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It's pretty easy to see why ARPANET took a while to develop and turn into the internet we know today. Youtube didn't exist in the 1960's not because people thou

by simias 6y ago

It's pretty easy to see why ARPANET took a while to develop and turn into the internet we know today. Youtube didn't exist in the 1960's not because people though that streaming video was a dumb idea but rather because it was simply technically impossible to do at that time. In order for the internet to develop it required massive progress in hardware and infrastructure. To this day many places in rich countries still have crappy internet access. What's Bitcoin's excuse? Where is the technical limitation? Do we need nuclear fusion or 100Terabyte internet links for it to become usable? Do we need high speed data transmission to Mars? The only thing standing in the way of Bitcoin is people finding compelling use cases for it in order to drive adoption. 10+ years and billions of dollars later it's still only useful as a tool for gambling and scams or to buy drugs and other illegal things online. Also, ARPANET was already very useful by the mid-1970s (it was declared "operational" in 1975, 9 years after its inception). It was not the internet we know today of course, but it wasn't really meant to be. It was a defence project after all.

j2kun 6y ago
Didn't Doug Engelbart do video streaming in the 60's?
- dole 6y ago
  ob https://m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos https://m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos
- justin_ 6y ago
  The video streaming technology used in NLS was based on analog CRT television technologies. Later, videoconferencing was done digitally over dedicated phone connections/calls. It took a while before doing real-time video over the packet-switched internet became feasible.
dnprock 6y ago
> What's Bitcoin's excuse? Bitcoin has already worked as a Store of Value. It can survive on this narrative without other use cases. I think of Bitcoin is a piece in the future money puzzle. We need to find the other missing pieces. One of the missing pieces is inflation. I wrote an article on this: https://bitflate.org/post/2019/08/26/bitcoin-missing-link-to-the-world.html https://bitflate.org/post/2019/08/26/bitcoin-missing-link-to...
ballenf 6y ago
> What's Bitcoin's excuse? Existing currency solutions exist. There was no technology or infrastructure displaced by the (early) internet. No industries or governments (who realized they should feel) threatened by the internet. The internet was backed by nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers. Is that really a fair comparison? Just think if there was never a person in the room to say "but what will regulators say?" when cryptocurrency came up. Finally the internet as we know is unrecognizable compared to its initial incarnation. The network protocols we now have are layers upon layers of innovation that were all required steps to allow YouTube and Netflix to operate. And many or these innovations are solutions to problems the early engineers hadn't even encountered yet. > Do we need nuclear fusion or 100Terabyte internet links for it to become usable? Do we need high speed data transmission to Mars? I think it's fair to say that there are unknown innovations in our future that will drive cryptocurrency adoption. I think it's unfair to insist that we must predict those right now or abandon all work on the technology.
- hannasanarion 6y ago
  > I think it's fair to say that there are unknown innovations in our future that will drive cryptocurrency adoption This isn't an argument, it's a statement of faith. Innovations such as what? What innovations? What technology? What is missing from society today that would suddenly make bitcoin useful if it existed? What problem exists preventing people from using bitcoin that would be solved with a new invention? I believe there are unknown innovations in our future that will drive everyone to adopt my toenail clippings as currency, is that a good enough argument for you to start investing in Anarion's Toenails LTD? If you asked somebody in 1975, "What is preventing people from making mass utility out of ARPAnet?" they would say "a connection to it". Because that's literally all it took: access. When the internet went public in 1993, Ebay, Amazon, Netscape, Yahoo, Altavista, and Geocities were all founded and seeing substantial usage within months.
- simias 6y ago
  So basically you're saying that cryptocurrencies don't work currently because there are established solutions that already solve the problem it attempts to solve but it's totally going to work eventually due to unknown unknowns and it's unfair to point that out somehow? Come on. Apply that logic to literally anything else and see how that sounds. >The internet was backed by nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers. Is that really a fair comparison The comparison was made by cryptozealots to begin with to justify the lack of results after many years of development and billions of dollars sunk into them. "How useful was the internet 3/5/7 years after its inception?!". Now that even this incredibly silly comparison fails to justify this waste of resources for so little results, cryptozealots have turned their back on it. What's next, the timescale of the evolution of life on Earth? Who knows, maybe in a billion years Bitcoins will finally serve a purpose beyond buying cocaine online. HODL!
lmpostor 6y ago
>What's Bitcoin's excuse? Where is the technical limitation? Block propagation? Non-shit 2nd layer? If all BTC transactions fees only cost .00001 USD to settle and that was consistent you think it wouldn't be more widely adopted? Fees are clearly a function of technical limitation.

