Apps, Blockchain, and Digital Currency

According to Forbes article The Mobile Browser Is Dead, Long Live The App Ewan Spence claims “While users are spending more time on their devices (an average of 2 hours and 42 minutes per day, up four minutes on the same period last year), how they use that time has changed as well. Only 22 minutes per day are spent in the browser, with the balance of time focused on applications.” This shows how people are more likely to use apps instead of web browsers. Young people today get most of their information from the apps they use. We get our news from articles we find on Facebook or Twitter and not directly from news stations. Mat Honan from Wired wrote in his article The Rise of Chat Apps “Most prosaically, these apps are saving their customers money by reducing text-message fees.” Apps like Whatsapp allow you to talk with people from other countries like the Dominican Republic. If we used texting from our service providers, we would have to pay for the service but since we’re more likely to have internet is makes more sense to have an app that lets us text, call and even video chat without paying for both internet and the service itself.

In Vala Afshar article Blockchain Will Disrupt Every Industry he says “The answer isn’t in the technology, but in how the technology can improve inefficient business processes.” This is referring to us making the most of the things we have. The people who started working with Bitcoin understood there could be a way to make transactions more widespread and reach people in numerous locations without fees or conversion charges. In this, they copied the model of communication used by apps and made it about money for easier access. Also from wired, in the article THE FIERCE BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF BITCOIN Robert McMillan stated “If you gave some company access to your bitcoins, you were essentially trusting it as you would a bank. It could lose them to hackers or, worse, steal them outright. ” Although there are risks, it’s the same risks you’d be making with a bank anyway, except now you can send your money anywhere. It does seem a bit more complicated than banks because it’s a new system without the government backing it up, but it’s still an option worth thinking about. Some people feel that Bitcoin may not be the best option because of these risks. Douglass Rushkoff added in his article How Bitcoin Ends “The money itself is worthless. Less than worthless, in fact. We are spending massive amounts of machine cycles and electricity, burning fossils fuels for no reason other than to prove our commitment to the coin.” People feel this way because Bitcoin itself is not backed by value the same way currency is usually backed by something like gold. It seems like a waste of energy because there’s nothing that really shows Bitcoin could really be effective in the future when we already have money that works, it just takes managing. I’m not sure if Bitcoin would take over because people are too used to our regular money. Plus, we’re using our money to make Bitcoin worth anything, but money is the thing backed with value. It seems like Bitcoin is just adding an extra step to our transactions.

 

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