[kindfellow92]

> Not trying to be pessimistic but genuinely curious why so many people make the analogy to the dot com period.

Because most people are not creative nor critical thinkers and the extent of their brilliance is superficial pattern matching. To most people the dot-com bubble seems to fit all the patterns so by their logic it must have the same outcome. If you think critically about the differences of the crypto craze and the dot-com era, you’ll see how irrational it is to make a strong comparison.

Bitcoin is not Pets.com. Bitcoin is Google.

[joeyspn]

> Bitcoin is Google.

I'd say it's probably AltaVista or Yahoo!...

[adrianmsmith]

I don’t think Bitcoin is Google, with the limit of 7 transactions per second, it just can’t scale enough to be the Google of currencies.

[kindfellow92]

Do you think the only thing that makes cryptocurrencies valuable is transaction rate?

[newsbinator]

It's hard to say 'Bitcoin is x'.

Perhaps the Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency situation is a close repeat of the dot-com boom/bust/rebirth.

Perhaps it's a close repeat of Tulip Mania.

Or perhaps it's a new category, and the rise of the next technology a decade from now will be a callback to what happened with Bitcoin.

This'll all seem obvious in a year or three. For now, we speculate and wait.

[Simon_says]

> superficial pattern matching.

> Bitcoin is Google.

Is this satire?

[aussie1233]

Looking at the market cap, it's about half Google. Probably much larger (2x) by and of year according to Tom Lee.

[kindfellow92]

You’re right. I meant, if anything Bitcoin is Google, but it’s not even that.

[yen223]

Google provides a valuable service that saves me time.

Bitcoin, uhh...

[kindfellow92]

If you can’t see how Bitcoin provides millions of others a valuable service, you have a poor imagination.

[Nursie]

Please do explain this service! Because as far as I can tell it's got no real utility outside of speculation.

[kindfellow92]

How about the ability to move large sums of money around the world without having to trust or be limited by any government or bank?

[Nursie]

Not really that useful to many millions of people IMHO.

[Nursie]

Or there may not be any long term winners in this arena as people realise just how bad most if this stuff is for actual transactions and consumer protection.

[Chris_Jay]

I would liken it to Apple myself. First mover advantage does count for quite a bit in software.