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> It almost never takes a decade to see the use, If you study the history of technology, its ultimate impact is never manifest within a decade. It took decades

> It almost never takes a decade to see the use, If you study the history of technology, its ultimate impact is never manifest within a decade. It took decades for the Gutenberg Printing Press to spread around Europe and centuries for the consequences to see be seen (Protestant Reformation, newspapers, birth of the modern media, on and on.) This is the case for pretty much every other invention. > Crypto doesn't really solve a problem that needed solving Again, this may be because the problem hasn't arisen yet or isn't obvious yet. We have only just begun the era of networked communications.

dagmx 5y ago
It took years for the printing press to spread around the world in a time when that was difficult for any physical object to spread around the world. It did not take years for it to be seen as incredibly useful and it was clear fairly early what the use for it was. Saying the problem isn't obvious yet is bizarre. The printing press's use case was apparent immediately, even if the extent of its impact wasn't. You're conflating impact and problem space conveniently.
- colordrops 5y ago
  There are many people that find cryptocurrency to be incredibly useful. "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed." - William Gibson
- keiferski 5y ago
  Again, if you had made any declarations on the printing press a decade after it was invented, you'd have missed pretty much its entire impact. There are clear use cases for blockchain which have been laid out ad infinitum by other people. There are also downsides. This makes it pretty much the same as any other technology, e.g. the combustion engine.
  - dagmx 5y ago
    What is an appropriate time according to you then? There are only two periods of time that can be commented on. From inception to the present. From the present to future predictions. The former hasn't shown a use that can't be solved better by other methods. The latter hasn't shown any either. The printing press on day 1 had a mission statement that had no equal. So did the combustion engine. It did the current thing faster and better.
    - keiferski 5y ago
      I'm not suggesting "an appropriate time" in which an invention can be deemed impactful, because that isn't how history works. This is the point I am trying to convey. If we look at other inventions and broadly speaking, "knowledge," it's quite common for the real impact to not be seen for quite a long time. E.g. the Renaissance and re-interest in / rediscovery of classical sources. I don't know why this is so controversial, but I suspect it's because of #2 in my original comment. Again, I didn't say that crypto will become extremely useful and important in the future, but simply that declaring it useless or unimportant now is foolish and unlike virtually every other technology.
      - dagmx 5y ago
        I just find the general sentiment very hand wavey by conflating impact and use because it doesn't say anything. It's a wait and see indefinitely to prevent any real discussion on the merits today, while being a catch all to side step critique.
        keiferski 5y ago
        I'm not sure where or how I am "preventing any real discussion." If anything, the people constantly criticizing it are shutting down genuine analysis of its merits and downsides.
onion2k 5y ago
This is the case for pretty much every other invention. It is, but that was because far fewer people were well educated so they didn't really see the need, and innovations tended to be physical objects that can only travel as far and as fast as the transport of the time will take them. Today most people in the developed world are very well educated (relative to the 1600s) and things based on computers travel at pretty much the speed of light. Things, particularly in tech, obviously move faster now.
- keiferski 5y ago
  That sounds mostly like modern hubris to me, combined with a lack of patience, itself driven by our on-demand, "I want it now!" economy.
notahacker 5y ago
I'm not sure why crypto is being compared with historic technologies in a world which lacked the communication and education to spread them, and not much-hyped Internet technologies like eCommerce video streaming or cloud computing which arguably had much greater technical barriers to spread than crypto but were ubiquitous within 10 years and exciting to people that didn't have a financial stake in them. The second bit worth noting if you think crypto is more to follow the Gutenberg path, is that investing in him turned out to be a terrible decision: he made things which were tangibly useful from the start but lost money doing it...

dagmx 5y ago

It took years for the printing press to spread around the world in a time when that was difficult for any physical object to spread around the world. It did not take years for it to be seen as incredibly useful and it was clear fairly early what the use for it was. Saying the problem isn't obvious yet is bizarre. The printing press's use case was apparent immediately, even if the extent of its impact wasn't. You're conflating impact and problem space conveniently.

colordrops 5y ago
There are many people that find cryptocurrency to be incredibly useful. "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed." - William Gibson
keiferski 5y ago
Again, if you had made any declarations on the printing press a decade after it was invented, you'd have missed pretty much its entire impact. There are clear use cases for blockchain which have been laid out ad infinitum by other people. There are also downsides. This makes it pretty much the same as any other technology, e.g. the combustion engine.
- dagmx 5y ago
  What is an appropriate time according to you then? There are only two periods of time that can be commented on. From inception to the present. From the present to future predictions. The former hasn't shown a use that can't be solved better by other methods. The latter hasn't shown any either. The printing press on day 1 had a mission statement that had no equal. So did the combustion engine. It did the current thing faster and better.
  - keiferski 5y ago
    I'm not suggesting "an appropriate time" in which an invention can be deemed impactful, because that isn't how history works. This is the point I am trying to convey. If we look at other inventions and broadly speaking, "knowledge," it's quite common for the real impact to not be seen for quite a long time. E.g. the Renaissance and re-interest in / rediscovery of classical sources. I don't know why this is so controversial, but I suspect it's because of #2 in my original comment. Again, I didn't say that crypto will become extremely useful and important in the future, but simply that declaring it useless or unimportant now is foolish and unlike virtually every other technology.
    - dagmx 5y ago
      I just find the general sentiment very hand wavey by conflating impact and use because it doesn't say anything. It's a wait and see indefinitely to prevent any real discussion on the merits today, while being a catch all to side step critique.
      - keiferski 5y ago
        I'm not sure where or how I am "preventing any real discussion." If anything, the people constantly criticizing it are shutting down genuine analysis of its merits and downsides.

onion2k 5y ago

This is the case for pretty much every other invention. It is, but that was because far fewer people were well educated so they didn't really see the need, and innovations tended to be physical objects that can only travel as far and as fast as the transport of the time will take them. Today most people in the developed world are very well educated (relative to the 1600s) and things based on computers travel at pretty much the speed of light. Things, particularly in tech, obviously move faster now.

keiferski 5y ago
That sounds mostly like modern hubris to me, combined with a lack of patience, itself driven by our on-demand, "I want it now!" economy.

notahacker 5y ago

I'm not sure why crypto is being compared with historic technologies in a world which lacked the communication and education to spread them, and not much-hyped Internet technologies like eCommerce video streaming or cloud computing which arguably had much greater technical barriers to spread than crypto but were ubiquitous within 10 years and exciting to people that didn't have a financial stake in them. The second bit worth noting if you think crypto is more to follow the Gutenberg path, is that investing in him turned out to be a terrible decision: he made things which were tangibly useful from the start but lost money doing it...