pdj on Nostr: I've been meaning to write about how "crossing the chasm" applies and doesn't apply ...
I've been meaning to write about how "crossing the chasm" applies and doesn't apply as a framework for Bitcoin for a while but didn't understand it well enough myself.
It's so different because the adoption of a consumer product has really never been a protocol AND a commodity AND solve such a big problem where best engineers in the world are competing against each other to get people on to that protocol as seamlessly as possible. The best engineers in the World are motivated to get paid in Bitcoin and know they have to create exceptional features for free to attract new consumers to this protocol.
That's unprecedented.
The chasm applies because we are clearly facing traditional chasm challenges with education and pragmatists or we wouldn't be at such low adoption compared to the size of the population.
Why the chasm bell curve won't apply here to Bitcoin is that the pain of the pragmatists is being absolved exponentially by the competition among the engineers building the Bitcoin experiences. That's why I think this model will not apply and is different. Once the chasm is crossed, it's number go up and game theory that take over. There will be no time to identify unique characteristics of an adopter after the chasm is crossed.
The closest comparable to Bitcoin is a weak one. It would be something like chess.com because it's just a set of rules that the service upholds and a few engineers optimize for efficiency. It has network effects though so even a 10x experience above chess.com is not going to win because that competitor won't be able to get the network effect scale. The engineers at chess.com just go home and eat hot pockets they're not motivated to get paid in Bitcoin. Their why is not the why strong enough to change the paradigm on chasm thinking.
So in summation, someone could argue that we're up against the chasm now, but IMO the early majority, late majority or laggards will not have time to develop the characteristics or unique definitions of those categories with Bitcoin. They will just all get grouped into the suddenly group.
After the chasm is just the suddenly group. No more laggards, late or early adopters. Just the post chasm suddenly group. And we have the best engineers in the World that didn't take an easier path to money to thank for that.
It's so different because the adoption of a consumer product has really never been a protocol AND a commodity AND solve such a big problem where best engineers in the world are competing against each other to get people on to that protocol as seamlessly as possible. The best engineers in the World are motivated to get paid in Bitcoin and know they have to create exceptional features for free to attract new consumers to this protocol.
That's unprecedented.
The chasm applies because we are clearly facing traditional chasm challenges with education and pragmatists or we wouldn't be at such low adoption compared to the size of the population.
Why the chasm bell curve won't apply here to Bitcoin is that the pain of the pragmatists is being absolved exponentially by the competition among the engineers building the Bitcoin experiences. That's why I think this model will not apply and is different. Once the chasm is crossed, it's number go up and game theory that take over. There will be no time to identify unique characteristics of an adopter after the chasm is crossed.
The closest comparable to Bitcoin is a weak one. It would be something like chess.com because it's just a set of rules that the service upholds and a few engineers optimize for efficiency. It has network effects though so even a 10x experience above chess.com is not going to win because that competitor won't be able to get the network effect scale. The engineers at chess.com just go home and eat hot pockets they're not motivated to get paid in Bitcoin. Their why is not the why strong enough to change the paradigm on chasm thinking.
So in summation, someone could argue that we're up against the chasm now, but IMO the early majority, late majority or laggards will not have time to develop the characteristics or unique definitions of those categories with Bitcoin. They will just all get grouped into the suddenly group.
After the chasm is just the suddenly group. No more laggards, late or early adopters. Just the post chasm suddenly group. And we have the best engineers in the World that didn't take an easier path to money to thank for that.