4 ms·

> They're just not useful for all the things that are being promised (yet). Also, just like the internet wasn't. Exactly. The early internet was full of promis

> They're just not useful for all the things that are being promised (yet). Also, just like the internet wasn't. Exactly. The early internet was full of promises of taking over retail. None of that worked, at first. Instead the internet was useful for messaging and putting up personal websites. All the responsible people at the time kept whining -- how is it going to make money?? Well, people kept working on it. For years. Business cycles came and went. Eventually the promise worked out.

pjc50 8y ago
> The early internet was full of promises of taking over retail. None of that worked, at first. Timeframe? The early Internet was pretty non-commercial and the commercial services were generally proprietary and/or run by telecoms (Minitel, Prestel). There were a lot of failures in the 99/00 boom, but Amazon was founded in 1994. > how is it going to make money Ironically the question was more "how am I going to give you my credit card safely, given that cryptography is a technology subject to US export control".
rspeer 8y ago
> Exactly. The early internet was full of promises of taking over retail. None of that worked, at first. Instead the internet was useful for messaging and putting up personal websites. All the responsible people at the time kept whining -- how is it going to make money?? What? This is nonsense alternate history. The early Internet had active, useful messaging long before anyone thought it would be useful for "retail". The arrival of commercial spam on Usenet was a shock to everyone. And personal websites came before the dot-com craze.
anyfoo 8y ago
The Internet was useful for a lot more things than messaging (without belittling its immense importance) and putting up "personal" websites. It allowed for efficient file transfer and retrieval of information across all distances, facilitating all sort of research and collaboration in the process. It nearly instantly provided a lever to all science and technology. Online shopping was not a "promise" on which the Internet and its predecessors were built, it was merely one of an uncountable amount of use cases on top of an already useful thing. In the early days, there were always way more users that wanted to get on the Internet at more times than possible. The scale of the Internet was never capped by interest or potential applications, but by available funding and technology. To me, that sounds like the opposite of cryptocurrency.
jonhendry18 8y ago
"how is it going to make money" $6.00 an hour, outside of business hours, for 300 baud access to CompuServe.
- cubano 8y ago
  OMG...me too! Don't forget The Source as well...man did I ring up some outrageous bills back then ugh.
  - jonhendry18 8y ago
    My parents cut my modem cable.

pjc50 8y ago

> The early internet was full of promises of taking over retail. None of that worked, at first. Timeframe? The early Internet was pretty non-commercial and the commercial services were generally proprietary and/or run by telecoms (Minitel, Prestel). There were a lot of failures in the 99/00 boom, but Amazon was founded in 1994. > how is it going to make money Ironically the question was more "how am I going to give you my credit card safely, given that cryptography is a technology subject to US export control".

rspeer 8y ago

> Exactly. The early internet was full of promises of taking over retail. None of that worked, at first. Instead the internet was useful for messaging and putting up personal websites. All the responsible people at the time kept whining -- how is it going to make money?? What? This is nonsense alternate history. The early Internet had active, useful messaging long before anyone thought it would be useful for "retail". The arrival of commercial spam on Usenet was a shock to everyone. And personal websites came before the dot-com craze.

anyfoo 8y ago

The Internet was useful for a lot more things than messaging (without belittling its immense importance) and putting up "personal" websites. It allowed for efficient file transfer and retrieval of information across all distances, facilitating all sort of research and collaboration in the process. It nearly instantly provided a lever to all science and technology. Online shopping was not a "promise" on which the Internet and its predecessors were built, it was merely one of an uncountable amount of use cases on top of an already useful thing. In the early days, there were always way more users that wanted to get on the Internet at more times than possible. The scale of the Internet was never capped by interest or potential applications, but by available funding and technology. To me, that sounds like the opposite of cryptocurrency.

jonhendry18 8y ago

"how is it going to make money" $6.00 an hour, outside of business hours, for 300 baud access to CompuServe.

cubano 8y ago
OMG...me too! Don't forget The Source as well...man did I ring up some outrageous bills back then ugh.
- jonhendry18 8y ago
  My parents cut my modem cable.