top | item 16734632

(no title)

vomitcuddle | 8 years ago

>IMO there is a difference between “blockchain” and “blockchain technology”. The latter means taking parts of or inspiration from how blockchains are built.

>Even if the technology is not be specific to the blockchain originally, blockchain still helped bring these ideas into the minds of the masses and so I think it is fair to characterize some of these things as “blockchain technology” when that is how some people came to know of them.

What you just described here, when done to obtain money or publicity - is often referred to as "charlatanism".

discuss

order

codetrotter|8 years ago

It most certainly is not. You must have misunderstood what I meant.

If someone was introduced to a steamboat and they’d never seen a boat before (perhaps a far fetched example but stick with me here), and they made a rowboat and they said that they had built it on steamboat technology (because of the boat part) I think that would not be entirely unreasonable.

A charlatan on the other hand would be someone that sold you a steamboat and then gave you something that was not a steamboat, like for example a big rock or something.

A charlatan decieves people for fame or for money. Someone that sells something as “blockchain” when it’s not is a charlatan. Someone that was inspired to build something by blockchain and describes it as using “blockchain technology” should not deserve to be called a charlatan IMO.

It is still fair to point out that they are not actually using a blockchain, but calling them a charlatan is disingenuous because then what kinds of words should we use to describe the actual charlatans?

Ninn|8 years ago

Not only is your argumentation and example really not solid -- the steamboat technology would in this case cover the steam engine, used in a large range of other sectors to solve the same and other problems. As such, you would not use the steam engine technology in anyway in the "derived invention".

If we go back to your original claim, you appear to be implying that a blockchain, to begin with, is a good solution of a immutable log -- it is not.

Depending on the scenario, there are in ALL cases that I have encountered at least, a better alternative solution, which is more efficient, already well researched, developed and tested. If you recon that you know an example where this is not the case, I would love to hear about it.

At the same time, you really do see people and companies who every single day, do use the blockchain as an excuse for a little extra gains in their stock valuation, like Maersk (the same Maersk who cannot even figure out how to divide their network into virtual lans, or have som network level malware protection).