When participating on social media platforms such as Twitter, it is advised to also follow people you don't agree with, in order to keep your mind open, learn, and avoid "echo chamber" effects.
I am personnaly convinced blockchain technology enables a revolution in how we interact and collaborate, as I explained already a few years ago. But it's only fair to observe that, despite the passing of several years, relatively little has happened in the area of blockchain-enabled collaboration. On the contrary, the last few years have seen most activity concentrating around the scam-prone areas of NFTs and DeFi.
Far from me the idea of saying NFTs and DeFi are scams. But both areas act like magnets for scammers and con-artists and both fields are choke-full of these.
Which presumably explains, to a certain extent, the apparition on Twitter of an increasing number of anti-crypto crusaders. Many know the famous gold-investment guru Peter Schiff who has been railing against bitcoin for many years, as have economists such as Nouriel Roubini, Steve Hanke or N.N. Taleb. All these historic opponents are rather old and have an economic, rather than IT background. Recently, they've been joined by a new generation of vocal anti-crypto influencers, with a very different profile:
- younger
- with a background in computer sciences rather than economics.
Among these, I used to follow Stephen Diehl (@smdiehl on Twitter). Replying to one of his recent tweets led to a conversation with a "G Pie (@girishpie)". My interest is to understand whether people (such as G Pie) attracted by these younger anti-crypto crusaders (such as Stephen Diehl) are there to learn and understand or are there out of tribalism, interested mostly in joining a side, itching for a (twitter-)fight?
Beyond this, I am also quite distressed about the number of scams and traps one can fall into when walking into the crypto world today. If these scams are the "dirty bathwater", I believe Hive is "the baby", and I would hate for the crusaders to "throw the baby with the bathwater".
In his tweet, Stephen explains that he is not against blockchain per se (he doesn't care much about the tech), but rather against financial scams. Fair enough. G Pie adds that you can enjoy the products and services of Amazon, Google and Netflix without "putting your money and speculating". I presume he meant that one doesn't need to also buy those stocks.
I've tried to engage with Girish Pie by mentioning Hive (see above). You can enjoy a number of services on Hive without "putting your money and speculating", thus illustrating that you can have blockchain-based products which do not involve financial scams.
To which he replied:
Why do I care about blockchain when I go to a website? We don't pick Bing over Google or vice versa based on what tech stack either is using. We only care about utility. Most will not care to switch from Twitter just because there is some decentralized alternative.
Again, fair enough, I'd say, although, as I pointed to G Pie, I do use Bing from time to time because I care about alternatives, by which I mean having more than one choice for a given need.
G Pie replied as follows:
There is no equivalent app in the Blockchain world that serves up a useable and useful alternative to a current high use product. Plus given the hype it needs to do even more - like unlocking a previously intractable area. Public key crypto for instance did precisely this.
I shared with him my experience of blogging. I always wanted to write and started a blog on Blogspot in 2004. However, I need positive feedback and had none, so my motivation to keep up was really weak. I published a grand total of 8 posts in 13 years. Then in 2017 I discovered steemit.com. It was exactly what I needed: a blogging platform where one can see whether someone reads and appreciates your content and where you could engage with your readership. Since then, between Steemit and Hive I published more than 150 long form articles.
He retorted:
So in a non Blockchain world is there some impediment to reading and appreciating a blog? What's the feature here that is impossible in a Web2 world that needs Blockchain to unlock?
I felt like he was moving the goalposts ... which might imply that he just wants to "win the argument" ... but could also mean that he is trying to understand better. This is why I decided answering on Twitter would not do him a service and turned to writing this post.
How high should the bar be set for blockchain tech?
Firstly, I think there is no reason to set the bar so high. Why should anyone prove that there are features impossible in a Web2 world in order to gain the right of proposing a blockchain-based alternative? Even if everything were to be possible in Web2 (it isn't), people would still have the right to promote blockchain-based alternatives and let the consumers and the market decide which ones they prefer.
