
Crypto’s Business Model Is Familiar. What Isn’t Is Who Benefits - todsacerdoti
https://a16z.com/2020/04/08/crypto-network-effects/
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ohazi
For fuck's sake, call it crypto _currency_. The default suffix for "crypto" is
"graphy."

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ganstyles
Respectfully, language evolves over time and words change all the time,
sometimes fairly quickly. The prevailing use of crypto right now is in the
context of cryptocurrency. I'm not particularly thrilled with it, but I don't
want to sound like a curmudgeon just because I'm set in my ways.

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hprotagonist
descriptivism is not some unstoppable force; it’s a social argument we work
out in the public sphere.

pushback is normal and beneficial.

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HenryBemis
(test message)(please ignore just trying out something) 0123456789
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

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rayuela
What is clear is that as an entity heavily invested in cryptocurrency they
benefit from peddling it to poor ignorant plebs. Maybe this article should
start by first disclosing their large long position in cryptocurrency. This is
marketing garbage, please stop posting trash like this.

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karatestomp
Kinda like all those "buy gold (from us!)" ads on AM radio.

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wpietri
Is there something novel here? This broadly feels like something that could
have been written 5 years ago. And surely was. Written today, it seems weird
to me that it's so heavy on theoretical possibility and so light on actual
data.

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xkjkls
Written today it feels like some of these technologies mentioned in the
article should actually have demonstrated some real purpose.

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GTP
I think there is at least one: with a blockchain you can register a document's
hash and have a proof that that document existed in a precise point in time.
This is an application lawyers and notaries are interested about.

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wpietri
When somebody says "actually have demonstrated some real purpose", I don't
think it's helpful to say that some people are perhaps interested in doing
something eventually.

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GTP
They aren't perhaps interested, they are actually interested. And I know at
least one lawyer that will use such technology. in the short term.

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wpietri
You knowing one lawyer who says they would use something is not, not, not, an
actual demonstration of _real use_. Somebody being interested is a
demonstration of _interest_.

I understand that the cryptocurrency world has long been coasting on
potential. On what it might be one day. But sorry, it's 11+ years in at this
point. Bitcoin and the Android platform are about the same age. When people
ask about Android's actual use, the correct answer is, "about 2.5 billion
active devices", not, "I, an anonymous person, claim to know one hazily
specified person who tells me he's very interested in getting one. In the
short term."

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GTP
Not that would, but that will. And from what he told me seems that he isn't
alone, but I admit I don't have a proof for this.

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wpietri
Quibble over words all you like, that's still not a demonstration of real use.

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GTP
I'm not quibbling, there's an actual difference between showing interest in
something and taking action to actually use something. You were the first to
focus on the meaning of words, so I just corrected you when you misread what I
wrote, that's all. On a side note, I think that cryptocurrencies tend to
attract highly polarized opinions: from what I saw so far, seems that there
are people that try to defend their use at all cost, but there are also others
that seems to think that everything that uses a blockchain is gibberish by
definition. Please note that I'm not saying that you belong to the latter
group, I just wish to point out that in my opinion each use of the blockchain
has to be evaluated on its own, and in this case I think there might be some
value.

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wpietri
It's quibbling, because you are apparently unable to understand that a person
saying words is not what was being asked for, which was "actual data" that
"demonstrated some real purpose". It's quibbling because you keep ignoring the
meat of my point, picking instead a word choice to argue about.

I don't believe that everything that uses a blockchain is "gibberish by
definition". I do believe that so far every single thing I've seen promoted
under the banner of "blockchain" has ended up being vastly more hype than
substance. Or, as I said, "so heavy on theoretical possibility and so light on
actual data." Your turning up with more hype, more airy possibility is
willfully unhelpful.

