Mass Adoption? - Not until we get SSS and why Techies and Bankers are two sides of the same coin
If there is one thing that perhaps every member of this esteemed community desires, it's a new world financial model based upon a stable, transparent and decentralised system of checks and balances.
And now we have blockchain, so all our prayers are answered.
Hmmm. Perhaps not quite.
How many people here directly invest in more traditional financial instruments? Stocks and Shares? Commodities? Futures? Forex?
Let's have a look at some figures. Now the people who have direct investments are called the 'Investment class'. Instead of using traditional class systems, we use just two classes; Investment Class and Non-Investment Class.
In the US, according to a recent Gallup poll, only 54% of American households had individual investments in the Stockmarket. This includes direct investments such as stocks and indirect investments such as mutual funds, retirement plans, trusts etc.
This 54% figure is down from the 63% recorded before the 2008 financial crisis.
Another interesting statistic is that the top 84% of stock wealth was owned by just 10% of households. This figure is an updated figure based on 2013 research by an NYU economist Edward Wolff. No surprise there then but the reason I'm interested is that I wanted to know why more people don't invest. If we can understand that, then we can apply the same reasoning to Crypto and then find some way of addressing these issues to improve on adoption figures and get people at least dipping their toe in the water.
Now I know that comparing Stocks to Crypto isn't a true comparison outside the fact that they're both financial instruments, I personally think that cryptocurrencies are an all-in-one form of currency and stock, but there are similar reasons as to why more people don't invest and therefore later, adopt Crypto as a way of making any financial transaction.
So, cutting to the chase, the reasons more people don't invest in stocks directly is that firstly they don't have the spare money to invest, and secondly, and most importantly, in my opinion, they don't invest because they are too complex to understand them. That's 25% of people don't invest in stocks purely because they don't understand them, according to the investment information website, Bankrate.
Did I mention that this was a survey of millennials (18 to 34)? I'll try not to laugh!
Getting back to Crypto then, people don't understand stocks, which to me anyway, are infinitely easier to understand and use than crypto, what hope is there for mass adoption of crypto?
I see articles on here, excellent and well-written articles about the nuts and bolts of cryptocurrencies and blockchains and I am in awe of the knowledge and writing skills and spend ages attempting to understand but I always get back to thinking how the Techie community could make things a lot simpler for Joe Public, especially Gen X Joe Public like myself to understand, use and thus adopt cryptocurrencies as the de facto way of trading goods and services and as a store of wealth.
As usual, and being a techie myself once upon a time, a long time ago, they have a tendency to 'get off' on the complexity. Now, blockchain and modern coding is complex but tech companies tend to forget that consumers don't actually care how something works, they care about what it does and how to make it do it. Even my little scooter is packed full of electronics with its ABS, remote key, digital dashboard and built-in GPS, but do I care how that works? No is the most definite answer. What I need to know is how to start it, what to twist to make it go and which button do I need to press to make the seat pop up, and that's it.
Likewise, with cryptocurrencies. I want to buy something, or send some to a bank. I don't give a monkeys chuff about hash rates, blocks, nodes and confirmations. I want to type a name or ID into my phone or PC, type in how much I need to send and press 'send', safe in the knowledge that the money will be in the account in a few minutes. That's it, a 30- second process after which I can happily go back to looking at trains, watching porn or knitting mittens,
Take the recent Byteball airdrop. To get my 'free' $40, it took about 2 hours of my life and about a gigawatt of electricity to work out what to do and how to do it, and looking at their app, it's like Egyptian Hieroglyphics. Attest this, Botchat that, name your wallet this, multiple wallets, Bytes, gigabytes, blackbytes, DAG??? Last time I heard the word 'Dag' it was in vintages 1980's Neighbours when Plain Jane and Mike had a bit of a lovers tiff.
If you confuse people with the technology, or like the current financial hierarchy does, confuse people with technical financial terms, then people turn away. You must always cater to as low a common denominator as possible to ensure mass comprehension and following on from that, mass adoption.
Triple S, SSS
SSS was the name applied to 1970s sporty Datsuns, it should also be the mantra for tech companies trying to woo the public with this new technology.
Simple
In all dealings with the general public and your potential end users, use simple easy to understand terms and show people what it can do. Save the technobabble for your technical papers and cosy chats on Github.
Seamless
I don't want to have to go through three exchanges, remembering three sets of logins and passwords, converting from this to that, to the other before I can buy a pint of milk. I want to tap ONE destination ID and the amount. End of.
Swift
It's got to be fast. When I got my pint of milk, I want to pay for it. Not stand there waiting while it turns to butter for some node owner in Outer Mongolia to confirm the transaction.
That's all there is to it Tech companies. Invest more in 'User Experience and Integration'. I often see jobs advertised for coders, project managers, accountants etc but rarely do I see anyone wanting Customer care staff or User experience managers.
You really need to talk to your intended market using market research to find out what your customers are going to want. I know you don't like simplicity guys but it's no good asking people here or on tech boards, they are not your mass market, although I guess in some respect you could count them as 'influencers'.
Kate Smith and Billy Jones are anonymous and unremarkable people living everyday lives but who are the key to the success of your product and key to the success of the mass adoption of our brave new financial model.
Great reasoning, KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle tailored. Still, you ask why people would want to invest in cryptocurrencies instead of simpler stocks and equities? Because FOMO, fear of missing out - everyone has seen a regular Joe get rich somewhere from being in the right crypto at the right time.
your blogs are really good dear do continue your work.check my blogs to em a newbie
You got a 4.97% upvote from @emperorofnaps courtesy of @nathen007!
Want to promote your posts too? Send 0.05+ SBD or STEEM to @emperorofnaps to receive a share of a full upvote every 2.4 hours...Then go relax and take a nap!