3 ms·

> hobbyists sharing photos Do you know how hard it was to digitalise a photo on your computer in 1995? > businesses communicating better with their customers

> hobbyists sharing photos Do you know how hard it was to digitalise a photo on your computer in 1995? > businesses communicating better with their customers I'm sorry, but you are living in fantasyland. Those things didn't happen in 1995. Businesses asking for your email address in 1995... yeah right.

acdha 5y ago
I saw your later addition: > > businesses communicating better with their customers > I'm sorry, but you are living in fantasyland. Those things didn't happen in 1995. Businesses asking for your email address in 1995... yeah right. Again, why are you telling that things I personally experienced did not happen? Two of the three Southern California suburban high schools I attended during that period had email addresses and web access — one of the first public websites I built was for my high school library, linking to sites like Yahoo which would help you find what you were looking for, because it was already that useful for school. The corner taco shop probably didn't have email but an awful lot of professional businesses were starting to use it — a family friend's law firm was using internet email (following a decade of using CompuServe), that graphic designer, etc. 1995 meant Yahoo, Amazon, eBay had launched and were doing real business. You may recall hearing about Al Gore's push to connect universities with high-performance computing centers, too. Here's that link again — go through the list and think about how many people were using these sites for things which were not related to selling internet access or software: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_founded_before_1995 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_founded_befor... Technical users dominated, of course, but many of them were using the internet incidentally — downloading GNU software, for example, like the first Linux 0.9 kernel I ran — because it was better than what they were doing before. My grandfather is an electrical engineer and technical customers went online quickly because who wants to wait for postal mail to deliver letters and floppy disks when you don't have to? Note how many are even further away from IT: NIH or astronomy projects, underground music, TV fan arts, members of the U.S. Congress, etc.
- koonsolo 5y ago
  Personal anecdotes are nice, but it doesn't say much about the mainstream. I'm sure plenty of people have awesome anecdotes using crypto. You could also make a list of (investment) companies using bitcoin as a store of value. Or big companies accepting crypto: https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin/who-accepts/ https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin/who-accepts/ In Dubai houses are getting bought using crypto. In 25 years we can have the same discussion of "see, all these big companies were using crypto in 2022"
  - acdha 5y ago
    It's not just personal anecdotes — you have conspicuously ignored all of the links you've been given to major business and mass media showing adoption. I've tried to assume good faith but to be honest this is reminding me a lot of when a creationist tries the “god of the gaps” technique trying to ignore the overwhelming evidence that their claim was wrong and instead tries to pick away at whatever small detail they think is easiest to attack. > I'm sure plenty of people have awesome anecdotes using crypto. Oddly, you have been unable to provide those examples. Odd that, especially since your “big companies” list includes some like Microsoft who backed away due to volatility and others who immediately convert it into hard currency as part of the payment process. There is nothing world-changing about something like VISA except with higher transaction fees, and none of those businesses would care if Bitcoin disappeared because it's just one of the many options their customers have available for payment. They'd remove a button on their website which a tiny fraction of people use and that'd be it. > In Dubai houses are getting bought using crypto. Same deal: they're treating those as cash payments because the cryptocurrency is liquidated before the deal closes, because it's not legally approved in the UAE. https://www.zawya.com/mena/en/business/story/Can_you_buy_property_in_Dubai_with_cryptocurrency-ZAWYA20210805045913/ https://www.zawya.com/mena/en/business/story/Can_you_buy_pro...
acdha 5y ago
Yes, actually. That year I was helping a family friend with his graphics design business build a website for it. He had a scanner for use in his print work - remember, Mac users had been using Photoshop since 1988 and it wasn’t the first to market - which we used to scan photos in addition to other work samples. It wasn’t cheap but it was routine - and compared to other pro photo equipment it’s not like cameras and lenses were free either. You’ll also note that I said tips - even if photos took time to process and view, people loved sharing advice and work stories.
kkielhofner 5y ago
The Today show was talking about the internet and e-mail in 1994 and 1995. There's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95-yZ-31j9A&t=2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95-yZ-31j9A&t=2s The Today show was the top rated news program in its timeslot in this era with 6.3 million viewers [1]. They even display and talk about their e-mail address (at ge.com!) even though they clearly had no idea what it really meant (not uncommon for morning TV). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Today_(American_TV_program)#Ratings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Today_(American_TV_program)#Ra...
- koonsolo 5y ago
  Here's a video from 1995 with Bill Gates getting laughed out of the room for not being able to give a single good use case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gipL_CEw-fk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gipL_CEw-fk Plus, I'm sure there are plenty of videos now talking about how awesome crypto is.

