Quote:
Originally Posted by TomCollins
This sounds a lot like Neilsio's argument against BitCoins, using the "bigger fool" line.
The guy who invested in PCs in 1981 or whenever they were new and there was no market, I guess he was just waiting for a bigger fool to sell his investment to.
Sure, there could be a ponzi scheme where you have to keep bringing in newer investors. But if you actually have something that could be really useful, but just is underutilized or not ready for prime time, it's certainly not the case.
If you believe that BitCoin will surely fail and buy a bunch, then you are going to be looking for a bigger fool.
I think we are just not quite there yet with bitcoin, we are perhaps at a precipice where it could take off, or form a speculative bubble that bursts and dies out, perhaps people move on to the next great p2p anonymous currency. It lacks the killer app to take it to the next level. This killer app will probably initially come in the form of trading bitcoins for drugs, porn, and gambling.
You might compare this to the early days, we all used Napster to get files. Then we switched to Morpheus, or Kazaa, or bittorrent, or whatever. Rememer freenet? It was going to be the anonymous internet future, but it died out and a 'competitor', tor, took over the 'market' for an anonymous internet. Maybe a competitor will spring up that pushes bitcoin down?
Similarly, PC's in the early days were at a precipice. IBM had launched the PCjr with great fanfare, trying to get the PC to the masses. It failed miserably. People weren't going to peck away at a chiclet keyboard on DOS 2.1. But Bill Gates ripped off Apple's gui and bringing it to the masses in the form of Windows was the killer app that sent it to the next level