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Comment by kwhitefoot | Hacker News Reader

Why does this need a blockchain? Fon/BT has been sharing residential WiFi for years without blockchain.

> Why does this need a blockchain? Fon/BT has been sharing residential WiFi for years without blockchain

The difference is, as per the article, that the Japanese operator wants to re-imburse the WiFi hotspot subscriber. Something which is very much alien to BT's way of thinking.

Of course, whether blockchain is the right way do implement that aspect is a different question, and in terms of implementation I would agree that blockchain is un-necessary. But you know, blockchain bandwagon .....

I really thought we all got off the blockchain bandwagon.

So did I, so did I ... ;(

I still have memories of people like lawyers desperately asking me how they could use blockchain in their practice.

Chuck could have used the blockchain to store the Rosella Drive address so it couldn't be tampered with. (This is only half a joke.)

We did. Anything with blockchain in it is a scam. This year the bandwagon should be AI.

Japan's lagging behind in technology hypes quite a lot.

I suppose for solving the chicken-egg (provider-subscriber) problem, being able to pre-sell the token at a discount or because people believe it will blow up and be a popular way of accessing the internet and highly in demand, it may irrationally be easier to convince the average person to subscribe to your centralised 'blockchain' than to your.. database. A ponzi's sexier than a pre-order.

> I would agree that blockchain is un-necessary.

Blockchain is an easier buzzword to convey than 'Distributed ledger'. Distributed ledgers long predate BTC, but it is one of the things that make a 'blockchain', a 'blockchain'.

They don't require a system with it's own set of tokenomics, decentralization, Proof of work... it will be a centralized distributed ledger for managment and visibility of the network; i.g. a blockchain.

the 'blockchain'

Because this idea is almost 20 years old, but adding "with BLOCKCHAIN" to the pitch deck gets you express entry into the unicorn club

I'm not sure if blockchain is the solution to the problem, but my problem is I want to make sure it is clear that if somebody else is using my residential wifi the traffic can be clearly associated to that user in case they do something in the grey/illegal area.

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