That is curious, because with every other exciting new technology, having gobs of money thrown at it generally helps it get realized.
Makes you wonder if there's something more fundamentally wrong about the assumptions going into it.
Makes you wonder if there's something more fundamentally wrong about the assumptions going into it.
Gobs of money transformed the Internet from an engine of open communication and information sharing to an engine of privacy invasion, mass manipulation, and disinformation.
The web was created at CERN and TCP/IP was created by DARPA long before the dot.com bubble and for significantly less money. The people who got rich during and after the dot.com bubble did so not by greatly improving on these technologies but by using them to commoditize human beings and monetize peoples' data. The biggest growth industry on the Internet today is the leveraging of that data toward active deception and con artistry.
I'm speaking of the Internet as most people experience it. You can still of course use the pipes for productive things, but the bulk of the user-facing Internet is now a giant surveillance and manipulation machine targeted at the average user.
Blockchain technology is unproven for use cases beyond speculation or fraudulent/illegal activity.
They are a pretty simple alternative solution to a longstanding societal need. But one that needs critical mass and low volatility to succeed (arguably).
When you pay a company, they can use that money directly.
When you buy some coins, the developers/the company generally do not benefit directly. Some developers don't even have stake in the coins they create to avoid conflict of interest.
Who profit then? People who already have some of those coins, because you drive up the valuation, and they can resell their coin for higher. Those people can be scammers (pump & dump scheme), cryptocurrencies, your average joe, or the devs, if they got some. You could say, apart from the last category, that they add nothing of value.
Some cryptocurrencies try to have a part of the generated currency pay toward development effort, but that's not the standard.