Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic

Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by 21 on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @05:05PM (#17657126)

Obligatory quote from the same author made in 1998:

> The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law’ — which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants — becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s

EDIT: Really? Downvoted for stating a true context fact?

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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by CPLX on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @05:08PM (#17657151)

I dunno. I think it's fair to say he had a point about people running out of things to say to each other. His main mistake seems to have been not to realize that people would carry on doing it anyways.

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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by 21 on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @05:10PM (#17657173)

> I think it's fair to say he had a point about people running out of things to say to each other

Reddit, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Whatsapp even HN disagree.

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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by arcbyte on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @05:24PM (#17657314)

I've always felt a little apprehensive about things Krugman has said, but I'm not an economist and he seems to be held in pretty high regard generally so I've tried to struggle to listen to his viewpoint.

This quote pretty much seals the deal that I was right all along and he's not worth paying attention to.

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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by bittcto on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @06:43PM (#17657952)

He’s not held in high regard by economicists or even economics. He has been proven wrong repeatedly. He’s held in high regard by socialists because he white washes the death and destruction their socialism causes. That’s his purpose. That and virtue signaling.

Your instincts are right. Go to Mises.org for real economics.

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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by maneesh on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @03:17AM (#17660300)

Err...he won a nobel prize in economics

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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by cwkoss on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @05:57PM (#17657605)

He also previously wrote "Bitcoin is Evil" in 2013

https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/bitcoin-is-evil...

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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by bokonon12 on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @06:29PM (#17657852)

Probably because the argument "but he was wrong about other stuff" doesn't invalidate this article at all and doesn't add anything to the discussion. If you disagree him on Bitcoin then state why

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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by kybernetikos on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @06:30PM (#17657866)

> Downvoted for stating a true context fact?

You did not provide the context at all, and I'm surprised that you would imply you did.

The context is that he said that as part of an article about why economists make incorrect predictions. In context, it was clearly (in my opinion) intended to be a provocative possibility, rather than taken as something the author thought would definitely happen.

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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by tcbawo on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @05:29PM (#17657362)

That's the problem with making bold predictions. You're sometimes wrong. He's also made some very prescient predictions.

Another thing people pull out is his dire predictions on the eve of Trump's election. He was quick to point out his error (I think the next day, maybe).

He does seem to admit when he's wrong and adapt his views.

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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by bittcto on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @06:44PM (#17657958)

5 years ago he claimed bitcoin was evil. He hadn’t adapted. He can’t adapt. He’s just a fraud.

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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by bittcto on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @06:40PM (#17657930)

HN leftists can’t abide any facts that put Krugman in a bad light. I pointed out he advocated a housing bubble I’m getting downvoted too.

HN is a farm for socialist sheep and explicitly anti-intellectual.

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Re:Transaction Costs and Tethers: Why I’m a Crypto Skeptic by dragonwriter on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @06:45PM (#17657974)

Krugman is both an intellectual and neither a leftist nor a socialist (he's somewhere, economically, between centrist and center-right), so even if HN was a leftist camp of socialist anti-intellectuals, that wouldn't explain a fondness for Krugman.

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