Ruby is not web scale
Don't believe me? Have a look for yourselves. https://www.healthcare.gov/
I've had in the back of my mind an idea for a long time that will take alot of ingenuity to implement, but I'm fairly confident it will be the kind of electronic currency that will sustain itself well after bitcoin.
The concept is based on the idea that there is no centralized or distributed mechanism for determining who has "mined" the currency. Each individual just creates an account, and over the lifetime of that account sustains itself based on comparisons with others whom they've transacted with. The algorithm would need to adapt to attempts to defraud it, but think about this.
If I am transacting with someone who has been spending the currency like a mad man, their currency can be seen as less valuable to the overall population (since they may be a statistical outlier in usage of the currency). When someone has spent too little, this can also be a negative, since new and unestablished accounts mean the person may be less trustworthy, etc.
I think the key to this may be in the ability to tie an account to a person's real identity somehow.
The concept around it really puts everyone on even footing when the currency first hits the market. None of this madness. Sure you can probably make money for a while with Bitcoin, but I'm not willing to bet too much on the long-term sustainability of it, just because it will be like most currencies in the past. Some will start with alot, and some will be left out to dry with none. It's simply not as appealing as a self-regulating currency.
13.798±0.037×10e9 years old
Math is fun.
Don't believe me? Have a look for yourselves. https://www.healthcare.gov/
Why haven't they been able to scale this thing so users can sign up? Was Ruby the right choice here?
Is anyone else astonished at the scalability issues they're having? It appears they're using Ruby on the backend. I had no idea Ruby was so difficult to scale...
This leads to the idea that unless the code is conceived well up front it's highly unlikely you're going to be able to learn from the market and adapt to what it's telling you if you're working with a bunch of ill conceived code from the get go.
As a web developer / consultant, I have to say the number of crippled businesses I have encountered over the years you would think some of these decision makers would've learned by now that if you're trying to do something complex with technology the last thing you should be doing is pinching pennies on the development of that technology.Coming in as the "fixer" for failed startups has made a...
Sure it wouldn't be as easy for many, but imagine a line below which folks who live in a currency-dependent economy would actually be better off to leave it. As more and more people fall below that line, the alternative way of life becomes more viable to sustain itself.
The thing that the wealthiest folks don't seem to realize is it's in their best interest to ensure the little guy has money. When a significant percentage of the population loses incentive to accumulate wealth you lose value on a global scale.
Once people realize currency is a man-made thing, and is not necessary to live fruitful, productive, enriched lives (the one real hurdle left is energy self-sufficiency), the system will finally be able to balance itself.
The fact that more and more startups are learning to self-govern is more reason to be optimistic that the social constructs that rule our worlds today are going to be a thing of the past. Hopefully sooner than later.