Is Bitcoin in 2020 Really Like the Early Internet?

It’s a cliche at this point to compare bitcoin to the “early days of the internet,” since they are both examples of emerging technologies.

But does the cliche actually hold true?

If we work with a vague definition of the World Wide Web going live in 1991, then within the first decade that ecosystem grew faster and had more demand for compliant use cases than bitcoin arguably has today, one decade in.

In 1994, the New York Times reported that companies were “rushing” to set up shop via the World Wide Web, although the user experience was still “slow” and “crude.” Just like blockchain technologists, early internet companies ran into scaling issues. The 1994 Times report described the web as “already showing signs of suffering from its own success, as crowds compete for access to popular databases.” Yet people were already starting to think about subscription paywalls for content distribution. 

Industry insiders were so bullish on the commercial potential that in…