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Re:Ethereum programming for web developers by CryptoPunk on Thursday January 18, 2018 @06:05PM (#16182455)
The technology here is far greater than the sum of the parts (public key cryptography, hashing, etc). The innovation of the blockchain is distributed consensus, and none of the component technologies can provide that alone.
Re:Ethereum programming for web developers by lelbloster on Thursday January 18, 2018 @11:08PM (#16184085)
huh?

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.

Re:Ethereum programming for web developers by CryptoPunk on Friday January 19, 2018 @12:16AM (#16184293)
"huh" doesn't really tell me anything about your understanding of my point. If you could specify what part of my statement doesn't make sense for you, I could at least try to clarify it.

>>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.