[rohamg]

Asking "what is blockchain good for other than cryptocurrencies" is like asking "what is internet good for other than websites" pre-broadband

Blockchain TODAY is the backbone for a $200B financial system that lets you store or transfer billions of dollars worth of value within minutes for cents in transaction fees, completely peer-to-peer with no middle men

Scalable blockchains will generalize this same benefit to let developers add crypto into any kind of application (just like we had web-apps, we'll have crypto-apps):

– Instant global p2p payments

– Completely transparent, efficient marketplaces / clearinghouses with no switching costs

– Ability for users to own their own data and assets, removing liability for platform operators but also eliminating lock-in

– Open source, open state, serverless code that runs directly on-chain and thus can be built on with no platform risk (google "blockchain composability")

– Software that can be governed / controlled by the users that have stake in it

[acdha]

> Asking "what is blockchain good for other than cryptocurrencies" is like asking "what is internet good for other than websites" pre-broadband

You mean, email and group messaging, file transfer, reference lookups, access to remote servers and other things which people were paying for and generating real business value from?

There were plenty of companies which were generating value significantly prior to broadband becoming universal and that was despite the much higher barriers to entry (computers were far more expensive, phone charges were a major barrier for non-rich people).

The blockchain comparison isn’t valid either because despite a much longer period of time before showing positive results there isn’t much real-world impact: the paper value may look high, almost all of that is within the system — the number of outside businesses which would have problems if it disappeared is close to zero, and a large fraction of the people “using” it are using a middleman service rather than directly participating.

[rohamg]

i would argue what blockchain has given us today with permissionless open finance, decentralized organizations / voting, NFTs / digital art, etc. is plenty of early indications of value. also the fact that the token business model exists is precisely the reason there's less of a traditional "ARR" mindset in the tools and apps.

the criticism isn't entirely invalid: the blockchain space has a lot of proving to do – there's a lot more work ahead than behind

[acdha]

Okay, so where’s an example of that providing value for anyone outside of the blockchain field? None of those are new activities so it should be easy to find areas where a blockchain reduces cost or adds value in comparison.

[rohamg]

i posted below about big pharma using blockchain to share private data as an example, as another: most of the gamers / digital art enthusiasts are newcomers to the "blockchain field" and only in it bc of the value they derive from the scarcity / durability and therefore tradability of these items

[rohamg]

That said there are many examples of blockchain being useful in smaller settings, e.g.:

> "Last June, 10 of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies – including Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline – announced they would pool data for an AI-based search for new antibiotics, which are urgently needed as antibiotic-resistant bacteria have proliferated across the world, threatening the growth of untreatable disease. > That historic agreement was made possible by the development of a secure, blockchain-based system that allows an algorithm to search rival companies’ data with full traceability – but without revealing commercial secrets to competitors. The advantage of using blockchain is that companies can trust the code rather than their partners." [1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/02/corona...

[louwrentius]

Interesting, but not enough information to really understand the context and to determine if that could have been done with regular tech.