New technologies usually start out expensive & clunky but get cheaper over time which broadens the amount of customers that can access it. As Ashleigh notes below, cell phones used to be cumbersome and expensive but now modern cell phones are essentially supercomputers that we keep in our pockets. This isn’t just limited to cell phones either - you can basically look at every technological advancement throughout history and see that they’ve all started out and progressed in the same way.
I’ve regularly argued in my writing that we are still so incredibly early in Ethereum and all the pain of the high gas fees and poor user experience that you’re feeling today is not going to be permanent. I often think back to when I was a child and I had to use dial-up to connect to the internet and then whenever someone had to use the landline I would be disconnected from the net. Obviously this was an extremely poor user experience and annoyed people to no end but then one day broadband started rolling out and the problem was fixed (though of course other issues persisted such as slow internet speeds).
The parallel I’m trying to draw here is that with Ethereum today it’s a lot like interacting with an early-stage technology like dial-up internet. The network feels slow, the costs are high and the overall experience is poor. Though, just like with dial-up, I believe all of these issues with Ethereum will be solved over time and obviously we’re seeing every effort being made here to do this as quickly as possible - it’s just going to take a little longer.
In the meantime, I personally feel very lucky to be an early pioneer of this technology because that’s where all the opportunity is. If you were to come back in a few years when Ethereum’s scaling woes were fixed and the total crypto market cap was $10 trillion+ then you’d miss out on a lot of the opportunity and “alpha”. Put another way: your reward for being early is the life-changing money you can make from this industry as well as being able to make your mark while it’s still relatively small. I’ve seen plenty of people make a name for themselves in this industry by even doing simple things like writing educational Twitter threads - hell, that’s how I got my start!
I know that I’m probably preaching to the choir with all of my arguments in this piece since I assume that everyone reading this is already fully onboard with Ethereum. Though, I do think it’s prudent to just remind ourselves of how early we are and what exactly we’re trying to build - the rollout of a totally new and decentralized financial system is a marathon, not a sprint!
Have a great day everyone,
Anthony Sassano
Join the Daily Gwei Ecosystem
All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice.