Comment by cocktailpeanuts | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cocktailpeanuts | Hacker News Reader

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cocktailpeanuts

It's easy to just dismiss saying "that's not happening with blockchain", a baby can say that too.

But I have no idea what he's talking about when he says "And without exception, I observed that they were initially loaded in the back door by geeks, without asking permission, because they got shit done and helped people with their jobs."

Is he saying Bitcoin is not being developed by geeks?

Is he saying Bitcoin is not "helping people get shit done and helping people with their jobs"?

There are valid criticisms, and there are really baseless rants like this. Just because you're "old" doesn't mean you know the future from your past experience. Tons of talented old people (and younger people too) with tons of experience never realized the potential of the Internet when it first came out.

Oh, and when Internet first came out, it never was meant to "get shit done and help people with their jobs", for a long time. It was a fringe culture. If he's as experienced as he claims to be, he should know better.

I understood his point to be that the history of successful innovative techs is that they were built in from the ground up by people utilising something because it was better at a job. E.g. linux for servers, the internet (and it's ongoing growth as an app platform), and so on. Blockchains, on the other hand, have become yet another marketer buzzword like Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Local, Social, and so on. Not to say that these things don't solve problems, but they're picked up as an over-hyped buzzword and forced into many many applications that they just don't belong in. Blockchains are helpful in peer-to-peer consensus, that's basically it. They won't work for real-world contracts (no-one is ever going to turn their house or car deed into a cryptographic token, or honour such a token) or a few other cheesy applications they seem to be getting forced into. It's just marketers who don't understand technology selling words they don't understand to other marketers who don't understand technology.

What was Internet good for when it first came out? Like I said it was nothing more than a novelty fringe culture at best for a long time before it reached critical mass.

It's not like I'm working on some bitcoin business or anything but I am offended that you think Bitcoin is the same type of hype as "AI, IoT, etc.". Trust me I'm the biggest hater of the AI hype in 2016-2017 (driven by VCs and BigCos for their own interest). The reason I know these are hypes is because most technical people who actually have been working in these fields know exactly what's possible and what's not, but the non-technical VCs and marketers are driving the "market" (that doesn't exist) thinking that something groundbreaking has suddenly happened. The fact is: nothing groundbreaking has happened. The technology is getting better for sure, but compared to bitcoin these are nothing new.

Bitcoin is actually something new and a novel piece of technology, which is different from all the other marketing hypewords you compared it with. At this point I think the chances are 50/50 that it will succeed, but really nobody knows what will happen. Anyone claiming to know the future is being arrogant.

I think you misunderstand my point - I'm not talking about bitcoin hype. I'm actually incredibly impressed by the innovation that bitcoin represents. I don't think it's found its niche yet (aside from the obvious black market applications and pointless financial speculation), but it's a real innovation. I'm talking about "X on the blockchain" type startups, e.g. some of the companies on this list: https://medium.com/the-intrepid-review/the-top-10-blockchain.... Many of these things are perfectly possible without using blockchains (and some are just egregious users of other buzzwords) but are more likely to get VC investment because they use over-hyped technologies arbitrarily.

Serious question: what is block chain being used for besides trading crypto currency? Like, not building infrastructure that may be useful, for things in the future, not speculative value but stuff that's identifyably useful in and of itself today?

I don't follow coins closely anymore but the main one I saw was namecoin, which hasn't yet seen much use.

I rent cars, pay for groceries, and basically do everything else with Bitcoin. I have to use card gateways like Bitwala for that, but it works for me perfectly. My debit card can be usually loaded with Bitcoin within 10-15 minutes (it is especially helpful as I live in 2 countries and travel a lot; bank transfers take much more time).

There are many companies now where you can get your salary paid in Bitcoin. In fact, it is so infinitely more convenient, I think that only the forces of mental inertia hold this approach from immediate universal adoption.

Not really. High fluctuation of bitcoin's value is the real killer when most expenses will need to be paid in a not-bitcoin currency.

Worked for me for the last year.

One year is an awfully short time for a currency.

My credit card does all of that and they actually reward me for using them, so given the choice when paying for something I will choose a credit card 100% of the time.

Right, so do I. The only problem is that I can't cover my credit card with Bitcoin, and I earn some part of my revenue with it.

They reward you by charging the merchant more. You realise that right?

Of course, that's what's so great about it. I don't pay a thing!

There are some interesting use cases around supply chain and provenance. Like Tim, I'm skeptical. It's probably overhyped--mostly because if cryptocurrencies. But I think there's at least the potential for significant applications for transactions among decentralized entities that don't fully trust each other.

I don't think this is a baseless rant - it's an accurate observation that the most disruptive technologies don't get adopted from the top-down. It's the developers on front line who learn about it and implement.

Blockchain is at place right now where managers and marketers are asking "What can blockchain do for us". But where are the examples of "Big company X implemented blockchain to solve problem Y?" maybe it's too soon for those.

Yes maybe that's what this guy looked at and made the conclusion on.

But these "top down" approaches never work. That's how it played out with Internet vs Intranet. When the Internet was first gaining traction all the bigcos thought the money was in Intranet because that was more "monetizable". MS went down that route and never recovered.

I also used to be skeptical about all these VCs jumping into Bitcoin ecosystem, but now it's 2017 and if you look around, they kind of gave up on investing in "companies", and are instead trying to buy up the currencies themselves, which means everyone's on level playing ground, which is exactly what happened with the Internet.

I am more annoyed at these marketer types who jump into Bitcoin than anyone, but I don't think these people will end up winning because they have no substance.

Bad comparison. What is an Internet if not a way to link Intranets reliably? That is how it came to life...

I don't think he is talking specifically about Bitcoin, but "the blockchain of diamonds" type of startups that used to be hyped up on HN a year or so ago.

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