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While Bitcoin certainly has scalability issues, I think the point they are trying to make is that is there any other decentralized system that has been able to

by jzm2k 5y ago

While Bitcoin certainly has scalability issues, I think the point they are trying to make is that is there any other decentralized system that has been able to reach the scale of Bitcoin.

rchaud 5y ago
What about torrents? Those have been around forever, and I just downloaded Gimp over one instead of using their server's bandwidth. Maybe they're talking purely about dollar value, but I'd say more useful information has been passed back and forth with torrents.
- whywhywhywhy 5y ago
  Imagine if the database of what.cd has been distributed as well. We’d definitely have the most comprehensive and accurate catalogue of the musical output of humanity ever created. Instead now we have Spotify and Apple Music. We’ve only scratched the surface of the good that torrent technology can do.
- magila 5y ago
  Yes, bittorrent is a much better example of a scalable decentralized system. The problem with bittorrent is that no one has come up with a good way to monetize it. What makes bitcoin exceptional among decentralized systems is not its scalability, but rather its ability to make people rich.
  - dicethrowaway1 5y ago
    >The problem with bittorrent is that no one has come up with a good way to monetize it. That decentralized software aligns much easier with commons than with markets is something that I would consider a feature, not a bug.
erk__ 5y ago
Could you not see e-mail as decentralized as well?
acdha 5y ago
Email and DNS have been doing more transactions per second since the 1980s. The Web started later and passed it by the mid-90s. All of those are truly decentralized with a wide range of implementations and operators, not to mention proven real-world robustness as opposed to Bitcoin's hard requirement on a massive amount of always-on hardware and network capacity.
- jzm2k 5y ago
  It's not my argument really, I was trying to interpret what they meant with Bitcoin being the exception. You're right that there may be better examples but how much of the world's email and DNS content is served by Google/Microsoft, I wonder. People are also complaining in other threads that Cloudflare is actually making the internet more centralized.
JustFinishedBSG 5y ago
> is there any other decentralized system that has been able to reach the scale of Bitcoin. You're litterally sending this message accross a decentralized system that outscaled bitcoin by many many orders of magnitudes in a fraction of the time. I don't think cryptobros and the rest of the world have the same definition of "decentralized" because clearly we don't understand each other
- acdha 5y ago
  > I don't think cryptobros and the rest of the world have the same definition of "decentralized" because clearly we don't understand each other This is true of most of the common sales points: for example, you'll see people claim blockchains are censorship resistant or anonymous, beneficial to the global unbanked, etc. with little ability to explain how that's actually true in practice.

by jzm2k 5y ago

While Bitcoin certainly has scalability issues, I think the point they are trying to make is that is there any other decentralized system that has been able to reach the scale of Bitcoin.

rchaud 5y ago

What about torrents? Those have been around forever, and I just downloaded Gimp over one instead of using their server's bandwidth. Maybe they're talking purely about dollar value, but I'd say more useful information has been passed back and forth with torrents.

whywhywhywhy 5y ago
Imagine if the database of what.cd has been distributed as well. We’d definitely have the most comprehensive and accurate catalogue of the musical output of humanity ever created. Instead now we have Spotify and Apple Music. We’ve only scratched the surface of the good that torrent technology can do.
magila 5y ago
Yes, bittorrent is a much better example of a scalable decentralized system. The problem with bittorrent is that no one has come up with a good way to monetize it. What makes bitcoin exceptional among decentralized systems is not its scalability, but rather its ability to make people rich.
- dicethrowaway1 5y ago
  >The problem with bittorrent is that no one has come up with a good way to monetize it. That decentralized software aligns much easier with commons than with markets is something that I would consider a feature, not a bug.

erk__ 5y ago

Could you not see e-mail as decentralized as well?

acdha 5y ago

Email and DNS have been doing more transactions per second since the 1980s. The Web started later and passed it by the mid-90s. All of those are truly decentralized with a wide range of implementations and operators, not to mention proven real-world robustness as opposed to Bitcoin's hard requirement on a massive amount of always-on hardware and network capacity.

jzm2k 5y ago
It's not my argument really, I was trying to interpret what they meant with Bitcoin being the exception. You're right that there may be better examples but how much of the world's email and DNS content is served by Google/Microsoft, I wonder. People are also complaining in other threads that Cloudflare is actually making the internet more centralized.

JustFinishedBSG 5y ago

> is there any other decentralized system that has been able to reach the scale of Bitcoin. You're litterally sending this message accross a decentralized system that outscaled bitcoin by many many orders of magnitudes in a fraction of the time. I don't think cryptobros and the rest of the world have the same definition of "decentralized" because clearly we don't understand each other

acdha 5y ago
> I don't think cryptobros and the rest of the world have the same definition of "decentralized" because clearly we don't understand each other This is true of most of the common sales points: for example, you'll see people claim blockchains are censorship resistant or anonymous, beneficial to the global unbanked, etc. with little ability to explain how that's actually true in practice.