8 ms·

I'm as skeptical of Bitcoin as anyone, but this is not a very good argument. You'd come to the same conclusion if you evaluated the state of aviation in 1900 or

I'm as skeptical of Bitcoin as anyone, but this is not a very good argument. You'd come to the same conclusion if you evaluated the state of aviation in 1900 or photography in 1820. Even the Internet was useless to the average person in 1982 (13 years in).

rossdavidh 4y ago
None of those cases, however, had anywhere near as much money put into them that early. It may be that, if blockchain technologies had grown in size much, much slower, that good uses would have been found. Regardless, once this much real money (and the resources of electricity, labor, technical expertise, etc. that they represent) have been invested into something, something impressive should have resulted by now.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- __ryan__ 4y ago
  How much of that money was based on capitalizing on an unregulated speculative investment market? Just because a lot of resources flow in the general direction of a technology doesn’t mean it wasn’t put to misguided use.
  - rossdavidh 4y ago
    Oh, absolutely. I do think, however, that the very nature of trying to make a new currency (the first and still primary use case for blockchain) is almost inevitably going to have this problem.
bb88 4y ago
Humans are pretty efficient at screwing each other over, particularly when money is involved. And any technology that allows humans to screw each other over more efficiently should have the deepest skepticism possible. https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ has tracked $10B in losses due to grift. And that doesn't include the losses used to pay off ransomware. Money laundering for good is still money laundering.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
acdha 4y ago
Those had immediate, obvious value which were held back by the technology: every military in the world wanted flight (remember those Civil War hot air balloons?), as well as things like postal services, etc. There was zero question that as soon as the technology was functionally available, people would buy it. Similarly, the earliest photographs had unquestionable demand but were held back by the technology — again, zero question that people would buy it as soon as that matured. Finally, the Internet was useful by 1982 — there's a reason why universities, governments, etc. all jumped online and agencies like NSF were funding this to support other research, not just development of TCP/IP, by then. The other big trend to keep in mind are the BBS scene and especially online services like CompuServe (which was already 13 years old by 1982) which had profitable businesses selling access to people who found it was useful to have in their lives for many reasons not related to developing or selling computer networking. Again, there was zero question of demand: computer hardware was expensive and networking was positively usurious but it was clear that growth would accelerate as soon as that changed because normal people found it useful for various parts of their lives. Cryptocurrencies are different: since these systems rely on the now-pervasive web, most people on the planet have had access immediately. What hasn't happened yet is most of them having a reason to bother with it. Speculation has been the biggest driver but buy-and-hold is toxic to developing a useful currency and few people have built a business or life which depends on it except for gambling like that.
- tremarley 4y ago
  Bitcoin and crypto has an immediate, obvious value that was previously held back by technology. Similar to the rest of the examples you've listed. We live in an age where we are forced to own nothing and be happy. Bitcoin, Blockchain and crypto solves this.
  - Group_B 4y ago
    Crypto does not bypass in any way the ability for a company to charge me a subscription instead of offering me an option to buy something outright.
    - 4y ago
Aunche 4y ago
Photography and flying always had obvious practical applications. The problem was that the technology was not quite there yet. As far as I can tell, there isn't any obvious technological problem that's limiting the success of blockchain.
kelnos 4y ago
Aviation, photography, and the internet required huge investments in developing and building new hardware and infrastructure. All of that is difficult and takes a lot of time. Bitcoin just requires some not-particularly-novel software, plus either commodity hardware or trivial-to-design custom hardware, plus a shit-ton of electricity to burn.
turzmo 4y ago
Actually, I don't think that's true. The military was using planes within a decade of 1900, and certainly a decade after the Kitty Hawk flight, they were installing machine guns on planes. They were proposing international legislation to limit the uses of aircraft in war because everyone saw how impactful it was going to be.
rabf 4y ago
I love this interview where David Bowie tries to convince Jeremy Paxman of the value of the internet in 1999! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiK7s_0tGsg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiK7s_0tGsg

rossdavidh 4y ago

None of those cases, however, had anywhere near as much money put into them that early. It may be that, if blockchain technologies had grown in size much, much slower, that good uses would have been found. Regardless, once this much real money (and the resources of electricity, labor, technical expertise, etc. that they represent) have been invested into something, something impressive should have resulted by now.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
__ryan__ 4y ago
How much of that money was based on capitalizing on an unregulated speculative investment market? Just because a lot of resources flow in the general direction of a technology doesn’t mean it wasn’t put to misguided use.
- rossdavidh 4y ago
  Oh, absolutely. I do think, however, that the very nature of trying to make a new currency (the first and still primary use case for blockchain) is almost inevitably going to have this problem.

bb88 4y ago

Humans are pretty efficient at screwing each other over, particularly when money is involved. And any technology that allows humans to screw each other over more efficiently should have the deepest skepticism possible. https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ https://web3isgoinggreat.com/ has tracked $10B in losses due to grift. And that doesn't include the losses used to pay off ransomware. Money laundering for good is still money laundering.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

acdha 4y ago

Those had immediate, obvious value which were held back by the technology: every military in the world wanted flight (remember those Civil War hot air balloons?), as well as things like postal services, etc. There was zero question that as soon as the technology was functionally available, people would buy it. Similarly, the earliest photographs had unquestionable demand but were held back by the technology — again, zero question that people would buy it as soon as that matured. Finally, the Internet was useful by 1982 — there's a reason why universities, governments, etc. all jumped online and agencies like NSF were funding this to support other research, not just development of TCP/IP, by then. The other big trend to keep in mind are the BBS scene and especially online services like CompuServe (which was already 13 years old by 1982) which had profitable businesses selling access to people who found it was useful to have in their lives for many reasons not related to developing or selling computer networking. Again, there was zero question of demand: computer hardware was expensive and networking was positively usurious but it was clear that growth would accelerate as soon as that changed because normal people found it useful for various parts of their lives. Cryptocurrencies are different: since these systems rely on the now-pervasive web, most people on the planet have had access immediately. What hasn't happened yet is most of them having a reason to bother with it. Speculation has been the biggest driver but buy-and-hold is toxic to developing a useful currency and few people have built a business or life which depends on it except for gambling like that.

tremarley 4y ago
Bitcoin and crypto has an immediate, obvious value that was previously held back by technology. Similar to the rest of the examples you've listed. We live in an age where we are forced to own nothing and be happy. Bitcoin, Blockchain and crypto solves this.
- Group_B 4y ago
  Crypto does not bypass in any way the ability for a company to charge me a subscription instead of offering me an option to buy something outright.
  - 4y ago

Aunche 4y ago

Photography and flying always had obvious practical applications. The problem was that the technology was not quite there yet. As far as I can tell, there isn't any obvious technological problem that's limiting the success of blockchain.

kelnos 4y ago

Aviation, photography, and the internet required huge investments in developing and building new hardware and infrastructure. All of that is difficult and takes a lot of time. Bitcoin just requires some not-particularly-novel software, plus either commodity hardware or trivial-to-design custom hardware, plus a shit-ton of electricity to burn.

turzmo 4y ago

Actually, I don't think that's true. The military was using planes within a decade of 1900, and certainly a decade after the Kitty Hawk flight, they were installing machine guns on planes. They were proposing international legislation to limit the uses of aircraft in war because everyone saw how impactful it was going to be.

rabf 4y ago

I love this interview where David Bowie tries to convince Jeremy Paxman of the value of the internet in 1999! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiK7s_0tGsg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiK7s_0tGsg