3 ms·

I can buy groceries with dollars.

sph 3y ago
If I open a vegetable stand and accept Bitcoin, what would be the difference? The reason why no one uses Bitcoin is because it's a nascent technology full of rough corners that needs to be smoothed out with time. Until a few months ago, it would've taken 15 minutes for the payment to go through. Is this reason enough to throw the baby out with the bathwater? But for some weird reason, many software engineers look at Bitcoin as a finished unchanging product. It is like looking at ARPANET and saying "this is bollocks, it's never gonna work." I guess drive-by criticism is less work than sitting down and improving something with is new, exciting, a bit crap but with huge potential.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  You can do whatever you want, it doesn't mean that Bitcoin is suddenly useful to people for grocery shopping just because you opened a stand. How do you plan to be profitable when the currency is constantly deflating? You presumably have to purchase your goods in USD, so any goods you sell have to be converted, which constantly loses money. No one is going to pay you in Bitcoin because they don't want their money to deflate. The cause of the thing is more than 'there are no shops'. There are no shops because no one wants to do it. Prove me wrong. Open a Bitcoin grocery store.
- WeylandYutani 3y ago
  Is bitcoin new? It's been 15 years. What did Amazon accomplish in that time? Or Netflix?
  - sph 3y ago
    What a silly, dishonest argument. Anyone can create incredible things with massive amounts of targeted money and investments. The entire economy of Bitcoin is not spent on its core developers to improve it. At this point I have to assume trolling if anything that hasn't reached global domination to be a failure. We are talking about a worldwide currency that is working against any law, government, bank. If it takes 50 years to reach maturity, is it a failure? Why is time taken to mature an important metric? Nothing is born in a vacuum, but builds upon what existed before. In any case, neither Amazon nor Netflix have global, unlimited reach like Bitcoin. So it makes your question even more silly.
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      What is dishonest is claiming that 'it needs time to get the bugs sorted' when it is a technology literally built on an ideology. The bugs are self-imposed and are never going to get 'sorted out' because they are foundational.
      - andirk 3y ago
        It's currently "sorted out" by the several layers deep you can choose to go: from more centralized and more easy to more decentralized and more complicated. One can lose paper money. No one out here is trying to solve that problem. Just put it in some shitty bank to avoid that issue, but the problem wasn't solved, just avoided.
        Eisenstein 3y ago
        I am struggling to find a coherent point in what you have written.
        andirk 3y ago
        Try this, Einstein: > The bugs are self-imposed I can send BTC to an address and it is there instantly. If you want to be more sure, wait until other nodes have confirmed. Even more safe? Wait for 6 blocks to be written after the one your transaction is on. It's up to you whether you want instant and less secure or wait a while and more secure. Does that make sense as far as coherence?
        Eisenstein 3y ago
        I'm don't know why you are being aggressively obtuse. I was talking about an ideological problem -- the fact that the 'bug' is that it is built on a libertarian fever dream which is nonsense, and it can never succeed because it espouses a flawed premise which it cannot abandon since it is baked into the code (deflationary money will never work). It is possible you are getting upset because you are having a completely different conversation than the one you joined.
  - andirk 3y ago
    Neither of those companies netted me several hundred thousand USD. And I rarely use either, either.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - RestlessMind 3y ago
    Bitcoin's market cap is $519B as of right now. That seems like an incredible accomplishment. Market is literally voting with their money.

sph 3y ago

If I open a vegetable stand and accept Bitcoin, what would be the difference? The reason why no one uses Bitcoin is because it's a nascent technology full of rough corners that needs to be smoothed out with time. Until a few months ago, it would've taken 15 minutes for the payment to go through. Is this reason enough to throw the baby out with the bathwater? But for some weird reason, many software engineers look at Bitcoin as a finished unchanging product. It is like looking at ARPANET and saying "this is bollocks, it's never gonna work." I guess drive-by criticism is less work than sitting down and improving something with is new, exciting, a bit crap but with huge potential.

Eisenstein 3y ago
You can do whatever you want, it doesn't mean that Bitcoin is suddenly useful to people for grocery shopping just because you opened a stand. How do you plan to be profitable when the currency is constantly deflating? You presumably have to purchase your goods in USD, so any goods you sell have to be converted, which constantly loses money. No one is going to pay you in Bitcoin because they don't want their money to deflate. The cause of the thing is more than 'there are no shops'. There are no shops because no one wants to do it. Prove me wrong. Open a Bitcoin grocery store.
WeylandYutani 3y ago
Is bitcoin new? It's been 15 years. What did Amazon accomplish in that time? Or Netflix?
- sph 3y ago
  What a silly, dishonest argument. Anyone can create incredible things with massive amounts of targeted money and investments. The entire economy of Bitcoin is not spent on its core developers to improve it. At this point I have to assume trolling if anything that hasn't reached global domination to be a failure. We are talking about a worldwide currency that is working against any law, government, bank. If it takes 50 years to reach maturity, is it a failure? Why is time taken to mature an important metric? Nothing is born in a vacuum, but builds upon what existed before. In any case, neither Amazon nor Netflix have global, unlimited reach like Bitcoin. So it makes your question even more silly.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    What is dishonest is claiming that 'it needs time to get the bugs sorted' when it is a technology literally built on an ideology. The bugs are self-imposed and are never going to get 'sorted out' because they are foundational.
    - andirk 3y ago
      It's currently "sorted out" by the several layers deep you can choose to go: from more centralized and more easy to more decentralized and more complicated. One can lose paper money. No one out here is trying to solve that problem. Just put it in some shitty bank to avoid that issue, but the problem wasn't solved, just avoided.
      - Eisenstein 3y ago
        I am struggling to find a coherent point in what you have written.
        andirk 3y ago
        Try this, Einstein: > The bugs are self-imposed I can send BTC to an address and it is there instantly. If you want to be more sure, wait until other nodes have confirmed. Even more safe? Wait for 6 blocks to be written after the one your transaction is on. It's up to you whether you want instant and less secure or wait a while and more secure. Does that make sense as far as coherence?
        Eisenstein 3y ago
        I'm don't know why you are being aggressively obtuse. I was talking about an ideological problem -- the fact that the 'bug' is that it is built on a libertarian fever dream which is nonsense, and it can never succeed because it espouses a flawed premise which it cannot abandon since it is baked into the code (deflationary money will never work). It is possible you are getting upset because you are having a completely different conversation than the one you joined.
- andirk 3y ago
  Neither of those companies netted me several hundred thousand USD. And I rarely use either, either.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- RestlessMind 3y ago
  Bitcoin's market cap is $519B as of right now. That seems like an incredible accomplishment. Market is literally voting with their money.