560 sats \ 6 replies \ @fiatbad 14 Feb \ on: I'm at a beach bar in El Salvador rn, here are my 'notes from the underground' bitcoin
Just as with anything, first impressions are VERY important.
Collectively, we kinda botched it by pushing Lightning and Bitcoin as a medium of exchange before it was ready. Then, the normies try using it, payments fail.... issues ensue, and we lost our "first impression" power.
This is a really big problem. It is stunting Bitcoin adoption overall. And it has given more ammunition to the haters who continue to hail Lightning as a total failure (i.e. the big bocker fools still pushing BCH).
If Lightning had worked without any issues in El Salvador, Bitcoin would have likely spread across the country like wildfire over the past few years. Instead, it's stagnant... too many negative first impressions.
I'm not a proponent of BCH, I own zero. But this is exactly what they have been saying was going to happen since the block wars. I think they are wrong overall, but they do make some good points and I would like hear more comments from prominent Bitcoiners about this issue. I know in time it will work itself out, with more development and education. But I'm afraid we could be shooting ourselves in the foot trying to push adoption before the tech is ready.
Bitcoin is a force of nature. Not a product launch. It does not care if it makes a bad first impression. Many people threw the baby out with the bath water lumping Bitcoin with shitcoin rug pulls, terrible UI experiences with Lightning rollouts, and in El Salvador specifically, the Chivo wallet got hacked. So yeah, the initial impression was poorly presented. Meanwhile...Tick tock, next block™. They will come back around, eventually.
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Yea, I completely agree.
Still... I personally get excited by what it can do for people as a medium-of-exchange. And I don't like what I'm seeing in this regard, recently.
I know we have to resist the urge to move fast and break things. Bitcoin shouldn't be treated like a startup tech company. But that doesn't mean I don't still get that urge. I'm a developer, so it's in my nature.
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I disagree. Without adoption, the tech will never be ready. The tech will only improve when there are hiccups. On one hand you appear to agree with BCH proponents on the need for adoption, while on the other hand you appear to wish for slower adoption because the tech is not ready. BCH does not solve the blockchain trilemma; it just increases scalability on the base layer at the expense of decentralization.
Besides, Lightning is working quite well, at least for me. Is it perfect and always smooth? Of course not. When I was a child, credit cards were accepted manually (5-10 minutes per transaction). Then, the first online terminals for shops began to appear. 1 out of 8 transactions would fail in the beginning. So what?
IMO, the main problem that Bitcoin has at the moment is not the tech. It is that it is so revolutionary that it's outside the Overton window and it is not 'approved' by the powers that be. Most people are hesitant about it or hostile towards it because of that fact. Be patient. It's OK if some merchants start accepting bitcoin and then give up. I also wish everything would happen faster, but it is what it is.
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I'm old enough to remember when we had to do this
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And it wasn't just what is shown on the video. It was also checking that the customer's card number wasn't on the blacklist, making a phone call to the authorization center to get an auth number, filling in the form by hand with the amount, date... And at the end of the day, compiling all the forms from all the sales, adding them up on a special form, putting everything in a special envelope and mailing it or handing it over in person at the bank branch for processing.
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Agreed on all points. Would love to hear more grownup debate and analysis on this instead of the usual shilling and name calling 😋
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