interesting article: Pay-to-use blockchains will never achieve mass adoption

[larry_vw_1955]

https://cointelegraph.com/news/pay-blockchains-will-never-achieve-mass-adoption


Blockchain projects should learn from Google and Facebook by monetizing their users without directly asking for their money.

I guess he doesn't realize that's impossible for bitcoin. Bitcoin is going to get more expensive to use over time probably not less expensive. Unless people use something like lightning network. But we're talking about layer 1 here.

If permissionless blockchains are to become the backbone of our online experiences, three major changes need to happen:

They need to become free.
They need to become frictionless.
They need to become familiar.

there is no way bitcoin is ever going to become free to use. unless some giant like paypal subsidizes it on their particular internal platform but then that's not bitcoin because it's centralized...

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[albert0bsd]

In the article they are talking about Pay-to-use blockchain, that is some kind of private/centralized blockchain.

Blockchain projects should learn from Google and Facebook by monetizing their users without directly asking for their money.

The blockchain projects that they are talking is about those private/centralized blockchains

For example some Blockchain projects from IBM: https://www.ibm.com/blockchain

The article that you point to compares the need of those private/centralized blockchains where the users need some subscription fee to be able to use it or access to that data. Against services like facebook or google that offer some "free service" where the data of their users is the real value for those businesses.

But that is like compare apples and pineapples

[digaran]

there is no way bitcoin is ever going to become free to use

Since when bitcoin is not free? It has been free to use and will remain free to use, just there is this fee while we could mine blocks and never pay that fee, this was the idea behind bitcoin, but when mining became industrialized everything changed.
Yes garbage processing blockchains like ETH and some others are charging you gas and other stuff if you want to use them, some even have a different token to be used as the fee for the service.

Also, what else could be considered pay to use blockchain other than crypto related currencies?

[adaseb]

There is no blockchain out there that is totally free. Sure there are some L2 or coins like Doge where the transaction fees are fractions of a penny but none of them are ever free.

Miners need some incentive to mine these blocks and hence why there are fees in place when the block reward gets halved so much that the coinbase reward is almost zero.

[Despairo]

So this is the summary of the article.

Free to use
Yet current blockchain protocols monetize us directly, asking us to pay gas fees for each transaction.
No matter how small their fees get, thanks to incremental reductions from the likes of Solana or the myriad layer 2s out there, it’s still a fee that most people won’t pay.

Frictionless and simple
Crypto is the most user-unfriendly technology ever hawked to the public. To those who struggle with tech, it’s the digital equivalent of being punched repeatedly in the face.

Familiar and fun
Crypto has not been good at creating decentralized social media alternatives to Facebook. It has not been good at creating unique gaming experiences. It has not been good at replacing traditional supplier-user Web2 models with aligned-incentive Web3 models.

Bitcoin on-chain might not be friendly in terms of fees if we use it regularly, but we have lightning network to reduce the fees, the thing is not many people willing to pay using Bitcoin. Bitcoin may not reach mass adoption through usage as currency, but there's a high chance through as commodity.

Installing a wallet, using an exchange, etc are simple because there are a lot tutorials out there.

I have no idea why Bitcoin must be fun, do fiat, gold and real estate are fun?

[Beerwizzard]

https://cointelegraph.com/news/pay-blockchains-will-never-achieve-mass-adoption


Blockchain projects should learn from Google and Facebook by monetizing their users without directly asking for their money.

If You Are Not Paying for the Product, You Are the Product! (c)

It is kinda hard to do as you want without turning the blockchain into some kind of another centralized fucked up company like google or facebook.

It is also wrong to compare companies from non-financial sector with cryptocurrencies and if you take a look at PayPal you gonna find that its users have to pay transaction fees as well which means that fees are not actually the main problem.

[serjent05]

In the article they are talking about Pay-to-use blockchain, that is some kind of private/centralized blockchain.

Blockchain projects should learn from Google and Facebook by monetizing their users without directly asking for their money.

The blockchain projects that they are talking is about those private/centralized blockchains

For example some Blockchain projects from IBM: https://www.ibm.com/blockchain

The article that you point to compares the need of those private/centralized blockchains where the users need some subscription fee to be able to use it or access to that data. Against services like facebook or google that offer some "free service" where the data of their users is the real value for those businesses.

