I appreciate your response and I think you make a lot of sense. However, it sounds to me like you trust governments a lot more than I do. I think the first priority of politicians and governments is to stay in power, and everything else, including social good, is an afterthought. I'm not an anarchist, and I do think that having some government is good, but I appreciate that there is now some (potential) competition to sovereign currencies because I think governments are not managing their currencies well and that affects their people.
I have an issue being an American and USD being able to be printed almost endlessly. Also, hopefully The Fed will eventually raise rates again, but we won't know until that actually happens, and until then, high inflation, good stock performance, and basically zero interest on savings accounts (which I think is a problem).
I also think that crypto pushes those slow to change to innovate to keep up. But, as you point out, other parts of the world are ahead of traditional banking vs the US, so that has the same effect, but I think coming at it from all sides, forcing static industries to change, is a good thing.
I think it's also worth taking note of how the US changed it's tune on creating a CBDC, I assume because China is way ahead in that regard. Again, innovation is forcing those slower to change, to change. Speaking of that, do you think if China's CBDC takes off, that traditional finance will have a chance competing? Something like that could become the new world reserve currency and other countries have to keep up their innovation so that they can compete with that.
Some other specific responses:
> This is because the crypto community by and large also uses it like an investment asset, and not a currency.
I don't have an issue with this, but anyway, I think it's because the government wants a tax cut. They could make it a currency / legal tender. Some countries have (El Salvador). It looks like more South American countries are soon to follow (Panama could be next [1]). I think this is also an example of how this technology is not going away anytime soon.
> This is to boost spending into the economy, and not as a result of currency being fiat.
This is still an example that the existing system has some problems.
> The only people who worry about money vs inflation are wealthy people.
Well, I'm curious to know how folks on HN (some of whom are wealthy, startup founders, etc.), are thinking about problems like this.
> This is really wasteful. I’d much rather investments that support real-life industries, local entrepreneurship, or even just plain index funds that support the entire market.
Crypto does support entrepreneurship and it creates jobs (locally and globally). New platforms are being created on it. I don't think everything should always stay the same and I don't think traditional financial systems should be the only option. Let's iterate and innovate.
> But again, it’s a social problem, not one that tech like crypto will ever solve.
Again, I don't trust that governments actually care enough or will actually do that much to change existing structures. Something like crypto has the potential to force them to change. Also, there will at least be a wealth distribution to crypto investors, and the barrier to entry is much lower than traditional markets (in part because it's new, but also in part because it's a global technology that is not tied to any government).
[1] https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/panama-unveils-bill-to...