Your analogies miss the mark because in addition to the negative things you’ve pointed out, Google Search, for example, _is_ useful.

Comparing the usefulness of Bitcoin to Google Search or the smartphone is asinine.

> Somehow I'm guessing most people who like bitcoin in 2011 aren't reeling from the failure of bitcoin.

Of course not — they’re all extremely wealthy. That’s irrelevant to the discussion; I’m sure the author of this piece understands that Bitcoin has increased in value, but that’s not at all what the piece is about.

How ridiculous to suggest that there is some objective trait called useful that you have a monopoly on determining.

Turns out that various people may find all of these various things either useful or not useful because it is subjective.

What is useful about Bitcoin? I genuinely don’t understand what use people see in it. Do you have a use? It seems to me the main use is “get rich on vetting it will go up” because I haven’t been able to find any other articulation of why i might ever want to use it.

Can you not imagine a future where the value of the USD is continually inflated by the FED to benefit particular segment of society, and wanting an out? What if there was this currency that no government could inflate away for political reasons, that you could really rely on to be free of short-term economic thinking?

> What is useful about Bitcoin?

No quasi-governmental agency can unilaterally decide to print gobs more of it & drive inflation through the roof...

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1

Have you never eaten with a friend and had to pay them with Venmo? You could also do it with paypal, or even hugs.

Or Monero. It's a bit more stable since people use it as a currency more often.

You have options, which pretty much depend on what that person wants to receive. It's not that big of a deal guys, stop the hate. It's a bit childish really

Okay, how about you give us an example of its utility aside from being a speculative instrument

How about instantaneous, near free payments and money transfer anywhere in the world? Please take a look at the lightning network.

Oh yeah, the comparisons of Bitcoin with XML and a train wreck are much better and much more accurate than the commenter's analogies.

>> It was supposed to do something useful but all it does is mine data for ads.

Gmail, docs, sheets, slides, drawings, calendar and geez just 1000 other things disagree with you. Yeah I know the ad network is paying for that stuff: that's the bargain that people who use their ecosystem of software products have made, just as people on Apple's ecosystem accept their tradeoffs. It just seems extremely cynical to suggest Google has done, or is doing, nothing useful. If there was no utility flowing the other way in return for the eyeballs and profile data I don't think they'd have a business.

I don't think Google has succeeded, for the same reasons you state ironically. "Making money/having power" isn't "success", it's "making money/having power". I don't find it at all ridiculous to say that Google and Facebook are failures, I (as the author) contest the synonymity of success and money. It's actually telling of how shit our society is that you (and most people) say "success" and mean "money", and find attempts to separate them laughable.

I think you were being sarcastic but yes all your points are correct (except Bitcoin has still failed)

And yet a VAST majority of people would label all of those companies successes and would also label bitcoin a success (comparatively from where it was 11 years ago)