
Ask HN: Do you think ledger technology will have a massive impact on society? - fuqted
If so, what might that look like? If not, why not?<p>If humans capital is the most valuable asset on Earth then it&#x27;s plain to see that the current economic system fails to allocate and attribute value in a way that best aligns with this reality. It would be the burden of the prevailing economic system to do so.<p>On one level, think Twitter and Snap being worth some $20+ Billion each despite making little to no money net net. What if they somehow pegged a token to their metrics, allowing them to remove a layer of abstraction and unlock value based on something closer to what really matters: the utility it provides people.<p>Is my head just in the clouds here? I&#x27;m looking for some friction.
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kleer001
None.

Because in the end humans are the weakest link in any system, computerized or
otherwise. I don't mean that in a flippant way or sarcastically. We're error
prone and forgetful, emotional and spiteful. IMHO no bit of technology
(hardware, software, law, or culture) is going to usurp our born-in biases and
write a new chapter of history. In broad strokes we're already repeating
history for the umpteenth time.

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dragonwriter
Ledger technology has had a masdive impact on society, it's also very old.

But I think you are asking about _blockchain_ technology, which is a different
thing.

> What if they somehow pegged a token to their metrics, allowing them to
> remove a layer of abstraction and unlock value based on something closer to
> what really matters: the utility it provides people.

What makes you think any particular metric of theirs is a better measure of
utility than stock price? If you've got a clearly-correct way to measure and
aggregate utility, that's a bigger revolution than blockchain technology.

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fuqted
Something I think is true that most people disagree with is that the
importance of _distributed-ledger_ technology is simply how it utilizes
ledgers to create these tokens as an alternative to currency.

Stock prices are affected by metrics but the goal is to always monetize these
metrics. Attributing a token to them turns them into an ends to monetization
rather than just a means.

There's problems to solve going from there, but yeah I think going from
unlockng value from users to unlocking value directly from use is a
revolutionary shift.

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quickthrower2
The problem is pegging the token. It's a right old challenge pegging a crypto
token to USD, let alone some company KPI, because the market decides what a
thing is worth. And hype will push the price up, fear will crash it, and the
underlying KPI might have something to do with the price, but probably not.

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fuqted
Stocks seem to work well enough.

There's no way to control price to USD, but you can control tokens to metrics.
To use bitcoin as an example, say I'm holding 1 bitcoin and the metrics go up
n. That coin pops out x satoshi. Metrics go down n and I lose x satoshi.

Anyway, I clearly have no idea how it would work. But it clearly can work;
people are willing to find these tokens valuable.

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ohiovr
It's the new math of money

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extirpate
Honestly? Not really.

The hype around cryptocurrencies reminds me a lot of the hype around the Wii
when it came out. People called its motion controls revolutionary, and
collectively hailed Nintendo for ushering in a new era of motion controls.
Consumers who saw exciting early examples of work like Wii sports bought the
Wii in droves.

All of it, in retrospect, was mostly for naught. The technology for motion
controls, (if it could ever be implemented satisfactorily) just wasn’t “there”
yet. Even if motion controls were there, game designers faced the issue that
they had no idea what exactly to do with this exciting new interface, and
mostly they settled on just taking motion and “throwing it in”, giving
everyone a lot of games that didn’t need motion, especially not the hare-
brained “waggle” variety on offer. In the end, a lot of token efforts were
made, and some successes and good games were made, but at large, today people
mostly agree that motion controls, as made for the Wii, were mostly disastrous
and had no real use case.

Crypto currencies seem to have a similar issue of a solution created without a
problem it was meant to solve. They also seem to be getting just as “thrown
in” to otherwise standard existing products and service workflows, have tech
that isn’t “there”, and otherwise do not seem to be meeting their hype. I
expect the discussion around them to follow a similar pattern.

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fuqted
Note: I'll refer to DTL as blockchain for ease of understanding Also note: I
don't think all of these ledgers need to be validated distributedly in order
to have the same kind of value

A lot of blockchain enthusiasts say the same thing about companies adopting
the blockchain in an 'unched' way.

I'd say blockchains are more akin to AR/VR or AI in that they absolutely are
valuable and they undoubtedly are the future, but the technology isn't there.
The difference with blockchains is that, rather than the technology not being
there, it's simply the innovation that isn't.

There is clearly a market ready and willing for adoption, and there always
will be. That's just the power of 'cryptoeconomic incentive'.

