[useful]

I'd argue that BBS and compuserve/aol were in the 80s. It took 30 years before everyone had a computer in their pocket and Amazon took off.

A debit card is similar to crypto. Is a debit card any different than cash for an end user? Did it cause big changes in banking? I can show you my account balance with a debit card. It may convince you I have the assets to buy whatever you are selling. I can bring a debit card to another country and exchange it to local currency. The merchant is passing on the 2-5% fee to you so that you can use a debit card. There is a huge organization of people behind that debit card.

[rchaud]

Amazon took off well before the smartphone era. Bezos was Time Magazine's Person of the Year in 1999.

I don't understand what you mean re: debit cards. Is it that the transaction processing fee is passed on to the customer? That is already well understood. The issue is that crypto is nowhere near to matching VISA/MC's per-transaction cost.

[useful]

My point was that you need less people for a transaction to happen.

The cost will go down over time.