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Anyone comparing cryptocurrencies, blockchain as an overall platform, etc to the internet should acknowledge a basic fact: At 13 years from release the web had

Anyone comparing cryptocurrencies, blockchain as an overall platform, etc to the internet should acknowledge a basic fact: At 13 years from release the web had a billion users. 13 years from release all blockchain networks combined have 100 million users at best. In an era with ubiquitous internet access, social media, mobile devices, etc new internet based platform adoption rates should always accelerate. For example in 13 years Facebook had 2 billion users. In the modern era blockchains have 1/20th the adoption rate of a social media site should tell you everything you need to know about the reality of this space - the average person doesn’t see any value in it other than speculative trading.

magicjosh 5y ago
When did the web "release"? Seems like you're placing it around...1990? Why not Arpanet (1971)?
- ineedasername 5y ago
  >around... 1990 Yes, correct. Well, 1989. Or 1991 for public accessibility. arpanet is not the web.
- acdha 5y ago
  The web left CERN in 1991, so it can't be earlier than that. The internet was earlier, but there are two other things to remember: in 1971, a computer cost as much as a house, filled a large room, and required a professional operator. The first microprocessors actually came on the market that year and it took time for people to build devices around them or for those devices to hit the mass market. When that happened, you were getting things like text interfaces and keyboards, tiny amounts of storage on cassettes or floppies, etc. Similarly, in the United States the phone company monopoly and expensive but slow modems meant you were looking at 300bps connectivity tying up an expensive phone line and communicating with someone outside of your immediate area was expensive per-minute charges. That got better but it really wasn't until the early 90s that GUIs were mainstream and it wasn't until the mid-90s that computer costs had come down enough to make them affordable to the average person. Similarly, modems were pretty slow and limited so the early web was held back by the fact that a lot of people would need 5 minutes to load a web page with a fullscreen 800x600 image. Demand for the web is what drove a lot of non-techies to buy a computer capable of running something like Windows 95, because they'd heard of things they could do on the web — whether that was educational research, getting software updates without waiting for floppy disks in the mail, following sports, connecting with other people who shared the same hobby, making travel plans, downloading porn, etc. the first web browsers and email clients were driving a lot of people to buy computers so they could use them. ISPs had sprung up all over the country and faster options like DSL and cable modems were game changers for the experience. This is a start contrast to blockchain technologies which were close to globally available on day one — even in poor countries, there was at least someone with a network-connected PC — but despite a much longer period of time still haven't found much demand because they don't improve the average person's life unless they enjoy speculating on their ability to resell tokens.
  - kkielhofner 5y ago
    I think you'd appreciate my rant covering much of the same history and making virtually identical points with some data to back it up: https://kkrants.com/blockchain-the-most-poorly-adopted-platform-in-recent-history-6f5d97f7d51f https://kkrants.com/blockchain-the-most-poorly-adopted-platf...
    - magicjosh 5y ago
      Great write up! Added to my list here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30133374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30133374 Agree with your assessment that 100 million is an upper bound. I am curious about a deeper analysis as well that involves defining what "real users" are and then seeing how many transactions/wallets meet that criteria. i.e. of that "100 million", how many of them are simply buying and hodling? How many have done a non-exchange transaction (i.e. bought a thing, not coins. Buying NFTs counts! Or a pizza, or buying software, or staking or something) The comparison to Diner's club is also relevant. 20 years from zero to 51% of all Americans. Just getting to your "Why has blockchain user adoption been so terrible and what can we do about it?" section and will edit after that. Edit: Well worth the read. If anything, the title and top image were a bit clickbaity, but the article itself was great, all the way through to the end. Overall, the key question you point to is "Why did the web grow 10x faster than blockchain? Facebook 15x, and mobile 35x faster?" I'm curious about this! Is there a recent technology that did grow at 10x over 13 years that we could learn from? Another way to look at this is blockchain is growing at 23% YOY over the last 13 years. What technologies should we compare it to? Just to pull on the thread, is blockchain more like "hard tech"? If so, that would be really odd since it's not "hard tech". What has EV growth been like? Here's a chart [1] from [2] that says about 17 million EVs have been sold since 2012. Let's call that 13 years for the sake of keeping the math the same, but the web grew 100x as fast. OK so cryptocurrency is growing about order of magnitude faster than EVs, but why is it slower than the web? What else develops at a speed that's 10x faster than the growth of EVs, but still slower than the web itself? [1] https://www.ev-volumes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/WW-K-6-2021.png https://www.ev-volumes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/WW-K-6... [2]
