[georgesC]

The fact that so many people don't know that cash/fiat is losing value over time makes it somewhat of a problem. Furthermore the creation of cash/fiat creates high benefits to those that benefits from the newly created money first, before the money spreads and devalues its value due to inflation over time.

Inflation vs deflation debate is a complicated one, I don't know which is best in terms of enabling technical progress. One is more short termist, another is more long termist.

But fiat/inflated currencies won't go away. It's just that those kinds of currencies just tends to blow up at some point because of inflation and human nature. It's more than nice to have other options, especially digital. The idea to have some kind of worldwide standard that is open and won't change is also nice.

[arcticbull]

Not changing is nice conceptually but very bad in practice because the real world changes. It doesn’t map. It’s one of those software engineering tendencies to rewrite instead of understand and improve.

One side note though. Consider that inflation doesn’t affect the poor as the poor live paycheck to paycheck and wages in the US have kept pace with inflation. The wealthy don’t hold cash, they invest. Even cash tends to be held in a savings account with at least partially offsets inflationary pressure. Has it impacted anyone materially? I’d love to see some quantification.

[georgesC]

In practice, I'd say "selected" lower level standards aren't changed but built upon. Standard tools also tends to not change much. web protocols, C, C++, php, those are not getting away despite many attempts to reinvent the wheel. Maybe someone will make a better wheel one day, or maybe not, but for me it's nice to have a starting point in the domain of p2p "exchange" that may or may not be adopted as a standard.

As for inflation, it makes it harder for the poor workers to become wealthier, but the issue is more when it stops being sustainable. Inflationary fiat has proven that it could fail. I personally don't trust those persons handling it and I feel that such sentiment is growing among people. There's reasons behind that. That is terrible for a currency. Governments may or may not start having a better monetary policy. We don't have guarantees and much control over it, that's the issue for me. I'd rather avoid an economical disaster and keep a business running than having to deal with the failure of others.