Blockchain technology is just a fad – people are saying every day. And yet, it is the most promising technology of our lifetimes. If you are confused there’s nothing to worry about. Just take a look at following lines which are going to clarify many things.
In 1903, President of the Michigan Savings Bank said:
He was advising Henry Ford’s lawyer, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor Company.
More than a hundred years later, Ford employs 200,000 people around the world producing 6,6 million vehicles annually.
And when was the last time you rode a horse to work?
But that isn’t the case with cars only, every time a new technology emerges that tends to disrupt the status quo, people start saying it is just a fad.
Just look at these thoughts and predictions that didn’t come about:
William Orton, President of Western Union, in 1876:
Thomas Edison, American inventor and businessman, in 1889:
Simon Newcomb, Canadian-American astronomer and mathematician, in 1902, 18 months before the Wright Brothers’ flight at Kittyhawk:
Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox, in 1946:
T.A.M. Craven, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner, in 1961:
Ken Olson, President, Chairman and Founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, in 1977:
Marty Cooper, inventor, in 1981:
Clifford Stoll in the Newsweek article titled “The Internet? Bah!”, in 1995:
Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, in 1998:
Steve Chen, CTO and co-founder of YouTube, expressing concerns about his company’s long-term viability, in 2005:
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, in 2007:
“An Unrestrained Demon”: Anti-electricity cartoon from 1900
Why do people tend to do this?
I can see two main reasons:
Either the occurrence of something new will make their efforts redundant and they will lose privileges and positions, or they just don’t understand what the new technology is bringing.
The first reason I can understand.
If they are already familiar with the industry and have the knowledge and a good job that comes with it, of course, they aren’t going to be happy that there is something new that threatens to take it all away.
Although I can understand it, I do not approve of this way of thinking because they should understand that the progress is inevitable. And desirable.
The second reason, however, leaves no room for understanding and excuses.
Just because people don’t understand something, it doesn’t mean it’s not valuable.
Of course, it is hard to understand something that is complex when you encounter it for the first time.
Complex but not complicated
But here’s something you don’t hear every day: You don’t have to understand how a technology works to accept it.
Most drivers don’t understand how the internal combustion engine works inside the car, but they know that the car can get them from one point to another much faster. Faster than a horse, that is.
It is enough to understand the benefits of a new technology to accept it.
The same line of reasoning should be applied to blockchain.
You don’t have to understand the complexity of a bitcoin transaction, or how blockchain works.
Leave technical stuff to developers, it is their job to understand and know how to build it.
The right questions to ask are what problems blockchain solves and how it can be applied.
Blockchain is a platform of trust
Blockchain is the next generation of the Internet
While we were living relying on the Internet of Information and waiting for the promised advantages of the Internet of Things, something completely new arrived without notice. It was blockchain – the Internet of Value. ~@cryptpresso
Now we have the option to transfer everything of value over the Internet, not just information.
It is a revolutionary technology that is going to change the way the financial system is operating.
What e-mail has done to the postal service, blockchain is going to do to banks.
And that is just one aspect of it, as many industries can benefit from this technology.
Listen to what Don Tapscott has to say about blockchain and its disruptive force:
So, no, blockchain technology is NOT a fad. It’s just a new thing that people don’t understand quite yet, but it is going to be widely acceptable once it stands the test of time.
Just like nobody quite realized what the Internet was and how it made our lives easier in the early 1990s, we don’t realize the vast opportunities blockchain will bring in decades to come.
You are in the minority of people who can become the early adopters of this technology and benefit from it.
All you need to do is to start using it.
Join me and learn how.