But that is like compare apples and pineapples

Bitcoin although decentralized is also pay to use blockchain.  In order to send the transaction, we need to pay for the transaction fee.  No matter what angle we look at it, Bitcoin usage in transferring funds always has payment.  We are just so used to paying the transaction fee that we get used to it and forget that we pay a fee for sending Bitcoin.

[avikz]

This article is essentially talking about private blockchain services and not decentralised blockchains from what I understand. Bitcoin is going to stay as it is and it is going to become more expensive over time. Same will happen with other blockchain services. The transaction fees we are paying, is essentially the fees to use 5he blockchain to broadcast the money. That's where the payment or fees is needed.

I don't think it will ever become like Google or Facebook.

[NotATether]

What we expected all along.

It was very clear that pay to do anything blockchains cannot keep their tokens stable, they have dumped on several occasions before such as Axie Infinity. They can just use traditional payment methods inside their apps instead.

[Bureau]

The article talks about permissionless blockchain.

If permissionless blockchains are to become the backbone of our online experiences, three major changes need to happen:

They need to be free.
They need to be frictionless.
They need to be familiar.

Why is everyone, who replied referring to a private blockchain? A permissionless blockchain is what Bitcoin is, as it allows open participation, is censorship-resistant, has decentralized consensus models minimizes trust requirements, and it can go on. What OP wants to do is compare Bitcoin with Ethereum in this permissionless blockchain model. I think that is what we are discussing in this thread.

[348Judah]

Blockchain projects should learn from Google and Facebook by monetizing their users without directly asking for their money.

Blockchain technology was not built to monetize people in paying for the use of these service, that is one of the reasons it's called an open distributed ledger, it is decentralized, no one controls it, the operation only works by protocols, anyone interested in using it should learn about it and follow the strict compliance to it protocols to be in concession, other social media are profit making platform while this is creating atmosphere and opportunities for everyone to be independent on finances.

I guess he doesn't realize that's impossible for bitcoin. Bitcoin is going to get more expensive to use over time probably not less expensive. Unless people use something like lightning network

Aside that bitcoin cannot be under a centralized system, bitcoin is to give people more access to their finances without having to bother on any form of financial embarrassment, we cannot leave the fiat system to now go back to a central server network, that means we don't know what we are doing, but bitcoin has come to serve a solution to every of this problems.

[joniboini]

The author seems to see blockchain as a service similar to social media. That is inherently flawed. It would be a disaster if anyone could make transactions, while social media by nature needs people to visit them to function properly. Besides, what kind of monetization is he referring to when he wants to remove the fees to make transactions? Does he suggest blockchain projects sell their user data and collect their transaction history, basically becoming their own chain analysis project? That is insane. Might as well stick with fiat if people are fine with that.

[larry_vw_1955]

Since when bitcoin is not free?

nope, you have to pay a fee to use it.

It has been free to use and will remain free to use,

bitcoin? are you kidding? it's not free to use at all. its about the most expensive way i know of to "send money".

Yes garbage processing blockchains like ETH and some others are charging you gas and other stuff if you want to use them, some even have a different token to be used as the fee for the service.

call it gas or call it a fee. what's the difference? bitcoin is no different than ethereum. except one thing. with eth, even if your transaction fails they still steal the gas.

Also, what else could be considered pay to use blockchain other than crypto related currencies?

twitter maybe because elon musk might start charging people to use twitter. but i heard there's a decentralized version of it that is picking up steam but i'm not sure how legit it is...

It would be a disaster if anyone could make transactions,

i mean i think i get where you're coming from but we don't want to be too exclusive with bitcoin otherwise it will just drive people away. the more people that can use it the better but by charging transaction fees, no one wants to do that. it's just a game people play when they convince themself that "its worth it". it's really not. unless you can point to all the other possible ways to send money and show they are all more expensive.

[davis196]

They need to become free.
They need to become frictionless.
They need to become familiar.

Is Paypal free? Is using a bank account free? Why would blockchains have to become free? Is there any payment infrastructure/system, that has zero maintenance costs, therefore there aren't any transaction fees in that system? I don't think so.
Comparing blockchains to Google and Facebook is like comparing apples to bananas. Does Google and Facebook provide financial services?
Does Google and Facebook have their own currencies.
What the hell is a "pay-to-use" blockchain? Are there any blockchains, where the users have to pay an upfront fee, in order to gain access and use the blockchain?
How the replace the transaction fees in the blockchain? This guy is totally incompetent in regards to crypto, but he has opinions about it.
What a joke.

