I've been in mostly violent agreement with @smdiehl and others who call out cryptocurrency and its descendants for what they are—an end run around financial regulation at best, a massive fraud at worst. We all agree it makes no sense as a technology. But one thing worries me:
https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1445795667826208770
The culture around NFTs and other cryptowoo is genuinely vibrant and interesting. People have an enthusiasm and fearlessness about trying stuff that reminds the dinosaurs still among us of the early web days. This is especially true for young people just arriving on the scene.
The web itself, meanwhile, is sterile and moribund. There's nothing fun or weird around that doesn't get immediately co-opted, and there's certainly no DIY or collaborative culture of making cool things. You can play with the toys Google or Amazon gives you, big whoop.
The fact that the project at the heart of this pretty vibrant online culture is rotten makes it hard to accept that the social phenomenon around it is real and has depth and value. It's like watching animals come to a watering hole we know is filled with gasoline.
But this is also an indictment of the web. Why did we let it basically turn into TV? Where's the outlet for talented young people who want to turn the world upside down, but don't care to sign on to the giant scam that is cryptocurrency? We don't have a good answer for them.
And part of it is definitely that everyone today carries an incredible computer in their pocket and... you can't do anything with it. My first computer program at age 8 made an IBM desktop write profanity in an infinite loop. I wouldn't begin to know how to do that on an iPhone.
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