[Jimmc414]

“The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law' becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s” - Paul Krugman 1998

[Avshalom]

While that sounds ridiculous. I would point out that between about 2000-2009 was the age of the phpbb and weblog. It wasn't until the 2008 financial crisis and a decade of zirp, a decade of "unicorn" companies losing a billion a year for a decade, that "the internet" as a financial concern was anything more craigslists, ebay, google-adwords and a selection of e-catalogs.

[pcwalton]

Out of curiosity, I did a search through HN from a few years ago, and, just as I expected, people were bringing out that quote to argue against the cryptocurrency skeptics. Of course, the cryptocurrency skeptics were right all along.

Anyway, the original article is probably correct, but it's missing the whole story. Very likely, the future AI panic will be followed by a gradual recovery to a sustainable level of investment, as we as an industry learn what generative AI is actually good at and what it's bad at. In other words, the article is consistent with the upcoming "trough of disillusionment" part of the Gartner hype cycle around generative AI. But the trough of disillusionment won't last forever, and I certainly think that generative AI has its uses (for example, automatically moderating the most vile content so that human moderators aren't at risk for PTSD).

[Veedrac]

Given Bitcoin is at an all-time high, Ethereum is close, and if one held on to Bitcoin bought in most of 2019 they'd be up 10x, it seems not that obvious to me that the crypto skeptics were more correct than the crypto believers. Certainly not so much more right that the crypto believers should act as some cautionary tale.

[littlestymaar]

Pumped up bitcoin “market cap” doesn't mean much if you compare it to the prophecy of the crypto enthusiasts (blockchain ubiquitous for payment => nope, blockchain used for distributed computation => nope, blockchain used to replace lots of legacy tech => nope, blockchain used to guarantee integrity of real world stuff => nope).

So the only thing that actually works is the Ponzi thing, which, thanks to Tether is still running well.

[cactusplant7374]

> blockchain used for distributed computation

https://rendernetwork.com/

I think they are live but I haven't followed them recently.

[htss2013]

I'm baffled by how someone can say crypto is a scam in 2024, at least for Bitcoin. But I'm grateful that it is taking many people so long to adjust to the new reality. Their stubborn skepticism is keeping the early(ish) adopter window of opportunity open way longer than I would've imagined.

[cactusplant7374]

We still haven't seen the boom in utility tokens yet. We've seen the boom in Bitcoin, L1s, and L2s. But there are a lot of developers exploring product/market fit for DApps.

[latexr]

What’s your point? One person made a wrong prediction in the past, thus an different person commenting on an unrelated subject is also wrong?

What if instead of that quote you had posted one of a correct prediction, such as a claim that NFTs were a fad? Would that then mean that this article is right?