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I suspect we're not really at the equivalent of 1993. We may still be back in the early 80s, with people exchanging bang paths and oohing and ahhing when an ema

by ertian 4y ago

I suspect we're not really at the equivalent of 1993. We may still be back in the early 80s, with people exchanging bang paths and oohing and ahhing when an email goes through. 'Real' applications are thin on the ground, largely driven by novelty, and not particularly visible to the public. In most cases, wide-area networks can't compete with a phone call or a station wagon full of floppy disks. There's a bunch of competing approaches; it's not clear which will win, and surely most will fail, but all have devoted adherents. The important standards and protocols may still be in the future, or are obscured by piles of false leads, mistakes, and outright scams. The thing is, we now exist in a post-internet environment where people are well aware of the transformative ability of technology. They're all looking for the Next Big Thing in a way that people just weren't in the 70s and 80s. The population of the world has doubled, and the share of those people who are trying to keep up with the cutting edge is _vastly_ higher. On top of that we're talking about a network of value, i.e. money, and so there's inherently money to be made--and it's accessible to the average Joe. All together, you've got the recipe for a blizzard of hype and excitement that obscures the real innovations that underlie it all. And that's unavoidable. Any exciting new technology with the potential to have a serious impact on society is inevitably going to trigger a blizzard of hype--and an equivalent blizzard of skepticism. That makes the whole process exhausting. Par for the course in 2022.

pavlov 4y ago
A lot of 1980s hype technologies fizzled out. Take CD-ROM, which enjoyed crypto-level multi-year hype before anyone even had a player. None of the companies that invested heavily in CD-ROM were winners. We’re not enjoying our multimedia entertainment on platforms provided by Philips and Sega and Sierra On-Line. There were no Googles or Amazons arising from that massive tech hype cycle. In twenty years, the notion of “I’ll store value using my cryptocurrency wallet” may sound as anachronistic and outdated as “I’ll enjoy a night home browsing hot multimedia content on a Philips CDi disc.”
- ertian 4y ago
  I mean, I disagree...I think cryptocurrency is more analogous to packet routing than to some specific piece of media. CD-ROMs in particular were an evolution of physical media that had been around for a century (vinyl record, 8-track, tape, etc) and failed to anticipate the fact that the internet would render them all obsolete (or, to be fair, provided an important bridge between floppy disks and high-speed internet, CD-ROMs were the default for a decade). I'd say they're more analogous to the kludgy way we perform online transactions today, which is complex, country-specific, and crowded by intermediaries. I do agree "I'll store value using my cryptocurrency wallet" will sound anachronistic, in the same way "I'm going to dial in and log on to my service provider so I can surf the internet superhighway!" sounds quaint today. It'll just be: duh, how else would you do it? With a visa card?
- sanderjd 4y ago
  Love this analogy! I've had trouble thinking of things that were "the next big thing" and then fizzled out entirely. This is an excellent example of one!
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  >Take CD-ROM, which enjoyed crypto-level multi-year hype before anyone even had a player. Multimedia-enabled applications have been a huge success: it's just that the cost/value curve didn't become a winner until we had the Internet.
- JohnHaugeland 4y ago
  The utility of the internet was obvious in its first year. Bitcoin is in year 14, and emits enough pollution to be a top 20 nation. How many years will you wait?
  - ertian 4y ago
    When was the internet's "first year"? I think you could make an argument for the very first wide-area networks, ARPANET, or the invention of packet routing. So, 60s to mid-70s. If you think everybody was on board with the idea of a unified global network that everyday people would use for just about everything in 1970...I don't know what to tell you. That's still an era when the simple idea of a computer in every home seemed ridiculous. If you're measuring from 1993 or something, see, that's the problem: you'd be measuring from a point when there'd already been plenty of experimentation, thought, and iterations, and it was mature enough for mainstream adoption. It had taken decades to develop IP, TCP, email protocols, HTTP & HTML, etc. You were seeing something like a finished (albeit first-gen) product. And even then there were a bunch of years when it was written off by most people as a gimmicky toy for college kids to waste their time playing MUDs. Most major companies didn't start launching websites until some time after 1996. I think we're closer to 1980 than 1993 in the cryptocurrency world. But now, like I said, there are millions upon millions of people watching for the Next Big Thing. The audience for the development of the internet in the 70s and 80s was extremely limited: academics and government types, some companies in specific areas, and geeks reading tech magazines in which there might occasionally be a feature article. Now you have people in Kenya and Siberia and Uzbekistan spending their days reading or watching videos endlessly about the newest trends and trying to pick the winners. It's an entirely different environment for tech to develop. So the hype around cryptocurrency is kind of preposterous relative to the everyday utility. I firmly believe it'll live up to the hype in the end, but we're a long way from that yet. Or, I dunno, maybe it's all a flash in the pan, and the future really is Visa, Western Union, and SWIFT. We'll see.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- zerostablecoin 4y ago
  > “I’ll enjoy a night home browsing hot multimedia content on a Philips CDi disc.” Not even some Rick Astley?

