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>I think the desire for decentralization is very real Ideology aside, as a random human being, why would I care about that? I need to buy bread at the bakery,

by simias 8y ago

>I think the desire for decentralization is very real Ideology aside, as a random human being, why would I care about that? I need to buy bread at the bakery, I can use cash, my "centralized" Visa or my Bitcoin wallet, all other things being equal what difference does decentralization make? And if it's solely about principles then I have bad news. I think most people would agree that ideologically speaking if you value privacy it makes more sense to use Duckduckgo rather than Google search, yet even though DDG now offers a quality of service comparable to the big G it still remains extremely confidential. The friction to get from one service to the other is like 3 clicks in your browser's UI, yet most people don't care. If 99% of people can't be bothered to ditch Google search in favor of something else even though there's very little friction, how can you ever hope to convince people to switch from Visa to a bitcoin wallet which is significantly less convenient and makes it easy to irrevocably lose your money? That's a pipe dream IMO.

Fnoord 8y ago
What is interesting is some kind of way to measure in percentages why people use cryptocurrencies. Speculation? Privacy reasons? Security reasons? Ideological reasons? Careless about environment?
- CamTin 8y ago
  My sense is that it's mainly speculative, with a strong base of "honest" demand from people with security concerns (ransomware, drugs, money laundering, other crime) that preclude them from using the regular banking system. This is all on top of the initial users, Usenet-style "cryptoanarchists" who actually got the whole network running in the first place, but who are now a tiny minority of actual users, though perhaps a majority of the people who have already made a fortune on this stuff, and thus are now leading investment in the space. In a way, these are just speculators who bought early for reasons other than money (like for example, that it seemed like a cool conceit from a William Gibson novel).
  - erikpukinskis 8y ago
    What about maybe technically illegal money moving not otherwise tied to criminal enterprise? The model example for me was someone in the U.S. sending money to their grandmother in Iran. Although perhaps that’s become legal again now.
    - CamTin 8y ago
      I would think this is a rather fringe use-case, depending on what things you define as criminal. I mean, in the original technolibertarian/cryptoanarchist formulation, cryptocoin was meant to free folks from being persecuted for such "non-crimes" as tax evasion, securities fraud, prostitution, narcotics trafficking, arms trafficking, etc. If you include this stuff, I think it's a sizable fraction, but still not generating as much demand as the speculators are. If you really just mean "remittance payments to OFAC-listed countries", then I can't imagine that's a big use case at all, especially since the first world, the source of most of these remittances, has made it pretty difficult to turn cash or legally-earned in-my-bank-because-i-cashed-my-paycheck money into crypto without a paper trail. Also, the OFAC countries are just not the most popular places to send remittances from the west, the reason being that its just really hard to do so. This in turn reduces incentive for otherwise remittance-sending immigrants from those countries to go to the West, which in turn lowers demand for the service. If the US were to suddenly put Mexico on the OFAC list (not unthinkable given the current administration), there would be riots in the streets in both countries, because the scale of these payments mean that large fractions of both economies are built on the flow of this money (in Mexico), and the labor it motivates (in the US).
      - CryptoPunk 8y ago
        >>cryptocoin was meant to free folks from being persecuted for such "non-crimes" as tax evasion, securities fraud, prostitution, narcotics trafficking, arms trafficking, etc. It's important to clarify that "securities fraud" here refers to what statutes refer to as securities fraud, and not any actual fraud involving securities. Any sale of a non-registered security is termed "securities fraud" by the Securities Act, even if the sale involves zero fraud. The term, as used in the statutory context, is a misnomer, and an Orwellian attempt at misleading the public into believing there was a victim in the transaction. Generally libertarians like the cypherpunks do not object to laws against real fraud. It's the victimless crimes like prostitution, trade in unregistered securities, drugs, etc that they believe should be free of prohibition. Anyway, to your point, there are legal industries where traditional financial players cannot operate, like the legal cannabis industry, due to everything from corporate policies being slow to react to the change in laws, to reputational risk, to non-binding but still influential guidances and warnings from regulatory agencies (e.g. Operation Chokepoint). These also might be/become natural sources of demand for cryptocurrency.
codetrotter 8y ago
> even though DDG now offers a quality of service comparable to the big G it still remains extremely confidential I’ve tried to switch to DDG a couple of times and I use it as the default search engine on my cellphone now but it’s not yet as good as Google is for easily finding exactly what I want and I doubt it will ever be because it is thanks to the very thing I don’t like about Google — the amount of things they know about their users — that Google are able to give the results that their users are looking for. I bought a book called Relevant Search because I think that it might be possible to build a very good search engine for oneself but I have not yet had time to even start reading that book so.
- meko 8y ago
  DDG results can be hit or miss (it doesn't yet do a good job of filtering spam, for instance), but a simple 'g!' In your search terms will have DDG query google for you, thus acting as a sort of proxy. This means you can have the anonymity of DDG and the breadth of google.
- dx034 8y ago
  It's the other way around for me. I use it as default on the desktop because I just type !g whenever the query is more complex. Most searches are still sth easy (or programming questions where DDG is really good) so I probably only use Google for 20-30% of queries. On the phone that's too much of a hassle (and my queries there are often more localized) so I keep using Google. I think switching to DDG is worth it even if you only lower your usage to a certain degree. It means no company has your full profile anymore.
- nmeofthestate 8y ago
  I had the same experience with DDG/G. Google results are just more relevant due to the fact that they know where you are, and what you've searched for etc. I don't see myself as starring in my own personalised version of the movie "Enemy of the State", so opt for the more useful service rather than the more private one.
beaner 8y ago
I like that Google's search results are personalized and pull relevant info from my use of their other services. DDG doesn't have that.

by simias 8y ago

Fnoord 8y ago

What is interesting is some kind of way to measure in percentages why people use cryptocurrencies. Speculation? Privacy reasons? Security reasons? Ideological reasons? Careless about environment?