[franky1]

What the hell is a "pay-to-use" blockchain? Are there any blockchains, where the users have to pay an upfront fee, in order to gain access and use the blockchain?
How the replace the transaction fees in the blockchain? This guy is totally incompetent in regards to crypto, but he has opinions about it.
What a joke.

firstly all users need to retrieve their UTXO from somewhere to then form tx's to spend value. but if full archival nodes are only transmitting data to paid partners(lite wallet server owners) then those paid partners will pass on their 'costs' to end users.. EG lite wallets and full nodes charge customers to retrieve their UTXO's (much like banks charge to receive bank statements/ATM balance checks)


seems some core devs are under the impression (probably via their sponsors) that bitcoin inevitably will become a pay-for-blockchain

That isn't a use case for *Bitcoin* in that it's something Bitcoin doesn't actually accommodate on a fundamental basis: Bitcoin nodes don't need to store or provide access to historical blocks to operate.  They only do today (to the extent they do, many don't) to aid new nodes coming up securely, but in the future that will be accomplished via other means because transferring terabytes of blockchain to process and throw away whenever someone starts a new node won't be sufficiently viable.

So not only do you have to worry that it might become unavailable, it'll be inevitable, except in the sense that perhaps there may be some archive someplace or another that has the historical chain and might make it available to you at some cost.  But if that's good enough you could put your data on archive.org today or just put it anywhere on the internet and let the common crawl pick it up.  This file storage stuff will hasten the day when the historical chain becomes hard to access, because people will store illegal data in it and then node operators will be forced to shut down or face prosecution.  Already I'm being sued over accusations that I ran a node that distributed copyrighted data hidden inside transactions (by third parties without my knowledge or involvement). (so, please, preface any response that this is a speculative concern with a credible offer to cover my legal expenses and indemnify me should we lose)

To the limited extent Bitcoin accommodates it in practice today it's _exceedingly_ inefficient for it in the sense that the p2p network doesn't provide random access to the chain (and presumably won't be due to the abuse potential) so unless you don't mind downloading and processing a terabyte of data over the several days to retrieve your kilobyte of data it isn't available to you already from the network. It's also the case that other blockchains that care less about security or decentralization can do the same thing for radically lower cost (still a dumb idea to use a blockchain for this but if you must then almost anything else does it better).  Finally, not that anyone doing it cares, but it's also a abuse that was expressly argued against by Bitcoin's creator.

funny part is the reasons for the bloat of nonsense data the dev quotation has concerns about, that will in his words lead to a drop off nodes and a commercialisation of full nodes.. is due to code he has personally advocated for and desired to be added which then got abused

other funny part is he pretends to define nodes as not requiring features that actually do differentiate them from standard software wallets. as another pre-amble of pretending the network doesnt need to decentralise the blockchain.. thus will lead to commercialisation of the blockchain if less 'nodes' are actually full nodes..  

maybe instead of him worrying about the litigations and commercialisation of blockdata.. he should do his job and make new code to stop the unchecked(auto isvalid) data. EG if witness data is not some form of signature/proof of key system, thats actually listed as a rule. reject tx

also having a NODE that has ability to switch off features like archiving(via pruning) downgrades the utility to just that of being software like litee wallets are, if people dont want to be full nodes they can just use lite wallets.. instead of making what once was a full nodes become a mass mess of limp nodes pretending they are classified as full nodes but not actually offering the full node utility or purpose of what is "full node".. again something he as a core dev can change by ensuring full nodes do full node tasks... instead of these silly PR games of switching off utility but trying to still promote that they are 'full nodes'(a PR campaign his clan of ass kissing friends have been pressing for years)

[larry_vw_1955]

Is Paypal free?

yes it's free to have an account not only that you can actually use that account to make transactions unlike with bitcoin where if you want to make transactions it cost something. why do you think people use paypal on ebay?

Is using a bank account free?

yes there's lots of free checking accounts from different banks.

Why would blockchains have to become free?

they wouldn't have to but if they want to attract a large user base it might be in their best interest. otherwise they might fall away into obscurity oneday.

