Comparisons to the internet and it's growth are utterly irrelevent.
The internet allowed people to do so many things that just weren't possible before the internet and it has utterly transformed peoples lives and the methods of interactions, shopping, entertainment etc.
By comparison Bitcoin does virtually nothing that cannot be achieved already with money. It is a potential store of value/speculation, but at its heart was designed to be a payment mechanism and it has yet to prove to the masses that it is a better or cheaper payment mechanism than that which exists already.
As for the state of the Bitcoin economy, there are a number of BTC evangelists (mainly on here) who do buy stuff with Bitcoins, but the rest of the use is either gambling, illegal purchases or the biggest use of Bitcoin - buying it hoping that some other people will use it and it'll go up in value. Until that changes it's a rough-ride folks.
This is the most realistic post in the thread.
Bitcoin is not the new internet. It is not the new Paypal. It is not the new ecommerce, or dotcom boom. It is not a shiny new toy for the world which will be joyfully adopted by teenaged girls and grandmas.
It is something much grimmer then that. It is a response to, and a defense against the increasing repression by the corporate and governmental powers that be which has been enormously facilitated by the internet.
Reading Satoshi's posts this is very clear. Did he sound to anyone like some starry eyed web entrepreneur?
So far, its only real advantages have been in circumventing drug prohibition, contributions to banned organizations, tax avoidance, and "money laundering". It's nature is to be against the system. That isn't going to change, and I predict that all the purveyors of techno-utopian Silicon Valley happy-talk are going to waste millions before they
recognize this.
The year is not 1992. The year is 1984. The world is not about to enter a boom. The financial system is absurdly overburdened with debt, and global demographics point to a catastrophic decline, and quite likely large scale war, over the next 20 years. Power has become more and more concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and those entities, whether states or corporations are actively seeking to increase their control over the masses.
Like it or not, the role of Bitcoin is as a weapon of resistance.
Bitcoin is most definitely a weapon, the weapon of choice for mass Intelligence, information. It is basically encouraging 3 million current users to learn; What is money? learn about the money system and how it is built, to question why people have to work 2-3 jobs with their spouses and soon their children too. What does the system do? does it encourage consumerism? does it establish schools as the single source of life education? We know the Neo-Keynsian model, force them to work, force them to spend... is this healthy?
Bitcoin is definitely a response to our current system with the question; Why the hell do you need my name and payment information just to read your article?
Power is being concentrated, a paycheck is increasingly being used as the weapon of choice to control the masses as it ever dwindles into fewer and fewer hands; Can you believe that out of the billions made by online companies the ones who benefit could fill up a medium sized stadium? What will you do with money when it is hoarded by the 1 percent and it becomes harder and harder to make them spend it... do you see an analogy with Bitcoin?
Automation is not helping out either, it just strikes me as funny that a message was sent out with this software; We can automate your industries too and your money and power has prevented your industry from being automated even though it is easier to automate than the auto industry.
Bitcoin is a system a technique for freedom from mass serialization... do you know your number? is it tattood on your skin along with your bank account number and information, are these governments and corporations truly entitled to have this knowledge about you? Why shouldn't we? you know there are laws against people opening your mail, why can they read your e-mails? They are amassing so much knowledge about us, why not let us all see what you are up to too? If you get too tired and need to re-invent yourself in Bitcoin you just need to make a new address and start fresh, in the real world your information follows you till the day you die.
As society further entrenches itself in new laws and new lines of power created by our current system a new one must be created with a better foundation to create a new path that these laws do not allow us to follow. Bitcoin is creating incredible innovation it is letting people see things in a new way without the baggage from the old, we will only take what is useful from the old to the new. Think of all the barriers they create through laws that control us in a broken system that lobbies for our strict control as if we were cattle, think of all the fear that is created as the purveyors of purchasing power now control who and what we can empower, should a system as big as that of the credit cards, banks be this politisised that it controls through fear what is allowed without government mandate from the people.
