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Blockchains are an incredible technology. It is obvious that their first attempted uses are contractual and monetary, because blockchain guarantees can make thi

Blockchains are an incredible technology. It is obvious that their first attempted uses are contractual and monetary, because blockchain guarantees can make things better fastest in those arenas. The unfortunate part is it doesn't seem like anyone has really figured out the how yet. I am reminded of the Web, Amazon was the first company to really "get" e-commerce and made all the money - there will likely be a similar story with blockchains 10 years from now.

Nursie 4y ago
We're already 14 years in. Where is the evidence it can make anything better? Why hasn't the amazon thing happened in the last ten years of blockchain?
- everfree 4y ago
  To be fair, Amazon didn't hit their stride as a retailer until the 2000s, roughly 20 years after the internet's "big bang" date. And while we're 14 years into distributed ledger technology, we're only 7 years into turing-complete distributed ledger technology, which I would argue is the actual innovation.
  - kkielhofner 4y ago
    I don't understand setting the internet "big bang" date somewhere in the 80s. The big bang was the web which was at least 1990-1993 (CERN says 1993). In 1990-1993 and beyond for the next few years a tiny portion of US households even had a computer that was capable (modem, etc) of getting on the internet/web. Arguably until AOL it was also extremely expensive. When I got on the internet it was with an inflation adjusted $5000 computer, per minute long distance toll charges, and paying an ISP (also by the minute). For the entirety of the existence of blockchain we've had ubiquitous broadband, social media, smartphones with always available data, etc. The conditions for the first 14 years of the web were vastly different and disadvantaged compared to the last 14 years in which blockchain has had plenty of time, audience, etc for widespread adoption and yet it still hasn't happened.
    - everfree 4y ago
      > blockchain has had plenty of time, audience, etc for widespread adoption Blockchains have been in a dial-up era. Bitcoin only supports balance transfers and has a hard-coded throughput limit of 1 Megabyte every 10 minutes (1990s modem speeds), and that effectively represented the state of the art of blockchain technology for 6 years. Until 2015, you couldn't even run a simple script on a blockchain (I don't count Bitcoin's extremely limited stack-based language). The official 1983 birthday of the internet is very much analogous to the 2009 birthday of the blockchain. It was the "spark moment" where the tech was there but extremely limited, and thereafter was a long "dead period" where it didn't do much for a long time as it waited for the world to catch on. Then 10 years later in 1993, the underlying internet technology saw its first really useful framework built on top, the web. 7 years later in 2015, the underlying blockchain technology saw its first really useful framework built on top, a turing-complete programming language. It would take the web another 20 years until the 2000s to build its first true killer apps, and I predict that blockchain's true killer apps (e.g. an Uber killer) won't be seen until the late 2020s to early 2030s. > Arguably until AOL it was also extremely expensive. When I got on the internet it was with an inflation adjusted $5000 computer, per minute long distance toll charges, and paying an ISP (also by the minute). Until layer-2 technologies (conceived ~2017 and still maturing), blockchains were also extremely expensive, peaking at tens of dollars for a simple transaction or hundreds for a more complex one. When I first interacted with a blockchain it was through a heavy client that downloaded tens of gigabytes of data to my computer, extremely low network bandwidth for transactions, zero hardware support for key management, one shady exchange that required international money transfers, and effectively zero support for publishing code on the blockchain. That's all changed now. > For the entirety of the existence of blockchain we've had ubiquitous broadband, social media, smartphones with always available data, etc. The conditions for the first 14 years of the web were vastly different and disadvantaged compared to the last 14 years in which blockchain has had plenty of time, audience, etc for widespread adoption and yet it still hasn't happened. The internet was a technology built on the progression of hardware and software tech; blockchains are built much more on progression of software tech. Blockchains as a framework need to get good enough to be able to support killer apps; they are not good enough today, but they are in intensive development along straightforward roadmaps to alleviate a lot of the pain points.
