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I don't think this is a seriously considered question. Digital goods are obviously less useful (or at least less important). Physical goods feed, clothe, and sh
by zbrozek 4y ago
I don't think this is a seriously considered question. Digital goods are obviously less useful (or at least less important). Physical goods feed, clothe, and shelter populations. If digital goods crowd out physical ones, even to a small degree, you have a serious problem.
- chii 4y ago> If digital goods crowd out physical ones why would digital goods crowd out physical ones? You're assuming some zero sum game - which isn't true in economics. Even if there's finite available energy, it won't crowd out physical goods - people would choose to spend their dollars to achieve maximum utility, so demand for physical goods would still be there, even if digital goods grow in value.
- zbrozek 4y agoIt's not zero sum, but it's not infinite either. It takes hardware - chips, boards, sheet metal, plastic, etc - to build mining rigs. It takes huge amounts of energy to power them. Those are finite resources and using them for digital goods precludes using them for physical goods. Low value-add physical goods production decline until their price rises to be worth producing vs mining. Why make concrete or aluminum if the energy can be more profitably spent on coins? The problem is that this drives commodity inflation in exchange for more digital goods that don't actually make us more comfortable as a species. Proof-of-work currencies feel like machinery of grey goo.