Topic: was there this much Fud about the internet as with bitcoin today? (Read 1867 times)

The internet has advanced greatly since it was started to be used by the masses in the early 1990's. I remember being in school that had a "T1" line that was suppose to be the fastest connection possible at 1.5 megabites per second (IIRC), but now this would generally be considered to be slow for both home internet and wireless (cell phone) connections.

Even "backbone" connections that ISPs had back in the 1990s likely were slow when compared to what speeds are available to residential customers for less then $100 per month today. The speed at which the internet back is measured is likely greater then the speed of the internet backbone in the 90's.

I would say that bitcoin was a byproduct of the internet. It was an advancement that was made possible by the internet

OP: Why don't you ask the man that created the Internet... Al Gore? 

goosebumps on the memories

I agree I read the post and just laughed, but had to see what kind of people were responding to this HAHAHAHA

Actually the internet was/is the beginning of the end of the nation-state. But most can't see that even now.

If they knew in 1990 what the internet would become, they would've murdered everyone involved and buried their bodies in shallow graves.

When the internet began there wasn't the same amount of freely distributed information available and people wrote letters to each other in pen and mailed them, read newspapers for stock quotes and no sms, youtube, facebook or reddit. I will always say that the Cryptocurrency ecosystem is more akin to massive multiplayer online games crossed with the seriousness of future finance. The way forums are setup and the amount of newbies and trolling are all the same, just at a more exaggerated level since digital finance is not a game.

If it wasn't for the internet, they wouldn't be able to post FUD about bitcoin!

Money is just a means to power. Information is power.
And information is 'protected' to greater and lesser depending on what country you are in. The internet has had a huge impact on the relationship between government and citizen in many countries already.

No, there couldn't have been. There wasn't an internet full of ignorant people to spread it....

Interesting that you mention that - I have seen a lot of FUD leading people in exactly those directions. As luck would have it, the most recent one popped up in the Press section today:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/19/us-sec-bitcoin-fraud-idUSKBN0HE1Z820140919

Note the misleading headline, the odd choice of photo and the warning takeaway at the end of the article. This is masterful FUD, imho. FUD generally is not sledgehammer stuff - all it has to do is leave a vague sense of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Human nature does the rest.

I remember when CompuServe came out to bring "online" to the masses.  I was an immediate customer and my home quickly had a 2nd phone line installed so it could stay "dialed in" 24/7.

At the time I also remember hearing about how the internet was just chat rooms for child molesters to find victims.  Pretty similar to the way people say Bitcoin is just for criminals and drug users now.

It wasn't until WorldWideWeb was released that the masses started seeing the internet had some real potential.  Once netscape was released and it was simple for anyone to hop on MTV.com and watch Beavis and Butthead videos, it spread like wildfire.  Things like ICQ started popping up to make conversations online easier with friends (I still remember how amazing it was the first time I could see when my friends were online), and everybody started slapping together their own websites hosted by free services like Geocities.  It took a long time for what now seems obvious, to become a reality.

What innovation will get Bitcoin to the next level?  Who knows...  Maybe a social network linked to Bitcoin Addresses to verify identities, or an ICQ like addition to the client where you can send encrypted messages through the p2p network and see when your friends are online.  Maybe an ApplePay like network where merchants can easily accept Bitcoin alongside USD without even being able to tell the difference.  Maybe a partnership with Microsoft so that Xbox Live can incorporate a Bitcoin system that allows users to bet on games between each other.  Maybe it will be a country that embraces it for their financial markets to become unregulated and draw in outside investments.  Maybe it will be schools that embrace it as a learning tool to teach about developing software.  There are so many possibilities and the exciting part is that it is up to you to make it happen.

EDIT: When I think about it, Bitcoin really does strike me as the same type of advancement as the internet and mp3s.  This is coming from someone that swore by Apple products in the 80s (don't get me started how many of my friends argued with me about Apple then, only to buy every iPod and iPhone that would come out 25 years later), was using the internet before AOL came out, and started listening to mp3s 10 years before the iPod was invented...  Also interesting is that when I discovered mp3s, I told all of my friends about them and only 1 of them actually started using mp3s back then.  Since I discovered Bitcoin in 2011 and pushed the idea to every person I know, the only friend I have who actually bought some (at $5) and started using them is the same friend who started using mp3s back in the early 90s.  Take from that what you will...

By the way... Nowadays this same friend hates Bitcoin, and says that it is a bubble, a ponzi, and modern tulipomania

The Internet did not challenge the banks and the tax taking government like bitcoin does.

Exactly, and whatever other area of expertise we each have allows us to see media or political or corporate FUD within that narrow area - yet we tend to be suckers for FUD in other areas (where we do not have detailed knowledge). FUD works on some of us all the time, but alas it also works on all of us some of the time.

The most effective FUD also does have an element of truth to it, which makes it harder to push back against. For example, the often-used FUD line that we do not even know who Satoshi is - exploits the truth to generate Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt about BTC in the minds of a target audience.

The people who generate FUD - the pros - are very good at what they do. FUD is much more than a simple lie.

Eternal vigilance, and all that. It is hard work!

Here is what I do, fwiw. When I see a new thread or even a new post, I ask myself why it was posted. What does the poster want me to do or think as a result of the post - what is in it for them, and so forth. For example, if I see a paid sig under a vacuous post then I draw a conclusion. The conclusion may be wrong, but it starts a filtering process. The process never ends.

"The Internet? Is that still around?"
-Homer Simpson

I remember, some years ago, a friend always said that "the Internet is a wastebin, where there is nothing useful, only criminals, nasty things..."

Nowadays, he's online almost 24/7 ( worse... he's addicted to faceshitbook   )

The champion of Keynes...the same theology that believes that governments should control money with war and guns.

Wasn't that actually Paul Krugman? And I just looked it up! It was! lol!

The same type of people who are against Bitcoin had this to say about the Internet in 1998:
"The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in 'Metcalfe's law'–which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants–becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's."

When you actually start learning about stuff and how it works properly instead of just blindly absorbing everything people state as fact you start to see a lot of things are FUD, it's because we know a lot more about Bitcoin than the news does that so much of it is bullshit to us.

I regularly see misleading statistics, inaccurate scientific research and more when I look at what the media puts out, hell on a small documentary I saw once about Jewellery I was exceptionally pissed off when a guy made a silver ring and hadn't finished it properly ( No polishing was done probably because of time constraints ) when he was demonstrating how a ring was made and that pisses me off to this day.