CamTin 8y ago
My sense is that it's mainly speculative, with a strong base of "honest" demand from people with security concerns (ransomware, drugs, money laundering, other crime) that preclude them from using the regular banking system. This is all on top of the initial users, Usenet-style "cryptoanarchists" who actually got the whole network running in the first place, but who are now a tiny minority of actual users, though perhaps a majority of the people who have already made a fortune on this stuff, and thus are now leading investment in the space. In a way, these are just speculators who bought early for reasons other than money (like for example, that it seemed like a cool conceit from a William Gibson novel).
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  What about maybe technically illegal money moving not otherwise tied to criminal enterprise? The model example for me was someone in the U.S. sending money to their grandmother in Iran. Although perhaps that’s become legal again now.
  - CamTin 8y ago
    I would think this is a rather fringe use-case, depending on what things you define as criminal. I mean, in the original technolibertarian/cryptoanarchist formulation, cryptocoin was meant to free folks from being persecuted for such "non-crimes" as tax evasion, securities fraud, prostitution, narcotics trafficking, arms trafficking, etc. If you include this stuff, I think it's a sizable fraction, but still not generating as much demand as the speculators are. If you really just mean "remittance payments to OFAC-listed countries", then I can't imagine that's a big use case at all, especially since the first world, the source of most of these remittances, has made it pretty difficult to turn cash or legally-earned in-my-bank-because-i-cashed-my-paycheck money into crypto without a paper trail. Also, the OFAC countries are just not the most popular places to send remittances from the west, the reason being that its just really hard to do so. This in turn reduces incentive for otherwise remittance-sending immigrants from those countries to go to the West, which in turn lowers demand for the service. If the US were to suddenly put Mexico on the OFAC list (not unthinkable given the current administration), there would be riots in the streets in both countries, because the scale of these payments mean that large fractions of both economies are built on the flow of this money (in Mexico), and the labor it motivates (in the US).
    - CryptoPunk 8y ago
      >>cryptocoin was meant to free folks from being persecuted for such "non-crimes" as tax evasion, securities fraud, prostitution, narcotics trafficking, arms trafficking, etc. It's important to clarify that "securities fraud" here refers to what statutes refer to as securities fraud, and not any actual fraud involving securities. Any sale of a non-registered security is termed "securities fraud" by the Securities Act, even if the sale involves zero fraud. The term, as used in the statutory context, is a misnomer, and an Orwellian attempt at misleading the public into believing there was a victim in the transaction. Generally libertarians like the cypherpunks do not object to laws against real fraud. It's the victimless crimes like prostitution, trade in unregistered securities, drugs, etc that they believe should be free of prohibition. Anyway, to your point, there are legal industries where traditional financial players cannot operate, like the legal cannabis industry, due to everything from corporate policies being slow to react to the change in laws, to reputational risk, to non-binding but still influential guidances and warnings from regulatory agencies (e.g. Operation Chokepoint). These also might be/become natural sources of demand for cryptocurrency.

codetrotter 8y ago

> even though DDG now offers a quality of service comparable to the big G it still remains extremely confidential I’ve tried to switch to DDG a couple of times and I use it as the default search engine on my cellphone now but it’s not yet as good as Google is for easily finding exactly what I want and I doubt it will ever be because it is thanks to the very thing I don’t like about Google — the amount of things they know about their users — that Google are able to give the results that their users are looking for. I bought a book called Relevant Search because I think that it might be possible to build a very good search engine for oneself but I have not yet had time to even start reading that book so.

meko 8y ago
DDG results can be hit or miss (it doesn't yet do a good job of filtering spam, for instance), but a simple 'g!' In your search terms will have DDG query google for you, thus acting as a sort of proxy. This means you can have the anonymity of DDG and the breadth of google.
dx034 8y ago
It's the other way around for me. I use it as default on the desktop because I just type !g whenever the query is more complex. Most searches are still sth easy (or programming questions where DDG is really good) so I probably only use Google for 20-30% of queries. On the phone that's too much of a hassle (and my queries there are often more localized) so I keep using Google. I think switching to DDG is worth it even if you only lower your usage to a certain degree. It means no company has your full profile anymore.
nmeofthestate 8y ago
I had the same experience with DDG/G. Google results are just more relevant due to the fact that they know where you are, and what you've searched for etc. I don't see myself as starring in my own personalised version of the movie "Enemy of the State", so opt for the more useful service rather than the more private one.

beaner 8y ago

I like that Google's search results are personalized and pull relevant info from my use of their other services. DDG doesn't have that.