Is there any payment infrastructure/system, that has zero maintenance costs, therefore there aren't any transaction fees in that system? I don't think so.

it's called value added services. you make the base services free but have premium services that are not free. ever heard of robinhood stock trading?

Comparing blockchains to Google and Facebook is like comparing apples to bananas. Does Google and Facebook provide financial services?
Does Google and Facebook have their own currencies.

facebook tried to get its own cryptocurrency and if they had done it it probably would have outstripped bitcoin in popularity. how many users does facebook have? how many does bitcoin have? case proven.

What the hell is a "pay-to-use" blockchain?

you know what it is. we all know what it is. why pretend you don't know?

Are there any blockchains, where the users have to pay an upfront fee, in order to gain access and use the blockchain?

it depends on how you define "use the blockchain" but for the vast majority of people it would mean conducting transactions.

How the replace the transaction fees in the blockchain? This guy is totally incompetent in regards to crypto, but he has opinions about it.
What a joke.

so someone has to be competent to have an opinion? well if that's the case then maybe crypto has too big walls for entry. like with paypal everyone knows how paypal works so they don't need a phD in mathematics.

firstly all users need to retrieve their UTXO from somewhere to then form tx's to spend value. but if full archival nodes are only transmitting data to paid partners(lite wallet server owners) then those paid partners will pass on their 'costs' to end users.. EG lite wallets and full nodes charge customers to retrieve their UTXO's (much like banks charge to receive bank statements/ATM balance checks)

man if that day comes then bitcoin is doomed.   doomed, i'm telling you!

[Dunamisx]

Are there people after the use of such service, blockchain exist as an independent technology which is free for everyone to use, if some people are trying to introduce something similar then we should be careful not to be a victim of their attack because we are talking on decentralization, anonymity and security here abd i don't think such can be well secured under such a paid service under the guise of being a blockchain technology network, just as you don't pay to use every wallet, the network is also available for free for everyone use.

[Blitzboy]

The article is well-written. I completely agree with the ideas about the necessity of free, easy-to-use, and recognisable blockchains. The focus being placed on usability and real-world applications rather than merely tech speak and lofty ideals is welcome.

I might add that mass adoption is heavily influenced by the component of "trust". Having used Google and Facebook for years without having to pay for them directly, the majority of people have a great deal of trust in these companies. Around the world, the indirect monetization strategy is well-known and, to some extent, acceptable. If blockchains are to get a comparable level of widespread adoption, they need to establish trust while guaranteeing user-friendliness and no upfront costs. Without getting bogged down in the expenses and technicalities that turn off a lot of people, we should concentrate on showing the general public the real advantages of blockchain technology. How would you feel about adding more initiatives to educate and raise awareness in order to encourage the adoption of blockchain technology?

[larry_vw_1955]

With such argument, i would point out it's free to download Bitcoin wallet software.

sure you can download a zillion different bitcoin wallets maybe that's free you can make as many bitcoin addresses as you want but you can't really DO anything with it without paying fees. and those little wallet softwares you download onto your phone aren't full clients. to actually download bitcoin core and keep it updated you are going to pay. pay in computer hardware and internet connection and then when you actually want to do a transaction you're going to pay a fee in bitcoin too.
don't forget all the time it costs you to set up and maintain your copy of the blockchain too because no one is paying you for that...

And PayPal usually charge tx fee.

they never charged me any fee for buying things on ebay.

Most people who use Facebook only use it for communication purpose though.

which is totally free.

So IMO comparing total Facebook and Bitcoin user isn't good comparison. For example, how many Facebook user ever use Facebook Marketplace (where actual money transfer usually happen outside Facebook system)?

apparently facebook marketplace is also free. free to sell stuff on. you don't pay a fee to facebook for using it. apparently.

The article is well-written.

i thought it was. not your typical go with the flow article.

[libert19]

I've had this thought before. It's sad that none of blockchains in existence are free, you have to get their native blockchain currency to even use the platform.

If you already have funds in crypto, it's relatively smooth state of affairs but for those who don't — they have to get funds via on-ramp platforms and they require kyc, some people don't prefer to do kyc and would rather give up onboarding altogether.

There is another, if fiat to crypto is banned by the country, then you either use p2p platforms or give up. Do you realize how much of hassle this is just to use the blockchain? Most people don't realize how big of restriction this is because they already have funds in crypto.