[ketralnis]

That is an extraordinary claim. Network protocols and currencies went some 60 years being unrelated to each other and I see no reason to think they won't continue right along that way after this current set of grifters finds a new set of marks

[tshaddox]

I've heard it argued that a huge flaw of the big protocols like HTTP is that they chose to be entirely unopinionated about payments. Apparently standards bodies did discuss standards for microtransactions, for example W3C's abandoned efforts: https://www.w3.org/ECommerce/Micropayments/

[giantrobot]

When HTTP was first developed there was literally no available mechanism for micro-transactions. If HTTP had been opinionated about micro-transactions it would have been stuck with Beenz [0] or Flooz [1].

Personally I don't want an application layer protocol, especially a global standard, to be opinionated about payment methods.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beenz.com

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flooz.com

[SkyMarshal]

Being opinionated about payments is not the same thing as building a speculative digital currency into your protocol.

[max_]

> Network protocols and currencies went some 60 years being unrelated to each other and I see no reason to think they won't continue right along that way after this current set of grifters finds a new set of marks.

The speculation was being done on wall street in form startups like Juniper, Cisco stock. The 'Token' of that time is the stock.