What you're missing is something can be criticized even if it fulfills some needs. Drugs, gambling, crimes all satisfy some people's needs but most people have negative view on them.
> People are salty they work in tech and don't understand bitcoin.
i smell sour grapes from those people. They saw bitcoin very early on, and gave it the dismissal way back in 2008/9. That missed "opportunity" continues to bias them into thinking that their initial assessment must still be correct (for dismissing it early), otherwise they'd have to admit their dismissal as being hugely mistaken.
Sure as long as you realize its simply an opinion and not act like it's a fact that it's bad. Fundamentally it feels like every time these threads open up on HN 70% of it is bad faith, repeat arguments.
Don't like Bitcoin's Proof of work properties, check out Ethereum. Don't think that everything needs to be on one central ledger? Check out Polkadot. It feels like so many commenters here put their heads in the sand about an entire class of technology because they're caught up in their opinion as fact.
An opinion backed by mainstream economic consensus but, yes an opinion. I do not need to utilize heterodox models to justify why a hyper deflationary monetary system is a bad idea. I can base this opinion off economic fundamentals and data points showing the negative impacts such a system would have. But you probably understand this, and have justifications for why the positives outweigh the negatives. I don’t reach that opinion and we likely won’t see eye to eye on that point. You probably made this account specifically to push back on the mainstream opinions of cryptocurrencies.
> Don't like Bitcoin's Proof of work properties, check out Ethereum.
Ethereum's move to a Proof-of-Stake system was the best thing to happen to the cryptocurrency world, from an ecological point of view; however, that does not change anything about Bitcoin's energy consumption.
Someone who objects to Bitcoin due to its excessive energy use will not stop disliking Bitcoin just because an unrelated cryptocurrency became better.
I object to Bitcoin on the fact that governments regulate money, so centralization is guaranteed. Wasting any effort on fake decentralization is objectively inferior because it adds to the cost with no benefit.
I understand it perfectly and loathe it, not for the reasons people typically do, but because what it pretends to be able to do it cannot, and actually does the opposite of.
First, re-read the comment you're replying to. They weren't talking about Bitcoin being used for drugs, they compared Bitcoin to drugs and crime, as the OP said all it needs to do is fulfill a need.
Second, the "you just don't understand it" argument is as old as Bitcoin itself. It's tiring. It's not new, it's not crazy complex...it's understood. It's just useless and ripe with scams.
Drugs and gambling do not hurt others. Throwing “crimes” in makes your reasoning weak. Where are you getting your data on the first two? I’m not sure you’re correct.
Please spend like 30 seconds of analytical thinking trying to poke holes in this. It's remarkably easy to disprove. The challenge is what if anything we choose to do about the harms that they can cause.
Neither drugs nor gambling, in and of itself, harms anyone but the individual doing it.
However, said individual could harm others in the persuit of drugs and gambling when their own income or savings are unable to satisfy their own cravings. But how is that any different from any other forms of harm from crime conducted for other reasons?
If you ever need an example of how drugs genuinely ruin things on a large scale read absolutely anything about the opium wars.
I do contend that "ruining families" is not a thing we should base policy on because it implies both a crazy amount of government intrusion into individual lives and because it imposes rules on everyone to make the nuclear family work.
I call bs on the "drug" scapegoat. People are salty they work in tech and don't understand bitcoin.