6 ms·

What other ten year old technologies, that went on to be successful, were as useless for their stated purpose as crypto? If crypto is money, can I: Spend it a

by berbec 8y ago

What other ten year old technologies, that went on to be successful, were as useless for their stated purpose as crypto? If crypto is money, can I: Spend it at Amazon? My grocery store? My corner deli? Pay my rent? Pay my employees? If crypto is a store of value can I trust it will have any rational storage value over any time period?

yxhuvud 8y ago
Digital cameras, when invented back in the 70s. It took decades until they were usable, and still another decade until they started to approach the quality of nondigital.
- berbec 8y ago
  Great example!
- gl00pp 8y ago
  And the industry leader (Kodak) at the time didn't think digital would be useful and delayed R&D. But don't worry they came up with Kodakcoin!
  - DonHopkins 8y ago
    To convert Kodakcoin to cash, you have to send rolls of 12 Kodakcoins at a time off for a week to the lab to be developed. But just wait until some day there will finally be a Coinomat booth in every shopping center parking lot that can develop your Kodakcoins into cash in only 24 hours!
- lalaland1125 8y ago
  Yes, but the real world advantages of digital cameras were apparent from the very start. Currently there are zero real world practical use cases for cryptocurrency that aren't associated with illegal activity. If anyone knows of legal applications of cryptocurrency, feel free to respond. I'd love to be proven wrong.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- manigandham 8y ago
  Digital cameras were useful since day 1. Nobody was confused about what to do with them. What you're talking about as "usable" is just technological refinement that happens to all things.
- wpietri 8y ago
  It's not a very good example, in that the barrier there was physical development of hardware. This is purely a software problem. Another obvious difference is that from the first moment they were on the market, they had some practical use, and the amount of use grew quickly. If we count from the Kodak DCS 100 introduced in 1991 at a price of $20,000, then ten years later we see that they were being bought at the rate of 18 million units a year and rapidly rising. [1] Bitcoin, in contrast, has very little practical use 10 years after introduction. Its merchant adoption peaked years ago. That's far short of what an actually useful digital payments product can do. Look at M-Pesa [2] for contrast. It was introduced only a year early than Bitcoin. It has tens of millions of active users, and processes up to 900 transactions per second, with an average of 160 per second. [3] A huge success compared with Bitcoin's average of 3-4 transactions per second, most of which are speculative rather than practical. [4] [1] https://www.dpreview.com/articles/5474101424/pmaresearch2003sales https://www.dpreview.com/articles/5474101424/pmaresearch2003... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa [3] https://www.nation.co.ke/news/MPesa-transactions-rise-to-Sh15bn-after-systems-upgrade/1056-3194774-llu8yjz/index.html https://www.nation.co.ke/news/MPesa-transactions-rise-to-Sh1... [4] https://www.blockchain.com/en/charts/transactions-per-second https://www.blockchain.com/en/charts/transactions-per-second
  - yxhuvud 8y ago
    > If we count from the Kodak DCS 100 introduced in 1991 Kodak invented digital cameras in 1975.
    - votepaunchy 8y ago
      >> If we count from the Kodak DCS 100 introduced in 1991 > Kodak invented digital cameras in 1975. DigiCash was founded in 1990 based on a paper from 1983.
      - wpietri 8y ago
        Exactly. I think the fair place to start counting with both Bitcoin and digital cameras is first consumer launch. And with M-Pesa versus Bitcoin, they're both digital cash, so I think it's even easier to see how badly Bitcoin has done.
decentralised 8y ago
>If crypto is a store of value can I trust it will have any rational storage value over any time period? There are different types of cryptocurrencies and the one you are looking for is known as a "stable-coin". I suggest looking into Bancor and Maker DAI to get a better view of how these currencies keep their value over time.
decentralised 8y ago
> Spend it at Amazon? My grocery store? My corner deli? Pay my rent? Pay my employees? YES on all accounts.
- cromulent 8y ago
  No, you can't spend Bitcoin at Amazon. They don't accept it. The others depend on whether they choose to accept it or not. It's not the same as legal tender, where they must accept it.
  - decentralised 8y ago
    You can use a service to pay Amazon shopping with bitcoin. https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/guides/how-to-buy-on-amazon-with-bitcoin/ https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/guides/how-to-buy-on-ama...
    - cromulent 8y ago
      Sure, maybe there's a service that allows you to pay with live chickens for Amazon gift vouchers. By your definition that makes live chickens money, I guess.
      - decentralised 8y ago
        Chickens could very well be money, at least bones have been used before. edit:https://www.bbc.com/news/av/business-18827269/a-brief-history-of-money https://www.bbc.com/news/av/business-18827269/a-brief-histor...
        DonHopkins 8y ago
        You're missing the point. Again. He countered your argument. You reply ignores that fact, and just tries to derail the conversation.
  - wizeman 8y ago
    I don't think "legal tender" means what you think it means. In many jurisdictions (including the US and the Eurozone, as far as I know), almost no business is required to accept legal tender as payment. Legal tender is only required to be accepted when settling a debt, and even then there can be restrictions (such as a maximum denomination or number of banknotes or coins, a maximum amount that can be settled in cash, or contract obligations).

