[hudon]

Email is a drastic improvement on the way people communicate. It is orders of magnitude faster, for example, cheaper for the user and more convenient.

Bitcoin is slower, more expensive and harder to use than the existing financial instruments. It is censorship resistant though so you can use it to pay people online when the government does not want you to pay these people.

[eternalban]

> It is censorship resistant though so you can use it to pay people online when the government does not want you to pay these people.

Only cash is "censorship resistant". As a technologist, this is either an embarassing statement, or, a hopeful data point on the durability of 'hits-it-on-the-nail' technology, such as cash, or paper and ink. (Yes, I'm getting bullish on paper pamphlets ..)

[hudon]

> Only cash is "censorship resistant"

Still not perfect, though. Look at how India swiftly and broadly decommissioned some of the bank notes. It is not too crazy to imagine some nations going a step further and decommissioning all bank notes.

Similarly, the blockchain is not perfectly censorship resistant. You need:

1- decentralized transaction validators

2- privacy

For #1, the jury is still out on if mining will remain decentralized. I tend to believe that there are guardians of this property in Bitcoin-land, and if it ever gets too bad, the blockchain can fork to retain this property.

For #2, Bitcoin does poorly here, and hopefully advances in the tech like ring signatures, confidential transactions, MimbleWimble, TumbleBit, zk-SNARKs, etc. will prove to be practical enough for use.