It has been almost three years now since we last heard the promises of mass adoption, usability, scalability, proof of X and all those phrases no one really understood. While others saw that time as a period of prosperity, I would have to disagree and point out a few flaws in the system.
Marketing ruins everything
As our history would teach us, marketing is a cancer of our society and no one seems to care too much about it. During the 20k days when Bitcoin was the worry of the world, marketing showed how nasty it can really be.
Thanks to marketing Bitconnect gathered enough people to cause a community-wide meltdown. Referral programs provided an incentive for people like Trevon James to pull thousands in the mud and take their hard-earned cash before the pyramid collapses.
Marketing also introduced false promises and outright lies that are used by community representatives to this day. Here is just one example.
Some would think that 11k people watched a Livestream that was hosted by Dlive and Justin Sun.
Since I know both of those names very well I dug a bit deeper and here is what I found.
The average watch time per viewer is 1 minute and 27 seconds. Since the duration of the stream was roughly 52 minutes, we can safely assume that only a few individuals watched it from the start to finish.
In fact, the total watch time is 11 days and 8 hours. It only takes 300 people to watch it from start to finish to top that number.
DLive was a dead streaming platform that served no purpose whatsoever until Pewdiepie came along and promoted it.
That means that most of the users on the platform right now are his own audience and if we know that their median age is about 13–15 years, why would we assume that they have any interest in decentralization and cryptocurrency whatsoever?
These kids came to watch video games on the platform and since the influence on this DECENTRALIZED platform is completely centralized, the OWNER of the platform probably promoted the stream on the front page.
Why not? He bought the thing…This action leads to a number of curious clicks but we can all see how that went.
The bottom line - Justin Sun is and isn’t lying. He is using misinformation in a legal way to raise expectations and inflate the numbers for egoistic and monetary reasons. The only accurate thing here is that less than 300 people actually care about what Justin has to say.
The BNB paradox
How marketing hype brainwashed the whole community can be seen in the example of the holy CZ and his even holier coin that is worshiped by crypto followers on Twitter worldwide.
These individuals are even starting to show off their Lambos bought by BNB. Something that was done by BTC and BCC believers in the past.
Yes, I am referring to Bitconnect again.
The BNB paradox can also be blamed on marketing because the holy man known as CZ used every scumbag technique marketing can offer. While Bitconnect stopped at referrals, Binance was using (and still is) every single tool in the arsenal.
Giveaways, competitions, tag-a-friend, like-share-retweet, 50% discount on Bitcoin…
Total cost of the giveaway : 5 hoodies (~$50 in production)
Total return of giveaway : 1.4k retweets and 1,2k comments
Any sane marketing consultant would say that this is a steal.
Now, what about that 50% discount that some of you may get?
The rules are simple. You have to trade a total of 1 BTC and pay the trading fees in the process. After that, you will maybe win a 50% discount but you have to buy that BTC with BNB and as a result, you are FORCED to use a currency you otherwise wouldn’t need to.
Some get a 50% discount and the others pay for that discount through fees and conversions.
Another steal from a marketing perspective.
All of this with one single goal. To increase user numbers and bring more profits to the ones that got in first. This whole cost-effective marketing machine is backed up with a big ass referral program.
Here is the whole system visualized.
Not the actual reward system used by BNB
I won’t go into more detail because CZ is still a taboo subject in our community. Also, that is not the topic of our discussion right now. The only thing you should see here is that one man is doing everything he can to increase the trading volume so more fees are generated and more revenue is shown off on Twitter by BNBelievers.
At first, we wanted to remove the middleman and the fees but when we got into a position where we could benefit from them we decided to let them stay.
At least that is how things look like to the outside world right now.
Mass adoption and why it won’t come any time soon
Centralized entities like Binance and Tron have gathered the most following on Twitter at the moment.
This is a dangerous game to play because they are both using douchebag tactics to pump the numbers and create a false image of our current state. If one of these projects fails as hard as Bitconnect did can you even imagine the damage it would do to the reputation of the whole industry?
Time to face the hard facts
BTC and Blockchain are all about decentralization, privacy, removing the middle man, low fees and above all equality. If you are realistic and evaluate the current state of things from a neutral standpoint you will realize that the only real gainers in the market are centralized entities operating within a “decentralized” community.