by berbec 8y ago

yxhuvud 8y ago

Digital cameras, when invented back in the 70s. It took decades until they were usable, and still another decade until they started to approach the quality of nondigital.

berbec 8y ago
Great example!
gl00pp 8y ago
And the industry leader (Kodak) at the time didn't think digital would be useful and delayed R&D. But don't worry they came up with Kodakcoin!
- DonHopkins 8y ago
  To convert Kodakcoin to cash, you have to send rolls of 12 Kodakcoins at a time off for a week to the lab to be developed. But just wait until some day there will finally be a Coinomat booth in every shopping center parking lot that can develop your Kodakcoins into cash in only 24 hours!
lalaland1125 8y ago
Yes, but the real world advantages of digital cameras were apparent from the very start. Currently there are zero real world practical use cases for cryptocurrency that aren't associated with illegal activity. If anyone knows of legal applications of cryptocurrency, feel free to respond. I'd love to be proven wrong.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
manigandham 8y ago
Digital cameras were useful since day 1. Nobody was confused about what to do with them. What you're talking about as "usable" is just technological refinement that happens to all things.
wpietri 8y ago
It's not a very good example, in that the barrier there was physical development of hardware. This is purely a software problem. Another obvious difference is that from the first moment they were on the market, they had some practical use, and the amount of use grew quickly. If we count from the Kodak DCS 100 introduced in 1991 at a price of $20,000, then ten years later we see that they were being bought at the rate of 18 million units a year and rapidly rising. [1] Bitcoin, in contrast, has very little practical use 10 years after introduction. Its merchant adoption peaked years ago. That's far short of what an actually useful digital payments product can do. Look at M-Pesa [2] for contrast. It was introduced only a year early than Bitcoin. It has tens of millions of active users, and processes up to 900 transactions per second, with an average of 160 per second. [3] A huge success compared with Bitcoin's average of 3-4 transactions per second, most of which are speculative rather than practical. [4] [1] https://www.dpreview.com/articles/5474101424/pmaresearch2003sales https://www.dpreview.com/articles/5474101424/pmaresearch2003... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa [3] https://www.nation.co.ke/news/MPesa-transactions-rise-to-Sh15bn-after-systems-upgrade/1056-3194774-llu8yjz/index.html https://www.nation.co.ke/news/MPesa-transactions-rise-to-Sh1... [4] https://www.blockchain.com/en/charts/transactions-per-second https://www.blockchain.com/en/charts/transactions-per-second
- yxhuvud 8y ago
  > If we count from the Kodak DCS 100 introduced in 1991 Kodak invented digital cameras in 1975.
  - votepaunchy 8y ago
    >> If we count from the Kodak DCS 100 introduced in 1991 > Kodak invented digital cameras in 1975. DigiCash was founded in 1990 based on a paper from 1983.
    - wpietri 8y ago
      Exactly. I think the fair place to start counting with both Bitcoin and digital cameras is first consumer launch. And with M-Pesa versus Bitcoin, they're both digital cash, so I think it's even easier to see how badly Bitcoin has done.

decentralised 8y ago

>If crypto is a store of value can I trust it will have any rational storage value over any time period? There are different types of cryptocurrencies and the one you are looking for is known as a "stable-coin". I suggest looking into Bancor and Maker DAI to get a better view of how these currencies keep their value over time.

decentralised 8y ago

> Spend it at Amazon? My grocery store? My corner deli? Pay my rent? Pay my employees? YES on all accounts.

cromulent 8y ago
No, you can't spend Bitcoin at Amazon. They don't accept it. The others depend on whether they choose to accept it or not. It's not the same as legal tender, where they must accept it.
- decentralised 8y ago
  You can use a service to pay Amazon shopping with bitcoin. https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/guides/how-to-buy-on-amazon-with-bitcoin/ https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/guides/how-to-buy-on-ama...
  - cromulent 8y ago
    Sure, maybe there's a service that allows you to pay with live chickens for Amazon gift vouchers. By your definition that makes live chickens money, I guess.
    - decentralised 8y ago
      Chickens could very well be money, at least bones have been used before. edit:https://www.bbc.com/news/av/business-18827269/a-brief-history-of-money https://www.bbc.com/news/av/business-18827269/a-brief-histor...
      - DonHopkins 8y ago
        You're missing the point. Again. He countered your argument. You reply ignores that fact, and just tries to derail the conversation.
- wizeman 8y ago
  I don't think "legal tender" means what you think it means. In many jurisdictions (including the US and the Eurozone, as far as I know), almost no business is required to accept legal tender as payment. Legal tender is only required to be accepted when settling a debt, and even then there can be restrictions (such as a maximum denomination or number of banknotes or coins, a maximum amount that can be settled in cash, or contract obligations).