by ertian 4y ago

pavlov 4y ago

A lot of 1980s hype technologies fizzled out. Take CD-ROM, which enjoyed crypto-level multi-year hype before anyone even had a player. None of the companies that invested heavily in CD-ROM were winners. We’re not enjoying our multimedia entertainment on platforms provided by Philips and Sega and Sierra On-Line. There were no Googles or Amazons arising from that massive tech hype cycle. In twenty years, the notion of “I’ll store value using my cryptocurrency wallet” may sound as anachronistic and outdated as “I’ll enjoy a night home browsing hot multimedia content on a Philips CDi disc.”

ertian 4y ago
I mean, I disagree...I think cryptocurrency is more analogous to packet routing than to some specific piece of media. CD-ROMs in particular were an evolution of physical media that had been around for a century (vinyl record, 8-track, tape, etc) and failed to anticipate the fact that the internet would render them all obsolete (or, to be fair, provided an important bridge between floppy disks and high-speed internet, CD-ROMs were the default for a decade). I'd say they're more analogous to the kludgy way we perform online transactions today, which is complex, country-specific, and crowded by intermediaries. I do agree "I'll store value using my cryptocurrency wallet" will sound anachronistic, in the same way "I'm going to dial in and log on to my service provider so I can surf the internet superhighway!" sounds quaint today. It'll just be: duh, how else would you do it? With a visa card?
sanderjd 4y ago
Love this analogy! I've had trouble thinking of things that were "the next big thing" and then fizzled out entirely. This is an excellent example of one!
matthewdgreen 4y ago
>Take CD-ROM, which enjoyed crypto-level multi-year hype before anyone even had a player. Multimedia-enabled applications have been a huge success: it's just that the cost/value curve didn't become a winner until we had the Internet.
JohnHaugeland 4y ago
The utility of the internet was obvious in its first year. Bitcoin is in year 14, and emits enough pollution to be a top 20 nation. How many years will you wait?
- ertian 4y ago
  When was the internet's "first year"? I think you could make an argument for the very first wide-area networks, ARPANET, or the invention of packet routing. So, 60s to mid-70s. If you think everybody was on board with the idea of a unified global network that everyday people would use for just about everything in 1970...I don't know what to tell you. That's still an era when the simple idea of a computer in every home seemed ridiculous. If you're measuring from 1993 or something, see, that's the problem: you'd be measuring from a point when there'd already been plenty of experimentation, thought, and iterations, and it was mature enough for mainstream adoption. It had taken decades to develop IP, TCP, email protocols, HTTP & HTML, etc. You were seeing something like a finished (albeit first-gen) product. And even then there were a bunch of years when it was written off by most people as a gimmicky toy for college kids to waste their time playing MUDs. Most major companies didn't start launching websites until some time after 1996. I think we're closer to 1980 than 1993 in the cryptocurrency world. But now, like I said, there are millions upon millions of people watching for the Next Big Thing. The audience for the development of the internet in the 70s and 80s was extremely limited: academics and government types, some companies in specific areas, and geeks reading tech magazines in which there might occasionally be a feature article. Now you have people in Kenya and Siberia and Uzbekistan spending their days reading or watching videos endlessly about the newest trends and trying to pick the winners. It's an entirely different environment for tech to develop. So the hype around cryptocurrency is kind of preposterous relative to the everyday utility. I firmly believe it'll live up to the hype in the end, but we're a long way from that yet. Or, I dunno, maybe it's all a flash in the pan, and the future really is Visa, Western Union, and SWIFT. We'll see.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
zerostablecoin 4y ago
> “I’ll enjoy a night home browsing hot multimedia content on a Philips CDi disc.” Not even some Rick Astley?