Topic: [2014-06-20] vox: Is Bitcoin a joke? People thought that about the internet too. (Read 1022 times)
July 01, 2014, 06:12:56 PM
It will be great to be in the right on this one. I didn't understand the internet and didn't use it until 1998 or so. Those that understood it early on made a lot of money before the late arrivals created the bubble.
July 01, 2014, 05:16:27 PM
Hell...they said that about 8-tracks too!
*Dont go drawing any conclusions regarding my age now
*Dont go drawing any conclusions regarding my age now
July 01, 2014, 01:24:11 PM
Thats what they said about cellphones too 
Yep. And just like color TV, it's a fad. 
Some of my favorite predictions from the "experts". Krugman and the Nobel committee should be on this list (Krugman for his economics, and now predictions about the Internet and bitcoin):
Quote
[W]hen the Paris Exhibition closes electric light will close with it and no more be heard of.
- Erasmus Wilson (1878) Professor at Oxford University
This `telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a practical form of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.
- Western Union internal memo, 1878
Well informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value.
- Editorial in the Boston Post (1865)
Radio has no future.
- Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), British mathematician and physicist, ca. 1897.
To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth--all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances.
- Lee deForest (1873-1961) (American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube.) Feb 25, 1957.
There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.
- Kenneth Olsen, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.
...
- Erasmus Wilson (1878) Professor at Oxford University
This `telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a practical form of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.
- Western Union internal memo, 1878
Well informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value.
- Editorial in the Boston Post (1865)
Radio has no future.
- Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), British mathematician and physicist, ca. 1897.
To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth--all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances.
- Lee deForest (1873-1961) (American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube.) Feb 25, 1957.
There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.
- Kenneth Olsen, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.
...
July 01, 2014, 12:16:42 PM
Thats what they said about cellphones too
Yep. And just like color TV, it's a fad. July 01, 2014, 12:13:47 PM
Thats what they said about cellphones too
July 01, 2014, 09:37:10 AM
I've said it before but i'll say it again: i think bitcoin has the potential to become our generations internet. If it's not bitcoin i'm sure it'll be something based on bitcoin tech.
June 30, 2014, 05:53:31 PM
Is Bitcoin a joke? People thought that about the internet too.
Paul Krugman said it too.
June 30, 2014, 03:55:23 PM
Lot of effort into BTC!
Lot of effort into internet too!
No joke about BTC when FBI is involved too
Something big is coming, believe me!
BR
Gondel
Lot of effort into internet too!
No joke about BTC when FBI is involved too
Something big is coming, believe me!
BR
Gondel
June 30, 2014, 02:01:21 PM
He is correct.
I registered a lot of domains in 1993 and 1994 and people just didn't get that the internet was going to be more than a fad - who is going to use their credit card online; who is going to buy online when you can't hold what you are buying; who is going to search for information online when you have the library; who is going to put all that information online; how will anyone make money online; shipping will make it unprofitable; how can you browse the bookstore, etc? That changed slowly over a couple of years, but at the time it seemed quite quick, and then people wanted to start paying a lot for the nice generic names a few years later. At one point we had more names that anyone else on the net - that changed when Proctor and Gamble registered a lot more and then people started to get into the many thousands....but one good name is worth a million bad ones.
The idea behind bitcoin has as much potential for many reasons - the blockchain, the distributed nature of money, transfers, irreversibility, protection from inflation, protection from governments, fungibility, and many more. Many of the same naysayers though don't get it...yet...but a whole bunch of smart people are risking a whole lot of money and they do.
:-)
I registered a lot of domains in 1993 and 1994 and people just didn't get that the internet was going to be more than a fad - who is going to use their credit card online; who is going to buy online when you can't hold what you are buying; who is going to search for information online when you have the library; who is going to put all that information online; how will anyone make money online; shipping will make it unprofitable; how can you browse the bookstore, etc? That changed slowly over a couple of years, but at the time it seemed quite quick, and then people wanted to start paying a lot for the nice generic names a few years later. At one point we had more names that anyone else on the net - that changed when Proctor and Gamble registered a lot more and then people started to get into the many thousands....but one good name is worth a million bad ones.
The idea behind bitcoin has as much potential for many reasons - the blockchain, the distributed nature of money, transfers, irreversibility, protection from inflation, protection from governments, fungibility, and many more. Many of the same naysayers though don't get it...yet...but a whole bunch of smart people are risking a whole lot of money and they do.
:-)
June 30, 2014, 01:13:47 PM
Is Bitcoin a joke? People thought that about the internet too.
These criticisms give venture capitalist Marc Andreessen a sense of deja vu. Twenty years ago, he was an early adopter of another technology that was widely dismissed as an impractical fad: the internet. He describes the "massive wall of negativity" he encountered when, as the co-founder of the browser company Netscape, he tried to convince major American companies to take the internet seriously.
http://www.vox.com/2014/6/30/5839436/marc-andreessen-on-bitcoin
These criticisms give venture capitalist Marc Andreessen a sense of deja vu. Twenty years ago, he was an early adopter of another technology that was widely dismissed as an impractical fad: the internet. He describes the "massive wall of negativity" he encountered when, as the co-founder of the browser company Netscape, he tried to convince major American companies to take the internet seriously.
http://www.vox.com/2014/6/30/5839436/marc-andreessen-on-bitcoin
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