I remember back when I was still young, working on a summer job that I was lucky enough to get to pay for my first computer. Some kids at school were always discussing what they were doing on theirs, while a majority of them didn't have one except for their phones, which at the time lacked any smart components. Nokia was all the rage and aside from Snake and a few other games the main thing you could do on them was call people or SMS text them. Weird times looking back when you had to pay for each call and SMS you did. Either way the few friends who did have "personal computers" would always discuss about the internet trends going on at the time, how they were playing online multiplayer games such as CS 1.6, MOH:AA and Worms 3d, etc. Aside from that they very much enjoyed downloading stuff before pirating became "illegal" (but did it it stop people from pirating?).
After visiting one of those friends one evening and seeing him play MOH:AA (Medal of Honor: Allied Assault) I was determined to get my own PC. After working a full summer I had finally gotten the money together to spend it on a PC, even though I remember my parents often asking me "is this really a good investment?". At first I did the usual things, play some multiplayer games, download a few movies; I still remember very well how I was trying to download a 700mb copy of the Lord of the Rings on a 25kb/s DSL. The program I used was called DC++ which enabled people to join hubs where they could share folders in and let others access them directly to download, at the same time it would download a movie from beginning to end, not partition it up like torrent programs use these days where depending on which part is available and can get downloaded by you the fastest will. This meant that I could start watching the movie on VLC while it was downloading and I remember having rewatched the beginning of LOTR at least 7 times until it was time for bed. Every rewatch I could watch a little further in as it had downloaded a little more. The actual downloading part was exciting to young me with his new computer enabling the world of the internet. Like, I'd literally just sit and watch how fast it was downloading and seeing the percentage of the download go from 10.36% to 0.01% higher now and then.
Then came the time of being able to burn CD's, I distinctively remember thinking what sort of magic all of that was. It's a fucking circular piece of glass and my PC could embed music or movies onto it through a laser, I mean even today it's kind of wtf but unfortunately the era of CD's came to an end quite quick and are mostly used as novelty these days.
There was a time when I had gotten used to PC's a bit more, constantly playing, reading chats like mIRC, DC++ chatrooms and of course getting friends who also started getting PC's of their own or using their "family pc" (possibly also a word that has lost usage over the years) to join MSN to chat with them there. I distinctively remember that my parents used to do phone calls outside of the country to some relatives and whatnot and how expensive it was and me asking them why they wouldn't use something like MSN to chat with them or maybe Skype to call them and at the same time wondering why not everyone is using skype for such calls instead of paying several euro's per minute on their phone connections. If only one could have Skype on their phone I'd think but it was of course a little too early for the smart phones to exist.
I also remember my move from the numerous Nokia's into my first "smart phone", which was surprisingly cheap but also very, very, slow and wonky; a ZTE but that was quite a few years later.
I don't know what exactly it was, what drove me to spend all this time online, constantly searching for what else is new, what fun/interesting things there are to do along with gaming being a big part of it but it kind of was the same mentality and curiosity that drove me to and got me stuck on blockchain. The reason I'm bringing up the story about my involvement with technology early on in Finland is because I have this one friend who texted me today asking if crypto is about to do another scam-run.
It's just baffling to me and it reminded me of the majority of people back when as they couldn't see anything interesting or worth their time to do on the computer compared to me and a few friends, it was still very early and they were too busy with their "lives". Many also didn't think the internet was that big of a deal and wouldn't really go anywhere, that computers were just a hassle to install and expensive to buy, kind of reminds me of some of my friends feeling about Hive registrations.
It just feels, even though I've attempted to explain to them, in great detail even, that crypto or blockchain is not just another fad. Stop listening to people talking about the tech bubble or the tulip mania, look at it in terms of the internet instead. An invention, which was older than most of us were even alive for but took a long time until people found the right usecases for to get everyone to use it. I've studied Bitcoin back in the day quite a lot, even though I was mostly intrigued by the mining and earning which I'm sure many others were but sitting around mining all day and nothing else to do back then before any alts even existed you had some time to dig into the whitepaper, other people's thoughts, etc. Like, there was a clear innovation here but no matter how I formulate it or attempt to convince them they don't see the importance of it, so eventually I just gave up.
"Another scam-run" is in a way hilarious to me, it's like they think we here today invested in the tech and potential are the same as those who get MLM'd up to sell Essential Oils or other pyramid schemes where we're all in on it together and we all know crypto is just a scam but we're trying to trick enough people to buy in so we can sell to them for a higher price. Although to be fair, let's be honest, most of the people in crypto still today are plotting to do exactly that.
Either way, I don't really know what could convince them but I assume that they'll be the same as before and join the internet, facebook, reddit, etc when everyone else is already on it compared to those early pioneers and users who saw something of value and either started building or using it because it was "some next level shit", a saying I've unfortunately not heard too much lately but fits quite well in this regard.
I'm sure many of you have had to deal with the same questions and attitudes when you've been trying to explain crypto or hive to them and I'm sure for many of you it has left you quite disappointed. Here we are, though, let's see what we can continue to keep building, innovating on and making life easier for the future generations and hopefully they'll be here then too and still have a habitable planet to shitpost on and check what the early pioneers were up to and talking now.
Hope you've been enjoying the market trends lately and it has given you some relief, I know everyone and their mothers were calling for 12k or 7k but keep in mind that most don't really know any better and most of it is just noise out there. Twitter's gonna be an even crazier place in the near future with monetization rumors coming up and everyone willing to sell a kidney or two to be someone.
