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Lots of people got "into the internet" because others have made money on it and not for the technology (html, tcp/ip, dns...) Yes, crypto is mostly focused on

Lots of people got "into the internet" because others have made money on it and not for the technology (html, tcp/ip, dns...) Yes, crypto is mostly focused on financial apps, so they are harder to understand than "send me 140 chars and we make a timeline of it".

eitland 5y ago
All IMO: To be honest, that example is also the weirdest one to actually break through, and together with Snapchat the ones who took it farthest into almost unusable and still made bank. (Yo, and I think a number of other tried even further down that street but has failed AFAIK.)
simias 5y ago
Imagine if Google Search achieved success not by providing a search engine but by publishing a whitepaper outlining how PageRank would eventually work, then selling $GOOG tokens to let people speculate on the hype (but not actually entitle them to anything regarding the company, so it's like venture capitalism, but worse). Then nothing happens for a decade or so, and then Google finally publishes a first version of their engine that takes 30s to search among a couple hundred websites. Effectively unusable, but hey, it's the early day! Bullish! I also disagree that cryptocurrencies are "hard to understand", it's only hard because their promoters feel the need to obfuscate with technobabble how dumb and ineffective 99% of proposed blockchain solutions are. It's hard to understand because there's nothing to understand.
- tiborsaas 5y ago
  You are projecting an existing, well understood stack on a fundamentally different platform. What works on Earth would be silly to assume it should be the same on the ISS and vice-versa. > Then nothing happens for a decade or so... I guess you took the comfortable position to choose starting point of the internet as 1998, but what about 1980's or 70's? It was rather slow progress, just as you described. > I also disagree that cryptocurrencies are "hard to understand" I was referring to financial apps in general. For most people to think about interests and investments is a challenge even with fiat currencies. I agree though that a major crypto/blockchain revolution hasn't happened yet and probably it will never replace the current internet, but it will co-exists and be much more significant than today once a group hits a sweet spot with UX, utility and adoption.
- PascLeRasc 5y ago
  Plus whenever someone criticizes Google for doing something bad, others could jump in and say “well they’re supposed to move to Don’t Be Evil next year, so it’s ok”
xtracto 5y ago
Another example is videogame development: Initially there was pure sweat, blood and passion (around the 80s for PC gaming). But nowadays most of the people in there are for profiteering. Once the bean counters enter a tech field, they suck all the fun.

eitland 5y ago

All IMO: To be honest, that example is also the weirdest one to actually break through, and together with Snapchat the ones who took it farthest into almost unusable and still made bank. (Yo, and I think a number of other tried even further down that street but has failed AFAIK.)

simias 5y ago

Imagine if Google Search achieved success not by providing a search engine but by publishing a whitepaper outlining how PageRank would eventually work, then selling $GOOG tokens to let people speculate on the hype (but not actually entitle them to anything regarding the company, so it's like venture capitalism, but worse). Then nothing happens for a decade or so, and then Google finally publishes a first version of their engine that takes 30s to search among a couple hundred websites. Effectively unusable, but hey, it's the early day! Bullish! I also disagree that cryptocurrencies are "hard to understand", it's only hard because their promoters feel the need to obfuscate with technobabble how dumb and ineffective 99% of proposed blockchain solutions are. It's hard to understand because there's nothing to understand.

tiborsaas 5y ago
You are projecting an existing, well understood stack on a fundamentally different platform. What works on Earth would be silly to assume it should be the same on the ISS and vice-versa. > Then nothing happens for a decade or so... I guess you took the comfortable position to choose starting point of the internet as 1998, but what about 1980's or 70's? It was rather slow progress, just as you described. > I also disagree that cryptocurrencies are "hard to understand" I was referring to financial apps in general. For most people to think about interests and investments is a challenge even with fiat currencies. I agree though that a major crypto/blockchain revolution hasn't happened yet and probably it will never replace the current internet, but it will co-exists and be much more significant than today once a group hits a sweet spot with UX, utility and adoption.
PascLeRasc 5y ago
Plus whenever someone criticizes Google for doing something bad, others could jump in and say “well they’re supposed to move to Don’t Be Evil next year, so it’s ok”

xtracto 5y ago

Another example is videogame development: Initially there was pure sweat, blood and passion (around the 80s for PC gaming). But nowadays most of the people in there are for profiteering. Once the bean counters enter a tech field, they suck all the fun.