      - 5y ago
- kkielhofner 5y ago
  CERN likes to say April 30, 1993[1]. The web was the first "killer platform" (built on top of the internet) that enabled virtually all killer apps to come - to the point where the general population uses the word "internet" to refer to the web (depending on how you view mobile apps). The web is a platform that stands on top of the internet (which is at OSI model layers 1-4). Blockchain is a platform that stands on top of the internet too. Difference is that after 13 years no one has been able to create anything of utility with it other than trade tokens. There's no point in bringing up the history of the plumbing that is the internet from before either of these dates. Besides, as other commenters have noted, the realities of connectivity in the early nineties are so radically different from the release of Bitcoin in 2009 it's absurd to compare the two. Yet, even when you do, the web still grew at 10x the rate of blockchain in terms of user adoption. [1] https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web
magicjosh 5y ago
Here's a relevant article from a similar position by Molly White: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29943733 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29943733 I hear all your data points. If cryptocurrency fails to take off 10 years from now, we can look back and say "oh we should have known back in 2021". But what do these data points mean if cryptocurrencies take off and change the world over the next decade?
koonsolo 5y ago
Internet wasn't released to the public until around 1990. Crypto was released instantly to the public upon its creation. You must admit that "internet" already had a vast history when it was released in 1990.
- kkielhofner 5y ago
  The internet != web. The internet is OSI model [1] layers 1-4. Layer 3 is literally called the Internet Protocol. Layer 4 is TCP, UDP, etc. Web is five (some would say six) and up and was released to the public in 1993. This is well documented. Blockchain is five (some would say six) and up and was released to the public in 2009. This is well documented. The OSI network model gives us a way to disambiguate "the internet" by it's component parts and dependencies. The web depended on the physical and network infrastructure that is the internet, as did blockchain. The web was accessible to at best 15 million people worldwide that had internet access when it was released in 1993. Within 13 years 15 million internet users became 1 billion internet+web users. As others have pointed out for the majority of this time period there were many challenges to adoption yet the web was so clearly and obviously compelling people overcame those challenges to access the tremendous value and utility provided by the web. Blockchains have been accessible to billions of existing internet, web, social media, and mobile users since release and yet maybe 10% of these users are using blockchain for anything at all. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model
  - koonsolo 5y ago
    You should have linked to this Wikipedia page instead: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet But I guess you didn't, because that page states the internet was released to the public in 1989.
    - kkielhofner 5y ago
      I try to assume good faith but at this point the fact you're still equating the internet and the web, not acknowledging the drastic advantages blockchain had in 2009 vs 1989/1993, etc is extremely suspect. The web was created at CERN and they have an exact date for what they consider to be the birth of the web: April 30, 1993 [1]. When it comes to the web I'm going to continue to use their date. For kicks let's go with your date of 1989. 13 years later in 2002 the internet/web had 587 million users [2]. Anything blockchain related has 100 million. I can't understand how even without your understanding the difference between the web and the internet, my being generous and using your (wrong) date, and yet the internet still growing at well over 5x the rate of blockchain helps your argument at all. I don't believe your ability to understand this is the result of stupidity or ignorance - I think it's the kind of blindness and rationalization that can be brought on by faith and greed/financial self interest. In all seriousness and with the utmost respect - how much crypto do you hold? [1] https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web [2] https://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm https://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm

magicjosh 5y ago

When did the web "release"? Seems like you're placing it around...1990? Why not Arpanet (1971)?

ineedasername 5y ago
>around... 1990 Yes, correct. Well, 1989. Or 1991 for public accessibility. arpanet is not the web.
acdha 5y ago
The web left CERN in 1991, so it can't be earlier than that. The internet was earlier, but there are two other things to remember: in 1971, a computer cost as much as a house, filled a large room, and required a professional operator. The first microprocessors actually came on the market that year and it took time for people to build devices around them or for those devices to hit the mass market. When that happened, you were getting things like text interfaces and keyboards, tiny amounts of storage on cassettes or floppies, etc. Similarly, in the United States the phone company monopoly and expensive but slow modems meant you were looking at 300bps connectivity tying up an expensive phone line and communicating with someone outside of your immediate area was expensive per-minute charges. That got better but it really wasn't until the early 90s that GUIs were mainstream and it wasn't until the mid-90s that computer costs had come down enough to make them affordable to the average person. Similarly, modems were pretty slow and limited so the early web was held back by the fact that a lot of people would need 5 minutes to load a web page with a fullscreen 800x600 image. Demand for the web is what drove a lot of non-techies to buy a computer capable of running something like Windows 95, because they'd heard of things they could do on the web — whether that was educational research, getting software updates without waiting for floppy disks in the mail, following sports, connecting with other people who shared the same hobby, making travel plans, downloading porn, etc. the first web browsers and email clients were driving a lot of people to buy computers so they could use them. ISPs had sprung up all over the country and faster options like DSL and cable modems were game changers for the experience. This is a start contrast to blockchain technologies which were close to globally available on day one — even in poor countries, there was at least someone with a network-connected PC — but despite a much longer period of time still haven't found much demand because they don't improve the average person's life unless they enjoy speculating on their ability to resell tokens.
- kkielhofner 5y ago
  I think you'd appreciate my rant covering much of the same history and making virtually identical points with some data to back it up: https://kkrants.com/blockchain-the-most-poorly-adopted-platform-in-recent-history-6f5d97f7d51f https://kkrants.com/blockchain-the-most-poorly-adopted-platf...
  - magicjosh 5y ago
    Great write up! Added to my list here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30133374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30133374 Agree with your assessment that 100 million is an upper bound. I am curious about a deeper analysis as well that involves defining what "real users" are and then seeing how many transactions/wallets meet that criteria. i.e. of that "100 million", how many of them are simply buying and hodling? How many have done a non-exchange transaction (i.e. bought a thing, not coins. Buying NFTs counts! Or a pizza, or buying software, or staking or something) The comparison to Diner's club is also relevant. 20 years from zero to 51% of all Americans. Just getting to your "Why has blockchain user adoption been so terrible and what can we do about it?" section and will edit after that. Edit: Well worth the read. If anything, the title and top image were a bit clickbaity, but the article itself was great, all the way through to the end. Overall, the key question you point to is "Why did the web grow 10x faster than blockchain? Facebook 15x, and mobile 35x faster?" I'm curious about this! Is there a recent technology that did grow at 10x over 13 years that we could learn from? Another way to look at this is blockchain is growing at 23% YOY over the last 13 years. What technologies should we compare it to? Just to pull on the thread, is blockchain more like "hard tech"? If so, that would be really odd since it's not "hard tech". What has EV growth been like? Here's a chart [1] from [2] that says about 17 million EVs have been sold since 2012. Let's call that 13 years for the sake of keeping the math the same, but the web grew 100x as fast. OK so cryptocurrency is growing about order of magnitude faster than EVs, but why is it slower than the web? What else develops at a speed that's 10x faster than the growth of EVs, but still slower than the web itself? [1] https://www.ev-volumes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/WW-K-6-2021.png https://www.ev-volumes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/WW-K-6... [2]
    - 5y ago
kkielhofner 5y ago
CERN likes to say April 30, 1993[1]. The web was the first "killer platform" (built on top of the internet) that enabled virtually all killer apps to come - to the point where the general population uses the word "internet" to refer to the web (depending on how you view mobile apps). The web is a platform that stands on top of the internet (which is at OSI model layers 1-4). Blockchain is a platform that stands on top of the internet too. Difference is that after 13 years no one has been able to create anything of utility with it other than trade tokens. There's no point in bringing up the history of the plumbing that is the internet from before either of these dates. Besides, as other commenters have noted, the realities of connectivity in the early nineties are so radically different from the release of Bitcoin in 2009 it's absurd to compare the two. Yet, even when you do, the web still grew at 10x the rate of blockchain in terms of user adoption. [1] https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web

magicjosh 5y ago

Here's a relevant article from a similar position by Molly White: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29943733 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29943733 I hear all your data points. If cryptocurrency fails to take off 10 years from now, we can look back and say "oh we should have known back in 2021". But what do these data points mean if cryptocurrencies take off and change the world over the next decade?

koonsolo 5y ago

Internet wasn't released to the public until around 1990. Crypto was released instantly to the public upon its creation. You must admit that "internet" already had a vast history when it was released in 1990.

kkielhofner 5y ago
The internet != web. The internet is OSI model [1] layers 1-4. Layer 3 is literally called the Internet Protocol. Layer 4 is TCP, UDP, etc. Web is five (some would say six) and up and was released to the public in 1993. This is well documented. Blockchain is five (some would say six) and up and was released to the public in 2009. This is well documented. The OSI network model gives us a way to disambiguate "the internet" by it's component parts and dependencies. The web depended on the physical and network infrastructure that is the internet, as did blockchain. The web was accessible to at best 15 million people worldwide that had internet access when it was released in 1993. Within 13 years 15 million internet users became 1 billion internet+web users. As others have pointed out for the majority of this time period there were many challenges to adoption yet the web was so clearly and obviously compelling people overcame those challenges to access the tremendous value and utility provided by the web. Blockchains have been accessible to billions of existing internet, web, social media, and mobile users since release and yet maybe 10% of these users are using blockchain for anything at all. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model
- koonsolo 5y ago
  You should have linked to this Wikipedia page instead: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet But I guess you didn't, because that page states the internet was released to the public in 1989.
  - kkielhofner 5y ago
    I try to assume good faith but at this point the fact you're still equating the internet and the web, not acknowledging the drastic advantages blockchain had in 2009 vs 1989/1993, etc is extremely suspect. The web was created at CERN and they have an exact date for what they consider to be the birth of the web: April 30, 1993 [1]. When it comes to the web I'm going to continue to use their date. For kicks let's go with your date of 1989. 13 years later in 2002 the internet/web had 587 million users [2]. Anything blockchain related has 100 million. I can't understand how even without your understanding the difference between the web and the internet, my being generous and using your (wrong) date, and yet the internet still growing at well over 5x the rate of blockchain helps your argument at all. I don't believe your ability to understand this is the result of stupidity or ignorance - I think it's the kind of blindness and rationalization that can be brought on by faith and greed/financial self interest. In all seriousness and with the utmost respect - how much crypto do you hold? [1] https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web [2] https://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm https://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm