It's interesting to me that crypto is mostly the only place in tech where this (this is all a waste) is a widely accepted idea.
As someone else has correctly mentioned, ads (and tracking), are sadly the lifeblood of a lot of tech action and are arguably just as (if not more) exploitative. It's just slower and more subtle.
As for crypto itself, I get why it's not an attractive idea, and yes -- a very good bit of it is scam-city, but I'm compelled to admit that the cryptobros are generally correct when they describe the state of the dollar today -- even if their proposed solutions often leave much to be desired.
Is it though? 1% of the time an ad helps me discover an interesting product I wasn't aware of. That's still better than the value crypto has added to my life.
About 1% of the time I pay for something, I use crypto. That's better than the value ads have added to my life (which is negative).
Neither of our anecdotes cancel the other out. People can value different things, and that's ok! I'm amazed people spend their time telling others what they should and shouldn't value. I don't watch football and it has no value to me, but I don't go around telling people they should stop watching it too. If humanity were less self-centered and more empathetic, we'd approach everything this way, including football, ads, and crypto.
Ever tried to work for multiple countries with multiple banking systems? Total nightmare. When I was in England invoicing a US client required me to have a US bank account for them to pay (I ended up having to use an umbrella corp to make the payments easier as they had existing infra for a cut). Now I'm in the US when I invoice European clients payments take ages (2-3 days), when I invoice UK companies they tend to want to pay local bank accounts, and when I invoice Asia it's almost always a nightmare. USDC is instant, I can withdraw to my account in minutes, and the fee is lower. I know remittance payments from places like US to Nepal is far easier than trying with normal banking options. Even Wise still takes days instead of minutes for some transactions.
> I know remittance payments from places like US to Nepal is far easier than trying with normal banking options.
Okay, but the Nepal client still has to remit payment/receive payment with some source in their traditional payment system, so this doesn't really solve the issue unless they decide to operate all in USDC.
It's not a terrible burden coming from the US, but you've likewise offloaded the problem of having a US bank account onto me, where I now have to transfer my USD into USDC to pay you. It's not hard because I already have a Coinbase account, but it would take a few days for added funds to be released so I can send them to you. It's certainly not easier than something like Zelle.
Ultimately, nations aren't going to give up control of their money systems: China, for example, might use blockchains for a digital Yuan, but you can bet they will be holding the validator keys. Problems bridging between blockchains are as bad, if not worse, than problems bridging between traditional financial systems.
Point is, you're seeing a localized benefit from USDC because you've offloaded the problem of bridging between systems onto your clients, but that doesn't fundamentally fix that there are bridging problems. And even if every system moves onto blockchains in the future, that won't solve those bridging problems--in fact, it will almost certainly make them worse in the short run.
Ads impose a cost on everybody who sees them. People see thousands of ads per day, which to my mind is the psychological equivalent of breathing car exhaust and drinking lead-poisoned water. Crypto doesn't have nearly the reach, though I agree it's similar (on a smaller scale) in its waste of talent and its enrichment of careless, greedy, unscrupulous people.
Assuming that 1% is even true (I'd say that's an overestimate), the other 99% of the time, ads are distracting, misleading, and manipulative, all in ways that are bad for your mental health because they make you feel like you're not safe enough, your life isn't interesting enough, you don't have enough, etc. Even if, like me, you're fastidious about unsubscribing from ads and blocking ads, advertisers are adept at shoving their shite in front of you in violation of your consent.
Cryptocurrencies are pretty bad, but at least if you ignore them, they don't find you and directly harm you.
I think I have to reluctantly agree. At least you can mostly just ignore “crypto” (unless you’ve been in the market for high-end graphic cards I guess), which is more difficult to do for ads. Ads also cause the engagement maximization dynamics of social platforms, dynamics which arguably have turned out to be a huge societal net negative.
But you can’t ignore its effects, such as the environmental impact. If cryptocurrencies had zero effect on the people who don’t use them, there wouldn’t be such a large opposition.
You are right, but I believe that ads are overall still much worse in their negative effects. It also wouldn’t surprise me if ad tech consumes more energy worldwide in browsers than bitcoin mining does.
Debatable, but also a false dichotomy. Being punched in the arm is better than being punched in the nose, but that doesn’t mean any of them is positive or should be welcomed.
Most blockchains aren't highly used. I agree it's good we're moving off of that, but until Bitcoin fixes its act, it's still a shockingly awful waste of resources.
I don't know. Market makers for stocks at least have real utility. If I own 10,000 shares of $some_actual_company and want to sell it to buy a house, it's good that there's someone who's constantly pricing the stock.
In small European stock exchanges without HFT actors, buy/sell spreads on individual stocks can get large and daily volume very small, so you need to do more planning around any trade that's larger than "retail nickles". This is not great for attracting investors to these stocks, even if the companies are worthy.
But in crypto, there's no underlying value. There are no worthy companies who deserve more investor attention, no tokens that should be in anyone's long-term portfolio for any reason but FOMO. It's a 24/7 nothingburger outlet.
>There's no underlying value. It's a 24/7 nothingburger outlet.
That's not really true. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, and speculation may be driving most of price, but these are real tech products. Ethereum, Cardano, Avalanche, Solana are decentralized computing platforms, with utility. Uniswap, Aave are exchange platforms, that allow people to swap currency real time.
They may not be VMWare, Rackspace, JPMorgan Western Union or Moneygram, but they are real companies, with real products, that offer real services.
As of 2021, Allianz, Deutsche Telekom, Intel and Cisco are four stocks where investors that bought at the Dotcom Bubble peak never broke even. Maybe Ethereum, Cardano, Avalanche, Solana are far above their actual potential value, but it doesnt mean they are worth 0.
> That's not really true. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, and speculation may be driving most of price, but these are real tech products. Ethereum, Cardano, Avalanche, Solana are decentralized computing platforms, with utility. Uniswap, Aave are exchange platforms, that allow people to swap currency real time.
That is still speculation and most of the existing financial system can do payments (the supposed original use case) already.
Take a look at UPI, Pix, etc. A safer, faster and better future of payments is already being built and used to the tune of hundreds of millions of real people. And it is not a complete pyramid scheme.
That cannot be said for crypto, nobody is using it for anything other than speculation, crime and ransomware.
As someone else has correctly mentioned, ads (and tracking), are sadly the lifeblood of a lot of tech action and are arguably just as (if not more) exploitative. It's just slower and more subtle.
As for crypto itself, I get why it's not an attractive idea, and yes -- a very good bit of it is scam-city, but I'm compelled to admit that the cryptobros are generally correct when they describe the state of the dollar today -- even if their proposed solutions often leave much to be desired.