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I often read these posts to see if there's any perspective that can convince me I've wasted my time the past few years. Unfortunately this one didn't add any n

by tern 4y ago

I often read these posts to see if there's any perspective that can convince me I've wasted my time the past few years. Unfortunately this one didn't add any new information. It's just 'opinion' from someone very unfamiliar with the space. This is very much in the vein of the infamous Dropbox announcement. Indeed, these technologies in their current form require a leap of imagination to see working at scale. What's missing from this article is: (1) thoughts on anything specific happening in the space and (2) a sense of wonder about what new things have come from it. "Crypto" is in one reading a massive flurry of activity to see how cryptography might transform society. Most experiments will probably fail, but it seems untenable to argue that the answer is: it's a fraud. We can approach this with curiosity or with derision. The choice is yours.

qeternity 4y ago
> This is very much in the vein of the infamous Dropbox announcement. Dropbox was released a year before Bitcoin, and quickly went on to completely change file storage for the average person (alongside its many clones). Why has Bitcoin not achieved anything similar?
- tern 4y ago
  Bitcoin went on to create an entirely new industry employing tens if not hundreds of thousands of people, fund thousands of research projects and startups, create financial independence for thousands of people, allow thousands of people to transmit money in situations where it would have been difficult or impossible otherwise, and probably other things. It's a massive cultural phenomenon with global reach and real consequences. The adoption looks different because it's not an apples to apples comparison. The appropriate comparison would be between "blockchain/crypto" and "cloud." In that comparison, the Dropbox equivalent likely hasn't been released yet. And even still, the technologies are different enough that I'd expect different timelines. The inherent difficulty of implementing cryptographic systems to the highest standards, and the regulatory hurdle implied by the fact that any token is arguably a security, matter. Also, for what it's worth, you can send money to anyone in the world instantly now. My personal opinion is that interesting things will start to happen after we realize there's an architectural sleight of hand in the "web3" vision and it doesn't really make sense. Projects that recognize this are already gaining traction.
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  - qeternity 4y ago
    > The appropriate comparison would be between "blockchain/crypto" and "cloud." Ok fine, Amazon S3 was launched in 2006, only two years before bitcoin. The entire cloud industry is just a smidge older than crypto. > Also, for what it's worth, you can send money to anyone in the world instantly now. You could do that without crypto before, and you can still do it now without crypto. I'm not saying that nobody gets any use from crypto. What I'm saying is that these arguments that we're early in the adoption curve just aren't true. The lack of adoption might be because crypto isn't solving problems for most people.
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by tern 4y ago

qeternity 4y ago

> This is very much in the vein of the infamous Dropbox announcement. Dropbox was released a year before Bitcoin, and quickly went on to completely change file storage for the average person (alongside its many clones). Why has Bitcoin not achieved anything similar?

tern 4y ago
Bitcoin went on to create an entirely new industry employing tens if not hundreds of thousands of people, fund thousands of research projects and startups, create financial independence for thousands of people, allow thousands of people to transmit money in situations where it would have been difficult or impossible otherwise, and probably other things. It's a massive cultural phenomenon with global reach and real consequences. The adoption looks different because it's not an apples to apples comparison. The appropriate comparison would be between "blockchain/crypto" and "cloud." In that comparison, the Dropbox equivalent likely hasn't been released yet. And even still, the technologies are different enough that I'd expect different timelines. The inherent difficulty of implementing cryptographic systems to the highest standards, and the regulatory hurdle implied by the fact that any token is arguably a security, matter. Also, for what it's worth, you can send money to anyone in the world instantly now. My personal opinion is that interesting things will start to happen after we realize there's an architectural sleight of hand in the "web3" vision and it doesn't really make sense. Projects that recognize this are already gaining traction.
- deleted 4y ago
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- qeternity 4y ago
  > The appropriate comparison would be between "blockchain/crypto" and "cloud." Ok fine, Amazon S3 was launched in 2006, only two years before bitcoin. The entire cloud industry is just a smidge older than crypto. > Also, for what it's worth, you can send money to anyone in the world instantly now. You could do that without crypto before, and you can still do it now without crypto. I'm not saying that nobody gets any use from crypto. What I'm saying is that these arguments that we're early in the adoption curve just aren't true. The lack of adoption might be because crypto isn't solving problems for most people.

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