by simias 6y ago

j2kun 6y ago

Didn't Doug Engelbart do video streaming in the 60's?

dole 6y ago
ob https://m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos https://m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos
justin_ 6y ago
The video streaming technology used in NLS was based on analog CRT television technologies. Later, videoconferencing was done digitally over dedicated phone connections/calls. It took a while before doing real-time video over the packet-switched internet became feasible.

dnprock 6y ago

> What's Bitcoin's excuse? Bitcoin has already worked as a Store of Value. It can survive on this narrative without other use cases. I think of Bitcoin is a piece in the future money puzzle. We need to find the other missing pieces. One of the missing pieces is inflation. I wrote an article on this: https://bitflate.org/post/2019/08/26/bitcoin-missing-link-to-the-world.html https://bitflate.org/post/2019/08/26/bitcoin-missing-link-to...

ballenf 6y ago

> What's Bitcoin's excuse? Existing currency solutions exist. There was no technology or infrastructure displaced by the (early) internet. No industries or governments (who realized they should feel) threatened by the internet. The internet was backed by nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers. Is that really a fair comparison? Just think if there was never a person in the room to say "but what will regulators say?" when cryptocurrency came up. Finally the internet as we know is unrecognizable compared to its initial incarnation. The network protocols we now have are layers upon layers of innovation that were all required steps to allow YouTube and Netflix to operate. And many or these innovations are solutions to problems the early engineers hadn't even encountered yet. > Do we need nuclear fusion or 100Terabyte internet links for it to become usable? Do we need high speed data transmission to Mars? I think it's fair to say that there are unknown innovations in our future that will drive cryptocurrency adoption. I think it's unfair to insist that we must predict those right now or abandon all work on the technology.

hannasanarion 6y ago
> I think it's fair to say that there are unknown innovations in our future that will drive cryptocurrency adoption This isn't an argument, it's a statement of faith. Innovations such as what? What innovations? What technology? What is missing from society today that would suddenly make bitcoin useful if it existed? What problem exists preventing people from using bitcoin that would be solved with a new invention? I believe there are unknown innovations in our future that will drive everyone to adopt my toenail clippings as currency, is that a good enough argument for you to start investing in Anarion's Toenails LTD? If you asked somebody in 1975, "What is preventing people from making mass utility out of ARPAnet?" they would say "a connection to it". Because that's literally all it took: access. When the internet went public in 1993, Ebay, Amazon, Netscape, Yahoo, Altavista, and Geocities were all founded and seeing substantial usage within months.
simias 6y ago
So basically you're saying that cryptocurrencies don't work currently because there are established solutions that already solve the problem it attempts to solve but it's totally going to work eventually due to unknown unknowns and it's unfair to point that out somehow? Come on. Apply that logic to literally anything else and see how that sounds. >The internet was backed by nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers. Is that really a fair comparison The comparison was made by cryptozealots to begin with to justify the lack of results after many years of development and billions of dollars sunk into them. "How useful was the internet 3/5/7 years after its inception?!". Now that even this incredibly silly comparison fails to justify this waste of resources for so little results, cryptozealots have turned their back on it. What's next, the timescale of the evolution of life on Earth? Who knows, maybe in a billion years Bitcoins will finally serve a purpose beyond buying cocaine online. HODL!

lmpostor 6y ago

>What's Bitcoin's excuse? Where is the technical limitation? Block propagation? Non-shit 2nd layer? If all BTC transactions fees only cost .00001 USD to settle and that was consistent you think it wouldn't be more widely adopted? Fees are clearly a function of technical limitation.