To read a blog you first need the content creator to write it
Secondly, my point was not about reading and appreciating a blog, but about writing, creating one! My blog had never taken off in the Web2 world not because something prevented people from reading it, but because there were no satisfying, affordable possibilities to attract readers, to interact and see whether they enjoyed your content. There was, back then, no easy feedback loop to tell me whether someone had read my posts and whether they appreciated them. This in turn all but drained my motivation to write. I had lots of things I wanted to share, but was paralysed by the thought "why bother if no one will ever read them?"
Today, blogging platforms such as Medium implement a solution which is much inferior to steem and hive, the "claps": you write on Medium and you can see if people read and enjoy your content by the number of "claps" they consent.
However, the problem with Web2 is that, lacking a cryptocurrency, you cannot organise a community such as Hive; you need instead to rely on a middleman, a trusted third-party, the platform, who enjoys the power of a toll-road operator.
Blockchain-based crypto desintermediates the VCs of the Web2 world
So despite the fact that G Pie's question was "moving the goalposts", I think that, thirdly, the answer to his question is Yes! In a Web2 world a business model like the one of the steem and hive blockchains is simply not possible. Absent a cryptocurrency, Web2 platforms can only extend credit in as much as they burn VC money, to be repaid later on very onerous terms. Blockchain-based cryptocurrencies function as a "community credit system".
And this is not theory, anyone can experience it directly here on Hive (and on steem too, to a certain extent): anyone can read as many Hive posts as they like, there will never be an injunction like the Medium one above "You read a lot, pay us a $5/month subscription if you want us to let you read" Why? Because the cost of the platform is covered through the sale of its cryptocurrency to the market, not by convincing some VCs to take a chance on the founder team and their idea and put their capital at risk upfront. This new type of business model was simply not possible before.
Blogging is by far not the only disrupted activity
A similar reasoning can be deployed about gaming when comparing the current, Web2 online games such as "Empire & Puzzles" with the newer, blockchain-based games such as Splinterlands.com.
Crypto critics are often shortsighted
The new, computer-litterate anti-crypto crusaders such as Stephen Diehl are quite different from the previous bunch of old economists.
Those were perhaps easier to dismiss because they could only attack a static image, a concept at a given point in time. They did not understand the power and versatility of the technology and had to assume that what they were looking at was all there was and all there could be.
The younger crusaders attack from a different angle. They tend to extend Bitcoin's "energy consumption" liability to all cryptos but most critically, they "miss the forest for all the trees", basically saying something akin to "because open markets are teeming with pickpockets, open markets are bad".
The underlying issue though is a strong polarization. The level of bigotry and maximalism of some crypto supporters is, as we can see, mirrored in a similar level of bigotted "anti-crypto" sentiment.
Stephen Diehl has, to my eyes, long forfeited the position of the cool-headed, expert sceptic in order to aim for one of an "anti-crypto high priest". We live in an era of polarization and tribal confrontation on so many levels, it would have been a miracle for crypto to escape this phenomenon.
Paying attention to several sides of an issue is valuable advice that I think less people do these days. It's more comforting to hear people express the ideas you already believe in, as validation for you. Hearing other viewpoints takes more work and mental and emotional energy. But I think it is worth the effort.
I think of the cars vs horses analogy when it comes to crypto. Why do we need cars when horses are fine! It's 1910 and there aren't any paved roads, our cars break down a lot and require gas stations which aren't common yet. Horses have been transportation for thousands of years and they work fine, why change? It took some time, but we all did change.
Early adopters always take the risks others aren't yet interested in. Infrastructure and culture changes slowly and some are taken advantage of along the way. In crypto, we have the benefits of owning our own data which we can monetize if we want. It's certainly helpful to people in many parts of the world where it's hard to support oneself in their local economy. Lots of people are here earning their main or supplemental income from blogging and gaming and making art of all kinds, from nail art to makeup to singing videos to creative writing. This might not be attractive to everyone yet, but it surely helps many who have taken the time to try it out.
Just my random thoughts inspired by your thought provoking post. Thanks for sharing it! :)
Thank you, I couldn't have said it better
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