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I think we are still in the 1998-1999 phase of crypto. In Internet terms, that was peak Pets.com and Kosmo. All of the money being made right now is from first-

I think we are still in the 1998-1999 phase of crypto. In Internet terms, that was peak Pets.com and Kosmo. All of the money being made right now is from first-mover advantage and marketing. But value isn't really being created. It is important to recognize that many of the ideas weren't necessarily bad at the time, they were just 100% optimized for moving fast and capturing eyeballs. Now Pets.com came back as Chewy.com and Kosmo came back as Instacart. Most of the winners (assuming there are some) simply don't exist yet. There may be some Amazon/Googles in there - if so, they are getting some press but aren't necessarily winning the hardest right now but are building the hardest for tomorrow.

lelanthran 5y ago
> It is important to recognize that many of the ideas weren't necessarily bad at the time, they were just 100% optimized for moving fast and capturing eyeballs. Now Pets.com came back as Chewy.com and Kosmo came back as Instacart. What did CueCat come back as? ;-)
RC_ITR 5y ago
The difference of course being pets.com at least did something theoretically better than going to a pet store. Chewy was enabled by better logistics that just weren’t there in 1999. For crypto, it’s not like there is a cool use case hampered by a lack of support infrastructure, there just is no cool use case (yet). Like what’s version 2.0 of Solana look like? Is it a consumer transaction network? Is it a web3 thing? What’s the unlock that gets us there? Are we just applying the wrong metaphors to the wrong technology because we are hopeful that there will be “another Internet” that our generation can profit from?