  - acdha 4y ago
    Amazon’s book unit was profitable within a couple of years (say by the time Clinton was re-elected), and that pattern continued for each business line. They invested all of the profits in expansion so “analysts” would say they were doomed but anyone who looked at the numbers could see they could report a profit any time they wanted by halting expansion. Comparisons to the internet timeframes are hard to make because there’s a key difference: computers were expensive and slow, and network connectivity was very limited. The Apple II was a major advance in accessibility and that brought the price down to roughly the equivalent of $6k today - and you still needed to buy a monitor and modem to get online! This is a huge contrast to the way blockchains have been basically globally available since day one. It’s also worth noting that the internet and the web are not the same. While the latter’s popularity depended on things which weren’t available earlier like GUIs, better displays, etc. that doesn’t mean that there weren’t plenty of people paying for network access before then. There were clear uses of value to many people – people loved email, software downloads beat shipping floppies by mail and led to the shareware business model, services provided access to information like real-time stock quotes, etc. - and profitable businesses existed before the web came along. If memory serves, the first wedding from an online relationship happened in the late 70s, too, so it’s not like people were only paying for business reasons. The contrast with cryptocurrencies is substantial: many people saw the value, it was just a question of whether they could afford it and as soon as prices dropped waves of people came online and never left. Blockchain apps have had enormous investment but there hasn’t been anything like that other than speculation on whether a number will go up. It’s been quite noticeable that none of the people who’ve asked me for tech advice for years have ever asked about a blockchain tech or mentioned using one except the guy who likes trading penny stocks instead of going to casinos.
    - subradios 4y ago
      Many people see the value of decentralized ledgers, including. the head of the SEC: https://news.bitcoin.com/sec-chairman-satoshi-nakamotos-innovation-real-crypto-rules-clear/ https://news.bitcoin.com/sec-chairman-satoshi-nakamotos-inno... My home state passed a law allowing me to pay taxes in bitcoin as well, there was the Ecuador thing. The hydraulics behind financial movements take decades to really shift, and I still regularly use crypto when sending or receiving money from international friends because international payments are a cartelized mess. Investment dollars cannot make regulatory and social shifts happen sooner.
- subradios 4y ago
  The biggest reason is social, or occasionally legal. There are tons of barriers in place to getting the legal system to agree that smart contracts are legitimate - which creates a barrier to real world, because regulators of real world business want to see contracts and legal language. (And you can't get away from if if you're operating a physical store with physical employees) The only group that has managed to beat this was early Uber, and their political lobbying arm was legendary.
anon400232 4y ago
Merkle trees are an incredible technology too. My point? There are many incredible technologies, but not all are "secret weapons" that justify a seismic industry shift. Not all are suitable or able to upend existing technologies. Fitness of purpose is contextual. Some of the most amazing innovations in computer science cannot be captured by one industry. Most do not lead to widespread disruption.

Nursie 4y ago

We're already 14 years in. Where is the evidence it can make anything better? Why hasn't the amazon thing happened in the last ten years of blockchain?

everfree 4y ago
To be fair, Amazon didn't hit their stride as a retailer until the 2000s, roughly 20 years after the internet's "big bang" date. And while we're 14 years into distributed ledger technology, we're only 7 years into turing-complete distributed ledger technology, which I would argue is the actual innovation.
- kkielhofner 4y ago
  I don't understand setting the internet "big bang" date somewhere in the 80s. The big bang was the web which was at least 1990-1993 (CERN says 1993). In 1990-1993 and beyond for the next few years a tiny portion of US households even had a computer that was capable (modem, etc) of getting on the internet/web. Arguably until AOL it was also extremely expensive. When I got on the internet it was with an inflation adjusted $5000 computer, per minute long distance toll charges, and paying an ISP (also by the minute). For the entirety of the existence of blockchain we've had ubiquitous broadband, social media, smartphones with always available data, etc. The conditions for the first 14 years of the web were vastly different and disadvantaged compared to the last 14 years in which blockchain has had plenty of time, audience, etc for widespread adoption and yet it still hasn't happened.
  - everfree 4y ago
    > blockchain has had plenty of time, audience, etc for widespread adoption Blockchains have been in a dial-up era. Bitcoin only supports balance transfers and has a hard-coded throughput limit of 1 Megabyte every 10 minutes (1990s modem speeds), and that effectively represented the state of the art of blockchain technology for 6 years. Until 2015, you couldn't even run a simple script on a blockchain (I don't count Bitcoin's extremely limited stack-based language). The official 1983 birthday of the internet is very much analogous to the 2009 birthday of the blockchain. It was the "spark moment" where the tech was there but extremely limited, and thereafter was a long "dead period" where it didn't do much for a long time as it waited for the world to catch on. Then 10 years later in 1993, the underlying internet technology saw its first really useful framework built on top, the web. 7 years later in 2015, the underlying blockchain technology saw its first really useful framework built on top, a turing-complete programming language. It would take the web another 20 years until the 2000s to build its first true killer apps, and I predict that blockchain's true killer apps (e.g. an Uber killer) won't be seen until the late 2020s to early 2030s. > Arguably until AOL it was also extremely expensive. When I got on the internet it was with an inflation adjusted $5000 computer, per minute long distance toll charges, and paying an ISP (also by the minute). Until layer-2 technologies (conceived ~2017 and still maturing), blockchains were also extremely expensive, peaking at tens of dollars for a simple transaction or hundreds for a more complex one. When I first interacted with a blockchain it was through a heavy client that downloaded tens of gigabytes of data to my computer, extremely low network bandwidth for transactions, zero hardware support for key management, one shady exchange that required international money transfers, and effectively zero support for publishing code on the blockchain. That's all changed now. > For the entirety of the existence of blockchain we've had ubiquitous broadband, social media, smartphones with always available data, etc. The conditions for the first 14 years of the web were vastly different and disadvantaged compared to the last 14 years in which blockchain has had plenty of time, audience, etc for widespread adoption and yet it still hasn't happened. The internet was a technology built on the progression of hardware and software tech; blockchains are built much more on progression of software tech. Blockchains as a framework need to get good enough to be able to support killer apps; they are not good enough today, but they are in intensive development along straightforward roadmaps to alleviate a lot of the pain points.
- acdha 4y ago
  Amazon’s book unit was profitable within a couple of years (say by the time Clinton was re-elected), and that pattern continued for each business line. They invested all of the profits in expansion so “analysts” would say they were doomed but anyone who looked at the numbers could see they could report a profit any time they wanted by halting expansion. Comparisons to the internet timeframes are hard to make because there’s a key difference: computers were expensive and slow, and network connectivity was very limited. The Apple II was a major advance in accessibility and that brought the price down to roughly the equivalent of $6k today - and you still needed to buy a monitor and modem to get online! This is a huge contrast to the way blockchains have been basically globally available since day one. It’s also worth noting that the internet and the web are not the same. While the latter’s popularity depended on things which weren’t available earlier like GUIs, better displays, etc. that doesn’t mean that there weren’t plenty of people paying for network access before then. There were clear uses of value to many people – people loved email, software downloads beat shipping floppies by mail and led to the shareware business model, services provided access to information like real-time stock quotes, etc. - and profitable businesses existed before the web came along. If memory serves, the first wedding from an online relationship happened in the late 70s, too, so it’s not like people were only paying for business reasons. The contrast with cryptocurrencies is substantial: many people saw the value, it was just a question of whether they could afford it and as soon as prices dropped waves of people came online and never left. Blockchain apps have had enormous investment but there hasn’t been anything like that other than speculation on whether a number will go up. It’s been quite noticeable that none of the people who’ve asked me for tech advice for years have ever asked about a blockchain tech or mentioned using one except the guy who likes trading penny stocks instead of going to casinos.
  - subradios 4y ago
    Many people see the value of decentralized ledgers, including. the head of the SEC: https://news.bitcoin.com/sec-chairman-satoshi-nakamotos-innovation-real-crypto-rules-clear/ https://news.bitcoin.com/sec-chairman-satoshi-nakamotos-inno... My home state passed a law allowing me to pay taxes in bitcoin as well, there was the Ecuador thing. The hydraulics behind financial movements take decades to really shift, and I still regularly use crypto when sending or receiving money from international friends because international payments are a cartelized mess. Investment dollars cannot make regulatory and social shifts happen sooner.
subradios 4y ago
The biggest reason is social, or occasionally legal. There are tons of barriers in place to getting the legal system to agree that smart contracts are legitimate - which creates a barrier to real world, because regulators of real world business want to see contracts and legal language. (And you can't get away from if if you're operating a physical store with physical employees) The only group that has managed to beat this was early Uber, and their political lobbying arm was legendary.

anon400232 4y ago

Merkle trees are an incredible technology too. My point? There are many incredible technologies, but not all are "secret weapons" that justify a seismic industry shift. Not all are suitable or able to upend existing technologies. Fitness of purpose is contextual. Some of the most amazing innovations in computer science cannot be captured by one industry. Most do not lead to widespread disruption.