Controversial take: Too many bitcoiners believe that superior technology leads to inevitable adoption, but this just isn’t true. Ask Betamax, Newton, or Pebble.
If we want to see widespread adoption, we need far better marketing (or any at all), the overall community needs to be more welcoming of differing views, and luck needs to be on our side. Without those, even the most revolutionary technology can be forgotten to history.
Yes.
Controversial? Why?
Because enormous swaths of bitcoiners believe its adoption is inevitable and act like pompous assholes to anyone who thinks otherwise, often to the detriment of actual adoption.
Bitcoins main driver of adoption is not the technology, but the incentives. There has never been a network which more heavily incentivizes people to use it, learn about it, and spread it to others. It’s as if you discover a new language which provides you economic benefits to speak.
Completely agree, but an off-putting community can disincentivize adoption pretty damn efficiently.
I agree.
I think that we’re in a bit of a bubble though - most people globally who use Bitcoin aren’t active members of “Bitcoin Twitter” or even Nostr. The people who are obnoxious on social media are a small minority of real Bitcoin users.
I’ve orange pilled a handful of people (>1M sats) who haven’t even once engaged in these types of spaces for instance.
Very true, and plenty of people will buy it and never read anything about it. But those that get curious shouldn’t be turned off by asking questions and getting toxic answers from closed-minded folks who think their world view is the only correct one.
Fucking Fitbit ruined smartwatches for me
I still miss my pebble.
Really great devices! I haven’t broken my OG out in a while. I wore my Time for a long time until it broke and am tempted to buy a replacement time steel, but they still go for like $150!
I’ve got a time steel. How do they even function anymore? Software and servers are long since abandoned?
The discord is super helpful. Some of the servers for things like weather might be gone, but a lot of it still works. I think the app left the App Store within the last couple years, which might make it a more difficult endeavor on iPhone.
Not disagreement, but a sort of counterpoint:
Shitcoiners believe they will outpace us on the same feature-tech fallacy.
They won't be convinced, so it's fine to not waste time on them. And sometimes, reverse psychology helps where logic won't.
Better to nurture folks that are ready.
"It is easier to fool people than to convince them they've been fooled."
While bitcoin's underlying technology is ingenious, technology alone is rarely enough for mainstream success. Many superior technologies have failed to reach critical mass for various reasons. Marketing, community culture, and timing/luck seem to play big roles as well.
For example, Betamax offered better video quality than VHS tapes back in the 1980s, but it lost out due to factors like Sony's licensing policies and VHS's savvy marketing. The Apple Newton PDA in the 1990s was technologically advanced but failed partly due to its high price, limited functionality for the time, and poor handwriting recognition. More recently, Pebble's innovative smartwatches lost momentum after the Apple Watch arrived with stronger brand recognition and marketing clout.
Did the Gold need marketing in the last thousands of years ? So ?
💯
Right now the PR surrounding bitcoin is largely negative and the people publicly representing it are the Max Keisers and Breedloves which definitely doesn't help with mass appeal
Exactly why we need spot ETFs. Facilitate adoption in the mainstream and tradfi. BlackRock and Fidelity have vast marketing budgets. Your rich Granny ain’t going to deal with keys.
Yes of course all successful open source protocols have had raving marketing teams 🥴
They lasted cause they work!
Microsoft/Apple survived cause they used marketing.
Bad take.
Bitcoin won't win because it's the better tech.
It will win because it's the better money.
It's the only money, even. What's the alternative in this scenario?
There are no alternatives, there's only bitcoin.
Feel free to market it away or to welcome everyone with open arms, though. Nobody is stopping you.
True
thorium nuclear reactors as well
But Bitcoin is not only a "technology" is acompletely new monetary system backed by different technologies, and the best money always win
Bitcoin has value because it cant be replaced by something better and it can't be replaced by something worse. It is the only thing that can solve the problem it was designed to solve. Marketing it has the opposite of the intended effect, its wasted effort. No use preaching to the choir, unless you only are interested in making the choir feel better about being up front and singing. Adopting it, using it to solve problems, understanding it enough to explain it very simply, making tools to make it easier to own and use; this is how bitcoin is accepted by the normies.
Money as a technology is the most important tool for trading and consuming goods and services and #Bitcoin is the best iteration of it. It is a winner take all technology. No marketing needed, fiat currencies are trending to zero and Bitcoin will replace them as money.
If Bitcoiners want to increase adoption, they need to go touch some grass. Leave your mancave behind, and your four monitors of financial charts, and find something else you love in life besides Bitcoin. Then, after you've given it some time, loving your new hobby on its own terms, find a way to bring Bitcoin into it.
This is fantastic advice.
100%
Without meaning to, I've ended up trying both approaches.
1. Getting people who might be interested to show up for an introductory meeting/class about Bitcoin. People show up. Orangepilled = 0
2. Live life, have friends, help people out with things, just mention Bitcoin a bunch of times : many more Bitcoiners on the (local) ground.
Orangepilled = Many
If it's uploaded check out C.J. Wilson's talk at Bitcoin takeover Austin earlier this year.
He spoke about integrating Bitcoin into his business (Porsche dealership), into charity, and how he advocates for Bitcoin in Congress.
Most impressive adaptation to integrating Bitcoin into life I've seen.
