i actually think it's a pretty good simile
its bringing a new tech development to the masses in a very clunky way - just what AOL did.
you're missing the point here dude; me and the other guy are just saying that it's a similar situation:
> X brought Y together into a nice package that people could get behind and use even though there wasn't obvious inherent value to those who were using the Z beforehand
that applies to AOL and blockchain.
>>X brought Y together into a nice package that people could get behind and use even though there wasn't obvious inherent value to those who were using the Z beforehand
If AOL provided a major innovation not available in either X or Y, then it would be analogous to the blockchain. The reason why AOL faded away and the blockchain won't is that the latter solves a major problem that could not be solved by any previous technology, including any of its component technologies alone, while the former did not.
We've had hashing, dencentralisation, public key cryptography etc for years, but all of it was kind of academic, kind of out of reach.
Similarly AOL brought email, the web, IM together into a nice package that people could get behind and use even though there wasn't obvious inherent value to those who were using the internet beforehand.
AOL brought the news homepage, Ethereum has brought crypto-cats. AOL gave 8-year-old me an interest in dial-up connection sounds, bitcoin gave me an interest in staring at financial graphs.