora!!) being the most useful and exciting thing. After that I remember Yahoo and ICQ being really important for me. People were certainly excited in the 90s, but I think the hype was less around the internet in general and more around some of the things it would enable (e.g. Gateway PCs and PCTV or whatever it was called). I remember more hype around the CD-ROM and CD-R's than I do hype about the internet. The capacity of CD-ROMs and the ability to play video reminds me of the current talk about VR/AR. What we got out of CD-ROMs was Windows 95 being easier to install and cutscenes in video games - not what happened to Edward Furlong in the "Brainscan" movie or Lawnmower man. Compare that to blockchain or any of the current hyped technologies like Deep Learning or Big Data(3 years ago). "Thought leaders", tech and non-tech companies (small and large), journalists - everybody wants to show they are the leaders and have the answers. You then have a strong reaction of skepticism against this. I feel old writing this post. I remember Brainscan and hoping something like that was right around the corner...ouch.

potta_coffee 9y ago

I don't see much skepticism about blockchain technology itself. Skepticism regarding the value of bitcoin and other crypto-currencies are warranted, IMO.

hluska 9y ago

I grew up in Regina, Canada. Regina is a rather conservative big Government town where things change even slower than the climate. Consequently, my experience may not be typical so do with this what you will. The shortest possible answer is yeah, people were very sceptical of the Internet in the early days. In the early 90s, I remember one very senior government official who my parents knew say "there is nothing of use on the internet." I would have been about fourteen then and had never even imagined such blasphemy, but here was a guy who had done well for himself shitting all over the only place I had ever wanted to work! I remember how dismissive my Dad was of email when his employer gave him his first email account. "Why the hell did they do this to me?" he'd fume. "Interoffice mail used to take a few days, but at least I could open the damned thing." Yet a decade later, he retired and bought himself a computer so he could keep using email! Ky biggest takeaway from those years is that only the most technical people had any vision of what the web could become. In that early state, the web kind of sucked. It was hard to even go online and once you were there it was even harder to find anything of value. Thanks to some true visionaries, the web has become indispensable. And I'm convinced that the same kinds of visionaries will do the same with blockchain.