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by mrep 3051 days ago
> Internet was a "solution in search of a problem" too.

No, no it wasn't. Close to light speed communication provided about 10 orders of magnitude faster/cheaper communication than before. I cannot even fathom how someone would not immediately realize how that massive increase in communication would not be useful.

Contrast this with blockchains which are practically 10 orders of magnitude more COSTLY since every node has to process every transaction when you could just do that on one server (hence why bitcoin transactions cost 2.5 Billion dollars a year to process a fraction of what Visa can process).
1 comments
cocktailpeanuts 3051 days ago
> I cannot even fathom how someone would not immediately realize how that massive increase in communication would not be useful.

Just like you cannot fathom how Bitcoin can be useful in February of 2018, 99.9% of the world population couldn't fathom how Internet would take off back then when it launched. That was why it was not mainstream for a long time until it took off.

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mrep 3051 days ago
> 99.9% of the world population couldn't fathom how Internet would take off back then when it launched.

The dotcom bubble was fueled by speculation in how useful the internet would be. Granted, it busted but many companies survived it and some are now the biggest companies in the world.

> That was why it was not mainstream for a long time until it took off.

Internet growth has been incredibly fast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage

I can see some utility in blockchains. However, my main point is that the economics of them make them terrible for 99.99% of problems.

Internet: 10 orders of magnitude faster/cheaper communication than before.

blockchains: 10 orders of magnitude more COSTLY.

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cocktailpeanuts 3051 days ago
> I can see some utility in blockchains. However, my main point is that the economics of them make them terrible for 99.99% of problems.

Then we're talking about different things. My comment was specifically in response to "Internet was a solution searching for a problem".

Your point actually supports my comment because like you said it's terrible for 99.99% of problems, which means it may be great for 0.01%, which means it's a solution that's solving only a small problem for now, and looking for more problems.

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