A historical review of the multi-decade centralization and capture of the email protocol.

Interesting history and analysis of SMTP’s history. How can we prevent fedi and other open protocols from suffering the same fates?

  • Sethayy@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    5 months ago

    Snails pace??

    You wanna take a 2 second peek at the value of bitcoin over the past decade (over 7 years bitcoin is about 3000%, USD is approximately 32% over 10)

    Banks do suck but there’s absolutely no reason rich people can’t manipulate bitcoin - maybe even easier than traditional money.

    Put your money in gold or something that actually exists instead of an imaginary number that’s limited in supply

    • ___@lemm.ee
      0·
      5 months ago

      That value was increased initially through usage as countries adopted ATMs and online retailers accepted bitcoin. This obviously reduced the supply due to increased demand. Then the speculators started buying it up making it even more scarce.

      It has a fixed amount. It’s normal to rise in value as it becomes more useful for either transacting, holding value, or making money through speculation. You can’t compare it to a 300 year old dollar which was unpegged from gold and has the US economy/government backing it now.

      The dollar is also manipulated, but the effects are less pronounced due to the sheer amount in circulation around the world. Some of the effects are also thrown on other economies through the Forex markets too. If bitcoin were as ubiquitous as the $, it wouldn’t be easy to manipulate either. It’s like having your own coin with only 100 physical coins in circulation. All someone has to do is buy a bunch and refuse to sell and the value rises for the uninformed.