Bitcoin Forum

Heh the more things change the more they stay the same

An article about the Internet in 1996 about how it is the wild wild west ...read how similar it is to press on bitcoin now in 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/08/05/business/worldbusiness/05iht-cyber.t.html   as the Internet was seen in 1996

Some excerpts from the above Internet article...sounds familiar?

-Unregulated and unpoliced, the Internet resembles a Wild West frontier town without a sheriff.-

--Con artists have turned to the Internet, on-line services and electronic bulletin boards to promote bogus stock offerings and other dubious investment opportunities such as gold mining, gemstones and ostrich farming.--

---The Internet also lends itself to marketing scams known as pyramid schemes, in which a few participants get rich and the vast majority get burned.---

Now Bitcoin is the 'new' wild wild west with the same concerns on decentralization and regulation ( I particularly like the ostrich farming myself) The above looks like they
just took a lot of the old tried and true Internet concerns from back in the day and re-worked them ..a bit ..don't ya know...

The other oldies but goodies that have continued to frame the debate on Bitcoin first speculated on in the above 1998 article.......lack of
centralized authority...no need to expand on that you've all heard this repeatedly in the news media ... as a drumbeat the last couple years...
Should just jump right out at you in the article.

http://www.cityam.com/1408022905/bitcoin-market-wild-west-says-us-regulator  and how Bitcoin is seen in 2014

Some further oldies but goodies 're-used' in the above 2014 article on Bitcoin and sure you've heard this elsewhere also from the media today (and then)

-A US government agency has warned consumers that they may be stepping into the "Wild West" when entering the cryptocurrency market.-

--Director of the CFPB Richard Cordray said Bitcoin was not backed by any government or central bank, posing a risk to consumers.--

So what do you guys/gals think? Are we in for the kinda stuff from 1998 on the Internet...where everything was gonna be
like AOL and metered/regulated...stop it from being an open system....more controls ...sue ISP's for content?

The relevant to the above Bitcoin today would be metered/controlled centralized Bitcoin system? stop it from being
and opens system...sue Bitcoin users for not obeying laws (example is China want same kind of control on Bitcoin as
they have on the Internet)

well look over the articles and comment here lots of similarities ...some of which look stupid/scary!

I'm sure there are other sources and comparisons from back in the day between the scary Internet and the now today scary Bitcoin

Feel free to add them to this thread (such as it is)

Searing

 Note: Edited a couple more examples and spelling errors to the above
          Edited for correction of date 1996 not 1998.

Haha nice read, this kind of thing makes me feel like I am getting old. You are correct it certainly does draw some similarities from the early Internet Marketing Scams/Schemes etc.

My favorite Quotes:

Yes sir! First of all nice star wars picture :)

Second of all yes, doom and gloom is spread by the media as usual! They get their 'experts' and they talk about the worst things ever. Only until years and years later did the populace get educated. But we also have to be wary of tooting our own horn too much honestly.

Rife with scams and a totally lop-sided distribution of wealth (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM)?

So, basically, the internet in 1998 was just a microcosm for American Capitalism as whole? Fascinating.

at that time..I got sued by a guy running an ISP because someone got on my bulletin board system forums and said he was a 'bad boss'
at the time they were trying to sue ISP's for porn content....stupid ass.... so I called the EFF electronic frontier foundation they could
not believe an ISP was that stupid....they called him 1x and it went away still see the EFF guys at congress hearings

so yeah if there is a way for a lawyer or outdated law to be used to f*ck with bitcoin it will happen down the road
here imho ..they don't like the non-centralized bitcoin they did not like the non-centralized internet...

back in 1998 they AOL was big and they were talking about bandwith limitations and metering your internet useage (like they
do cell phones now...)

they will try the same constraints of some sort on bitcoin also ..gonna be harder thou imho we are more jello like to grasp imho

Searing

Nice comparison, this means in 5-10 years Bitcoin will bloom.

It was 1996. By 1998 the Internet was much more mainstream.