acdha 5y ago

I saw your later addition: > > businesses communicating better with their customers > I'm sorry, but you are living in fantasyland. Those things didn't happen in 1995. Businesses asking for your email address in 1995... yeah right. Again, why are you telling that things I personally experienced did not happen? Two of the three Southern California suburban high schools I attended during that period had email addresses and web access — one of the first public websites I built was for my high school library, linking to sites like Yahoo which would help you find what you were looking for, because it was already that useful for school. The corner taco shop probably didn't have email but an awful lot of professional businesses were starting to use it — a family friend's law firm was using internet email (following a decade of using CompuServe), that graphic designer, etc. 1995 meant Yahoo, Amazon, eBay had launched and were doing real business. You may recall hearing about Al Gore's push to connect universities with high-performance computing centers, too. Here's that link again — go through the list and think about how many people were using these sites for things which were not related to selling internet access or software: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_founded_before_1995 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_founded_befor... Technical users dominated, of course, but many of them were using the internet incidentally — downloading GNU software, for example, like the first Linux 0.9 kernel I ran — because it was better than what they were doing before. My grandfather is an electrical engineer and technical customers went online quickly because who wants to wait for postal mail to deliver letters and floppy disks when you don't have to? Note how many are even further away from IT: NIH or astronomy projects, underground music, TV fan arts, members of the U.S. Congress, etc.

koonsolo 5y ago
Personal anecdotes are nice, but it doesn't say much about the mainstream. I'm sure plenty of people have awesome anecdotes using crypto. You could also make a list of (investment) companies using bitcoin as a store of value. Or big companies accepting crypto: https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin/who-accepts/ https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin/who-accepts/ In Dubai houses are getting bought using crypto. In 25 years we can have the same discussion of "see, all these big companies were using crypto in 2022"
- acdha 5y ago
  It's not just personal anecdotes — you have conspicuously ignored all of the links you've been given to major business and mass media showing adoption. I've tried to assume good faith but to be honest this is reminding me a lot of when a creationist tries the “god of the gaps” technique trying to ignore the overwhelming evidence that their claim was wrong and instead tries to pick away at whatever small detail they think is easiest to attack. > I'm sure plenty of people have awesome anecdotes using crypto. Oddly, you have been unable to provide those examples. Odd that, especially since your “big companies” list includes some like Microsoft who backed away due to volatility and others who immediately convert it into hard currency as part of the payment process. There is nothing world-changing about something like VISA except with higher transaction fees, and none of those businesses would care if Bitcoin disappeared because it's just one of the many options their customers have available for payment. They'd remove a button on their website which a tiny fraction of people use and that'd be it. > In Dubai houses are getting bought using crypto. Same deal: they're treating those as cash payments because the cryptocurrency is liquidated before the deal closes, because it's not legally approved in the UAE. https://www.zawya.com/mena/en/business/story/Can_you_buy_property_in_Dubai_with_cryptocurrency-ZAWYA20210805045913/ https://www.zawya.com/mena/en/business/story/Can_you_buy_pro...

acdha 5y ago

Yes, actually. That year I was helping a family friend with his graphics design business build a website for it. He had a scanner for use in his print work - remember, Mac users had been using Photoshop since 1988 and it wasn’t the first to market - which we used to scan photos in addition to other work samples. It wasn’t cheap but it was routine - and compared to other pro photo equipment it’s not like cameras and lenses were free either. You’ll also note that I said tips - even if photos took time to process and view, people loved sharing advice and work stories.

kkielhofner 5y ago

The Today show was talking about the internet and e-mail in 1994 and 1995. There's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95-yZ-31j9A&t=2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95-yZ-31j9A&t=2s The Today show was the top rated news program in its timeslot in this era with 6.3 million viewers [1]. They even display and talk about their e-mail address (at ge.com!) even though they clearly had no idea what it really meant (not uncommon for morning TV). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Today_(American_TV_program)#Ratings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Today_(American_TV_program)#Ra...

koonsolo 5y ago
Here's a video from 1995 with Bill Gates getting laughed out of the room for not being able to give a single good use case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gipL_CEw-fk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gipL_CEw-fk Plus, I'm sure there are plenty of videos now talking about how awesome crypto is.