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No, no. The animal spirits are still there. But the structure of the economy is locked down tight. New business models that threaten to disrupt the established
by Pitarou 13y ago
No, no. The animal spirits are still there. But the structure of the economy is locked down tight. New business models that threaten to disrupt the established oligopolies are routinely killed off through the simple mechanism of outlawing them.
Still, there is room for innovation in new product categories. And technology is changing fast enough that new categories appear every few years. Take mobile gaming, for instance. And it comes as no surprise to me that the Number 1 Bitcoin exchange is Japanese. They have to deal in Bitcoins because the rest of the financial sector is locked down so tight that even Paypal can barely operate here.
- gwern 13y ago> And it comes as no surprise to me that the Number 1 Bitcoin exchange is Japanese. MtGox's not Japanese, really. It was founded by Jed McCaleb (American) who may have been living in NYC when he started it, and was bought out by, I think, some Europeans. It may now be located in Japan and have some Japanese employees, but in a way, it is an exception that proves the rule.
- Pitarou 13y agoThat's kind of disappointing. Why is Mt. Gox in Japan at all, then? Is it simply because of the popularity of trading card games in Japan?
- gwern 13y agoI have no idea. Japan doesn't seem like a great place to be doing something like MtGox (and AFAIK, _Magic: The Gathering_ is not popular in Japan).