Not only that, but they are also the voices of the community and since they have no problem with lying every now and then the information may be distorted a bit.
I won’t go into user experience because we all know it sucks now just as it sucked in 2017. Connecting wallets, private keys and storing all of that information in a safe place is not that convenient at all.
Not to mention the whole procedure for obtaining your very own cryptocurrency for the first time.
Mass adoption in the 21st century requires convenience as a service and the users aren’t getting that with blockchain.
Centralized privacy vs Decentralized privacy
Since Google and Facebook are the main faces of centralization I will use these two platforms for comparison.
What do you need to do to keep your data private on these platforms?
Not much actually. All it takes is one fake email and a few extensions if you want to be really picky.
While Google is constantly criticized for data mining I would like to remind you that Brave Browser would never come to be if it wasn’t for Chromium.
This centralized demon known as Google actually has an open-source project that is free to use by anyone. Brave founders decided to rework that thing and adapt it to what Brave Browser is today.
This centralized demon also allows independent creators to develop extensions that allow me to use an ETH wallet within Chrome but also keep my data private with a few others as well.
Privado makes sure your search data isn’t stored or exploited.
uBlock removes all ads from the internet with just two clicks.
Temp Mail provides temporary email addresses for whenever you need them.
All of this and much more would not exist if it wasn’t for Google. We don’t even have to go into Google Earth, Google Street View, Google Maps and many other services that are fueled with user data (fake or real, that is up to you).
And what did Google ask me to do in order to give me all of this FOR FREE?
I need to use a Gmail account that requires no KYC and can be created in just a few clicks. No ICO, no IEO, no investing and no speculation. Free search engine, ad-free browsing experience, blockchain wallet integration, user-friendly products and a lot more for one fake name and address.
What about Facebook?
Free communication, free video and conference calls, free content distribution, convenient ways to register on new websites with the “log in with Facebook” function… You get the idea…
The important part here is that you will get all of this even if you lie to them. They don’t care if your real name is the name you used. They just want the data because that is the product they are selling. Nothing more, nothing less.
Both of these entities are on top for a reason — they perfected convenience as a service.
Users don’t care about their data as much as you would think and if they can get what they want in less than a few seconds why would they bother with your blockchain apps that bring nothing new to the table? On top of that, users are usually forced to use a specific currency in order to be able to use the app/platform.
Can Blockchain and Crypto even compete with centralization?
As long as the representatives of our community are centralized entities that are constantly growing thanks to the incentive they can give to their users, there is no need for anyone outside of the community to even look into crypto. The user experience sucks, the tech is still young and most of the ideas come from the people with the most followers…
We already tried communism in the past and it didn’t work out very well.
The only thing crypto can compete with is security but we don’t need a new currency for that. Blockchain can make sure that your data can’t be modified or stolen by a third party but do people really care about their data so much?
In 2017, 6.64 percent of consumers became victims of identity fraud — that’s about 1 in 15 people
Realistically speaking, 14 out of 15 people never experienced identity fraud and thus they have no reason to take any precautions whatsoever. The centralized system they established is working fine as far as they are concerned and they will keep paying their governments to keep them safe.
Just like Justin wants you to think that TRON is a mainstream project in the crypto space, the people who offer solutions that might end identity theft want you to believe that your data needs protection.
Not because they want that but because marketing forced them to do so. It’s all about the numbers these days and we seem to be looking at the wrong ones.
Now, let’s be honest for a second
Is it so hard to use a fake email every now and then and just forget about the whole decentralization thing? We already strayed far from the Satoshi path. I can only imagine what happens next.
Decentralization is an idea we all need to work on. One man, one woman or one business entity can never bring true decentralization to the world.
Maybe that is why the creator[s] of Bitcoin remained anonymous. Maybe it’s time to ask why they deprived themselves of the “fame” CZ and Justin are getting. Maybe it is time we replaced HOW with WHY and maybe then we will realize how deep in the mud we all are right now.
Decentralization has to be a collective effort with equal rights for everyone. If we are trying to implement it in any other way I do have to ask one simple question…
WHY?
(Originally Published here)