Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 216 posts

Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#51

Post by autokad »

atsjie wrote: post #18

A solidity developer I spoke to a couple of times told me much the same as this article. He believed in the blockchain as a concept; but its current overall benefit to human society is meagre (and some might argue destructive). This represents a first awkward phase for everyone. We'll definitely see blockchain become dominant in a some or multiple fields of business. When? Perhaps not for 20 years. Internet as we kno…

agree. I seen the same comparison between the internet and AI/Data science/ML. a big bubble, everyone is 'doing it' but most are doing it wrong, and then a big collapse. When the smoke clears, the ones that 'got it right' are the big future titans, and the whole sector grows again.

Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#52

Post by lmm »

adamnemecek wrote: post #10
ttul wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, during the late 1990s, people tried to make an internet version of EVERYTHING, even when it made zero sense. That’s where we are with blockchain today.

Right. That’s how technology works. But internet right now is undeniable. Block chain will be the same.

The hype reminds me more of Second Life. People put everything on Second Life, but no-one could ever say quite what it was for. It never "crashed" as such, it just gradually faded away.

Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#53

Post by Cyberdog »

etr-strike wrote: post #41
adamnemecek wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, block chain will do the same. The ongoing revolution is the fight against ruling classes, same as over the last 5000 years. Not really true that it depends on the government. And even if it is, you only need like one government supporting it for it to be valuable. Why couldn’t your argument be used to say the internet won’t work?

You can’t have a blockchain without a Bitcoin. The two are inseparable. Every blockchain needs a token reward which has monetary value to secure it.

That doesn't seem to me like a fundamental law. Certainly with "internal blockchains" or other cases where at least a majority of the operators are trusted, mining and tokens are completely unnecessary.

Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#54

Post by wallacoloo »

provost wrote: post #2

Hopefully this thread will be different than all the others. Someone is likely to appear here with a counterargument, which I'm looking forward to reading. However, in addition to any counterarguments, please describe why standard tech and/or a 3rd_party is insufficient for your proposed use-cases. This is HackerNews after all, and we desire the deeply technical discussion and context, not propaganda.

It's hard to write a good counterargument to this. The article goes in so many directions that it could never cover all his points.

Any counterargument I can construct boils down to a difference of opinion & values. The author trusts his bank and his government to (a) handle his money in the way that he thinks is responsible and (b) handle disputes in a way that benefits him. On the other hand, I trust myself to handle my money responsibly, and I view my government as a great uncertainty because I don't understand the limits of their power (in the least nefarious, but relevant point, who can predict by how much my government will increase the monetary supply and deflate my purchasing power over the next decades? More nefarious, if I dissent, government can trivially lock most of my digital assets that aren't cryptocurrencies - e.g. bank account or investment funds).

Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#55

Post by kindfellow92 »

mutteraloo wrote: post #42
ThomPete wrote: post #29

People always overestimate the short term and underestimate the long term. Go to any country perhaps with the exception of Estonia and you will see that digitalization was supposed to change governments for the better. Instead they mostly have created very sporadic successes but a lot of failed implementation sometimes even making it worse. Yet there is no doubt that in the long run things are changing for the better…

So 10-15 more years? In the meantime we can use blockchain/bitcoin to scam money from grandmas, retired folks, and millenials. So they can hate us technologists even more. Oh, and cause global warming and destroy the planet. That way humans will have to come up with a non-government backed currency.

I’m worth 13 million dollars because of crypto and I’ve diversified half... tell me more about how Bitcoin is a scam. :)

Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#56

Post by mutteraloo »

kindfellow92 wrote: post #55
mutteraloo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So 10-15 more years? In the meantime we can use blockchain/bitcoin to scam money from grandmas, retired folks, and millenials. So they can hate us technologists even more. Oh, and cause global warming and destroy the planet. That way humans will have to come up with a non-government backed currency.

I’m worth 13 million dollars because of crypto and I’ve diversified half... tell me more about how Bitcoin is a scam. :)

I'm worth way more than 13 million, and you will most likely lose your million because you can't read :)

Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#57

Post by 4ndrewl »

pedalpete wrote: post #19

This reminds me of the naysayers from the early internet, and I think we can look at each stage of the internet's growth with these same glasses. 1) email: it will never replace the post-office. You can only send text. Oh, ok, they've added images now, well, its' too slow for most people to download them, and now I've got all this spam. We use it in our company, but it isn't really for consumers. Oh, then hotmail...…

Be careful of Survival Bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#58

Post by etr-strike »

Cyberdog wrote: post #53
etr-strike wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t have a blockchain without a Bitcoin. The two are inseparable. Every blockchain needs a token reward which has monetary value to secure it.

That doesn't seem to me like a fundamental law. Certainly with "internal blockchains" or other cases where at least a majority of the operators are trusted, mining and tokens are completely unnecessary.

A blockchain is a decentralized trustless ledger. If the operators are trusted, you can just use a database. It’s much more efficient. It’s pretty clear from the comment that you don’t understand Bitcoin or why, when people say “we like blockchain but not bitcoin”, that they’re talking nonsense.

Re: Ten years in, nobody has come up with a use for blockchain

#60

Post by richardwhiuk »

wallacoloo wrote: post #54
provost wrote: post #2

Hopefully this thread will be different than all the others. Someone is likely to appear here with a counterargument, which I'm looking forward to reading. However, in addition to any counterarguments, please describe why standard tech and/or a 3rd_party is insufficient for your proposed use-cases. This is HackerNews after all, and we desire the deeply technical discussion and context, not propaganda.

It's hard to write a good counterargument to this. The article goes in so many directions that it could never cover all his points. Any counterargument I can construct boils down to a difference of opinion & values. The author trusts his bank and his government to (a) handle his money in the way that he thinks is responsible and (b) handle disputes in a way that benefits him . On the other hand, I trust myself to han…

Sure they can - put you in prison with no internet access.
Post reply on HN