Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Is Blockchain the Tool for Small Business Renaissance?

Bitcoin had all the elements of fraud from the beginning, and I am glad to see my hunches proven right so quickly.  But as improvisational theatre work teaches, the first idea is rarely good.  Skip that, and see what you think of next.  Bitcoin was based on something being called blockchain, whatever that means, and the next ideas based on blockchain look promising.  Check out this article on something called Ethereum, touted as a new internet platform.

From a business point of view, although I once wavered, I am now convinced the internet has changed nothing, and if anything, it is a net deficit as far as human progress goes.  As one who recalls vividly a world of interest-free finance, and content-rich existence, unmediated human interaction, I wonder at the applause for a pixel-mediated existence.  And to say discos are superior to twitter is severe condemnation indeed!  (And here again, like google and amazon and indeed even the airline industry, twitter has not turned a profit either.)

Internet marketing is a zero-sum game, it is at best self-service checkout for commerce.  From a business point of view, the internet has only widened access to communication and research, but at a cost too high when considering the quality of the results is no better, or worse.

Back in the day families could have a business that afforded a lifestyle from middle class on up, and the tech level was no nationwide UPS service, let alone Fedex, no internet, only telex, catalogs and phone numbers at libraries  (and most corporations had private libraries with well-paid librarians; your library collection was a trade secret since its content would reveal your thinking.)  Sure things took longer, and were more expensive, but access to content was merit based for the expense, and the product was much better.

When everyone paid a couple of bucks for a phone service, now everyone pays around $60 for the ability to send value-free content around the world.  And to be fair, taxpayers must pay for the indolent to join in as well.

Deregulating telecommunications, and hooking computers up to telephone lines was a huge opportunity. We might have had a lowering of cost and a widening of access to communication and research, but since we went off the gold standard lite in 1971, mal-credit poured into this vacuum and we have a dreadful mix of spam, porn, psy-op addictive gamification and privacy violation.

With the USA policy of get big or get out, family run gas stations are gone.  Who needed GPS when you could stop at any gas station for accurate directions and a map?  Today we have people clueless as to where anything is, but we pay an astronical amount to self-report our location to the unaffordable security state, so we are "safe."  Except this security state that searches me at the airport cannot spot the San Bernardino killers (or find the third shooter) or prevent 9-11, or track violent ex-con Islamic extremists related to previous killers who gathered bomb ingredients unnoticed.  But I get searched at the airport.

If we muck out the barn, will we find some gems?  Well, there is Adobe .pdf, truly a gem.  But if keep finding UBER is what peer-to-peer rideshare becomes, if self-driving cars are preferenced over mag-lev, if bitcoin is money, then no other gems, just horse...

End corporate welfare.  Yes, cut every dime of corporate welfare before you cut a dime of personal welfare, but end all welfare.  Give it back to the religions.  End corporate welfare and prosperity will obviate the need for personal welfare.

Let's escape to anarchy.

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