Internet speed

Teemu brought up on Ep. 33 of The Spelunking Podcast a gripe against crypto that I’ve often heard myself: if crypto is so great, then why hasn’t it achieved more penetration in a decade?

The simple answer is that people forget the speed at which the Internet truly developed.

Let’s leave aside ARPANET, and count only from the web. Tim Berners-Lee first mentioned HTML in 1991. The initial web developed quickly, even if it was skeuomorphic, aping traditional businesses - books, online! pets, online! - and when people said “Internet” they meant specifically the web.

The initial bubble burst 9 years later in March 2000, and people declared the Internet dead, a fad. Fred Wilson lost 90% of his net worth. Who would be stupid enough to think we’d buy books and groceries online?

Now, 31 years later, it is this invisible primordial soup we all swim in, spawning new creatures and the occasional horror, but for a while it was considered a joke that only the gullible had fallen for.

The Bitcoin white paper came out in 2008, and its first implementation was in 2009. We have only had crypto free-standing from a centralized organization for 15 years and, in the mean time, crypto has gone through multiple bubbles and bursts. Its first uses were also skeuomorphic, exceedingly currency-focused, but we are starting to see more differentiated creatures like actual Futarchy implementations emerging.

(In fact, a lot of the companies that people take for granted now such as Spotify and Twitter only came up a good 15 years after that initial mention of HTML - both in 2006 - and even then Internet penetration wasn’t what it is now)

At some point you have to acknowledge that there is something there and that, even if the current implementation is not the thing, it is likely the thing that will get us to the thing.

Published: 2024-10-26