Fax Machine Maximalists - The Daily Gwei #344
Don't bet against innovation.
Throughout history there have been many people who’ve bet against technology and innovation only to be proven horribly wrong over time. The most egregious example of this is Paul Krugman who, in 1998, famously said: “by 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s”. Of course, Paul has been proven completely wrong over the last 20 or so years - I hope that he’s not still a “fax machine maximalist”!
The above tweet from Mat is the perfect example of a theme I’ve been seeing more of lately - that is, those outside the crypto ecosystem making fun of those within it for various reasons. Most of the time it stems from a fundamental lack of understanding of what the crypto ecosystem is actually building because many people just see the headlines about scams and ponzis and draw their conclusions from that. And to be fair, if all you’re exposed to is the negatives of some particular thing, it can be difficult to break yourself out of that echo chamber. Though I don’t think this should be an excuse for outright dismissing something - it’s always a good idea to stay curious and do some actual research before forming a strong opinion on anything.
On the other side of this, there’s also many people who don’t actually want crypto to succeed as they have vested interests to protect. This applies very well to financial institutions such as banks but it also applies to those working for centralized tech companies - after all, web3 is coming. Though what I always find most bizarre about these people is that they could easily transition to a web3 career if they wanted to but instead they choose to dig their heels in, refuse to educate themselves, and basically decide to “go down with the ship”. I can understand why senior employees would be like this - especially those that have worked within an industry for decades - but it breaks my heart when I see those early on in their careers lose that sense of curiosity and eagerness to learn.
It also doesn’t help that the mainstream media seems to be very anti-crypto and will constantly paint it in a bad light whenever they get the chance. Think about it - most people will only ever hear about our industry via mainstream media - and the coverage usually focuses on price pumps and crashes, ponzi/scams collapsing, the environmental impact of proof of work and other “negative” things. And even when there is some half-decent coverage of our industry, many people have already made up their mind on crypto so they either ignore the positive coverage or find some way to spin it as a negative. A perfect example of this is NFTs where a very large group of people have convinced themselves that NFTs are horrible for the environment even though this is a misinformed take. They also conveniently ignore how much positivity the NFT ecosystem has brought to many people’s lives.
At the end of the day, these people can either choose to move forward with technology or quite literally be obsoleted by it. Never in history has it been a good idea to bet against technological innovation and those that did missed out on a massive amount of financial and social capital. So let’s all embrace innovation, embrace the weird things in our industry, step out of our comfort zone, and work to grow the (digital) world.
Have a great day everyone,
Anthony Sassano
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Been seeing more and more “Mat’s” out there in Twitter land. Great read - thank you.