I usually feel like I am saving investors a lot of money when I talk people out of implementing blockchain. Hopefully this post will help others to raise good questions and make industry healthier.
Theoretically yes, though as we all know, many “head of innovation” folk’s job security depends on launching new chains every once in a while:)
Well said, Pavel. I generally much agree with the article’s sentiment of managing the hype. In a more nuanced reality though, imo there is a generally huge segment of disruptive opportunities in transforming closed business processes into open protocols that runs on open chain. The main benefit is not so much in doing things it previously can’t do, but simply disintermediation so that values can return to end users, and a more efficient aggregate economy.
Today Uber or AirBnB runs perfectly fine on centralized servers, except they charge 25% commission for a reasonably straightforward task of reputation management and match making. What if we a open ride-sharing protocol runs on-chain that does something similar, but charge 1% only (say goes to a foundation that supports the protocol). // Obviously, the protocol needs to incentivize and offload most of currently company’s responsibilities to third party human actors (driver verification, arbitration, etc.).
Here, this on-chain protocol isn’t achieving anything that today’s centralized system doesn’t do or does it any better, yet it still present a massive disintermediation opportunity that Uber drivers could see their net income double while passengers pay less. Everyone benefits (except of course, Uber and the governments receiving their massive lobbying fee).
