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megameter | 4 years ago

I think the analogy of cryptocurrency's position to the 90's internet is the wrong one to pick, because it describes an environment with some maturity and acceptance in its base technologies, primed for waves of consumer commerce to take hold. The proper example to pick is personal computing circa 1982. When you look at the envisioned uses of personal computing, the advertisements really reach: it helps your child learn. You can store recipes on it. Balance your checkbook. Write documents. And (whispers) play games.

As well, one can occasionally find reassurances in the literature that the computer is your friend, not the back-office monster that billed you incorrectly last month. Would you feel convinced? Many people saw no use for computers in their lives. And the reality of personal computing at that point was that it was mostly a nerd hobby, with a few niches where it could have immediate, direct impact(white collar information work). Professional graphic design functions, audio and video were all still years away, far out of reach on the consumer platforms. It all cost too much - the computers, accessories, the networking options.

But it's also a representative inflection point: microprocessors as a product category had only been available for a little over a decade, and it only took about a decade from there for the embrace of all things digital to kick into high gear with the onset of commodity PC clones, the Wintel monopoly, and then the Internet. Cryptocurrency is seeing a trajectory like that - we're nearing 12 years in and, like early personal computing, it's understood by few, often advertised deceptively, and seeing massive amounts of growth and capital investment. The applications are gradually appearing, and industry incumbents are hopping onto the bandwagon, but it's sneered at by experienced code jockeys: they work with much bigger and fancier hardware than these toys. Nobody is sure of the business model to use. Prices are all over the map.

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allturtles|4 years ago

> The proper example to pick is personal computing circa 1982. When you look at the envisioned uses of personal computing, the advertisements really reach: it helps your child learn. You can store recipes on it. Balance your checkbook. Write documents. And (whispers) play games.

Okay so what is the "play games" of crypto today? It seems like the only equivalent is "criminal activity." Unless you count speculation on crypto itself, but that isn't a "use." Computer users in 1982 were not buying IBM PCs, leaving them boxed in their closet, and then re-selling them for 10 or 100x the price in a year or two.