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What did the first cell phone cost? The first laptop? Every new piece of technology goes through a cycle where things are wildly inefficient and barely operable
by zer01 5y ago
What did the first cell phone cost? The first laptop? Every new piece of technology goes through a cycle where things are wildly inefficient and barely operable, but over time they're refined in a loop of iteration and improvement.
Vacuum tubes gave way to the silicon transistor, which immediately moved the idea of "personal computing" from a complete impossibility to something that was a pipedream that was technically possible to do. From there things like the Apple II made paths to make personal computing actually usable and affordable. The iteration cycle continues, drives demand for new things to do, which drives demand for the internet. Eventually we arrive at the iPhone where I can now have a low-latency, high definition, video call for (basically) free with anyone in the world. Try explaining that vision to someone in the 90's who has a pager, pays for long distance, and buys stamps and they'll tell you it's impossible or a pipedream.
The crypto/web3 industry is just finding its feet with some new tools in the proverbial toolbox (distributed consensus and smart contracts). There's a lot of people building on it and iterating every day, but in the same way that the IETF were unsung heros of bringing everyone Youtube, there are a lot of folks hard at work at making things usable and practical for mass adoption. Mass adoption just comes last.