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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 n

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.

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.