

The Tell of the Proprietary First Movers - kernelv
http://avc.com/2015/01/the-tell-of-the-proprietary-first-movers/

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CPLX
This is one of those articles that uses a lot of phrases that sound like they
mean something -- "the tell" "proprietary" "killer app" "decentralized" \--
but this entire post is almost completely devoid of content.

Email, invented in the early 1970's at the latest, was something that was
predicted by the "first movers" AOL and CompuServe? People want to have
decentralized banking, but where you can send money to/from anyone? So
presumably they would have to invent interoperability standards like SWIFT,
ACH, and so on? But those already exist. And there isn't a global central
bank, and banking is transnational already. And the middle eastern informal
money exchanges have been going on for centuries. And there are credit unions.
Also, Paypal exists. Was that the "proprietary" money exchange solution that
is the "tell" for the future? Isn't it 15 years old? Wait the "proprietary
tell" is Bitcoin?

So many questions. So much obfuscation. This reminds me of the dack.com era
internet to be honest.

------
wmf
Of course, email wasn't regulated so it was legal to connect AOL and
Compuserve to SMTP. If corrupt developing countries allow their banking
systems to connect to Bitcoin at all, I expect the fees will be just as high
as Western Union is today. Crypto-hawala may be more promising.

------
fdsary
Wouldn't Paypal be the first proprietary mover of sending money over IP, and
Bitcoin being like SMTP/POP/IMAP/whatever? Or maybe I misunderstood something

