[mmcnl]

I understand it's an alternative, but if you can't explain why it's a better alternative, than it's just making simple things complex. You argue that people who ask for practical use cases don't understand because "they can't wrap their heads around it". I'd argue exactly the opposite: you're in too deep to understand that the burden of proof is on you (or anyone else in crypto), not on everyone else, and you can't wrap your around the fact that everything related to finance is lubricant for life. How is crypto better lubricant than the current financial system? That's a very valid question, and if takes your more than two sentences and all kinds of words that no one outside of crypto understands, I'm afraid you don't have an answer at all.

[mudrockbestgirl]

> How is crypto better lubricant than the current financial system?

That's easier to answer, but it's not what's usually asked. The OP asked "what's the use case of crypto" which is kind of like asking "what is the use case of financial instruments" and that's pretty difficult to explain to someone who has zero background in finance.

So why is a financial ecosystem based on crypto better? It's permissionless and makes the same services globally accessible to anyone in the world. It can to move and evolve faster because everything comes with open composable APIs allowing developers to implement new ideas quickly. It can be significantly cheaper due to eliminating middleman, which is already happening with AMMs that have liquidity and volume comparable to centralized counterparts. It's transparent in that you can see the current state of the market (e.g. collateralization ratios) and protect yourself accordingly. And it can protect you from bad centralized actors that manipulate monetary policy for their own benefit.

These are pretty convincing pros for me. Of course they also come with cons. If anyone can create financial instruments by copying & pasting a token template you'll end up with tons of scams. If you need distributed consensus to make decisions things move more slowly. For some people the cons will outweigh the pros. But there aren't many "consumer use cases" like Twitter on a blockchain that are easy to explain because it's fundamentally a financial infrastructure layer.

[pyinstallwoes]

All of those things are contingent on perfect scenarios. As in, bug free contracts; which not to even mention the human willful engineering part of manipulating trust. Many people confuse permission and trust.

The things you outline are optimistic visions for what cryptocurrencies can offer as an alternative to the "root" financial system; however it is certainly not better in every case, and only maybe better in some very specific cases. Perhaps this will change overtime, but one thing I know for sure.... every piece of software ever written and every piece of hardware ever built has bugs and has been hacked. The human is even weaker to exploitation, so... without middle-men to act as a safety net, lawlessness and ill incentive can run rampant. Unfortunately the human condition optimizes for this opportunity if it shows itself.

You do admit there are cons, and I appreciate that. I think anyone who has some technical know-how should do what they can to at least point out any dogma. Dogma has clearly ruined a lot of the cool things about the technology.

[lilsoso]

You've essentially responded with the statement that all software has bugs: "every piece of software ever written and every piece of hardware ever built has bugs and has been hacked".

The person you're responding to provided a number of cogent points. To take the bad faith interpretation of your argument we'd never use computers or online banking.

[pyinstallwoes]

They break. Humans fix it. Nobody can fix broken hacked contracts and act as intermediaries to solve issue. 3 party responsibility is key for stability.