> Can we just stop this and act like engineers and actually _try_ to understand each other?
This would be a great thing for blockchain proponents to start doing, yes. HN is littered with threads where people have spent hundreds of comments trying to get someone to explain how a blockchain is better than the status quo, and it always devolves to “I need to sell my random hashes”, usually with a side of “I have done no research into the domain I’m trying to sell into”.
Concert tickets are a great example. There are no widespread problems with tickets being sold for concerts which don’t happen and refunds being denied in violation of the terms of sale. Similarly, people don’t have any trouble paying for tickets since the existing options are cheap and safe. Those problems certainly aren’t large enough to warrant the additional cost and risk of using a blockchain.
The actual problem with concert tickets in the U.S. is that one company has exclusive contracts with most of the venues, their agents handle bookings for most popular bands, and they have a comfortable relationship with the company which controls radio play in much of the country. If you want to do anything in this space you need to understand that it’s not a technical problem, and explain what you’re doing differently which will succeed unlike the various failed attempts since the beginning of the web.
This would be a great thing for blockchain proponents to start doing, yes. HN is littered with threads where people have spent hundreds of comments trying to get someone to explain how a blockchain is better than the status quo, and it always devolves to “I need to sell my random hashes”, usually with a side of “I have done no research into the domain I’m trying to sell into”.
Concert tickets are a great example. There are no widespread problems with tickets being sold for concerts which don’t happen and refunds being denied in violation of the terms of sale. Similarly, people don’t have any trouble paying for tickets since the existing options are cheap and safe. Those problems certainly aren’t large enough to warrant the additional cost and risk of using a blockchain.
The actual problem with concert tickets in the U.S. is that one company has exclusive contracts with most of the venues, their agents handle bookings for most popular bands, and they have a comfortable relationship with the company which controls radio play in much of the country. If you want to do anything in this space you need to understand that it’s not a technical problem, and explain what you’re doing differently which will succeed unlike the various failed attempts since the beginning of the web.