4 ms·

Well, the Web was 7 years old in 1996, the Internet itself probably older (multiple potential beginning years for the Internet as we know it), and at that point

Well, the Web was 7 years old in 1996, the Internet itself probably older (multiple potential beginning years for the Internet as we know it), and at that point they were still pretty confidential... (Not to say that blockchains will have a huge success, but it's also not like progress hasn't been happening, haven't they managed to work out viable proof of stake recently?)

kkielhofner 4y ago
In 1990 15% of US households even had a computer (the highest percentage in the world). A small number of those had a modem or were otherwise web capable. Modems alone were roughly $1,000 (inflation adjusted) in 1990. When I first got on the internet in 1994 the computer was $5000 (inflation adjusted). Mosaic wasn’t even released until 1993… The growth of the web also depended on laying many millions of miles of fiber that required everything from digging up entire countries to dispatching ships to cross the world’s oceans. Millions more phone lines, ISP modem banks in almost every phone central office in the country, etc. A truly monumental and expensive effort of humanity. In 2015 68% of the US population owned a smartphone. 85.5% of US households had the internet. Data is cheap, reliable, fast, and plentiful. Billions of users are interacting on social media platforms to enable communication and spread ideas across the globe more quickly than ever before. In 2015 these billions of people could catch a random Tweet, news story, etc and be counted as an Ethereum user in minutes for free or close to it. See the difference?