Potential-evangelism impedance mismatch. When the potential of a new technology exceeds the imagination of the evangelists so much that evangelism actually acts as drag. Been feeling this about all blockchain/crypto/Web3 commentary for a long time.A high potential technology will usually create big value, but rarely in the way early evangelists are excited about. So you have to pay attention to the low-level concrete mechanics of what the tech does and ignore the evangelists to the extent there is an impedance mismatch.Precedent I’m thinking of is space. Early (20s-30s) evangelists were uniformly excited about traveling to and settling in space, a “space-facing” bias that still shapes scifi. But basically 99% of the value 63 years in is earth-facing and in 3 sectors: comms, gps, imaging.This potential was unlocked when Arthur C. Clarke noticed that 3 satellites positioned in a triangle in orbit could provide global communications and get past the then limitations of radio. This technical idea of his has created more value than all his scifi put together.Before satellites, you could choose horizon-limited line-of-sight comms or ionosphere reflected shortwave, both of which have issues. Satellites create global line of sight that breaks this constraint. Same thing enables GPS and earth imaging. LoS is 99% of the value of space.So I wonder… clearing aside all the excited chatter about decentralization and creator economies, which sound a bit like “space colonization,” what’s the “put 3 satellites in a triangle constellation” type killer-app idea? What’s the “line of sight” type value unlocker?Space tech’s “one weird trick” is really “line of sight.” I like scifi, deep space missions, human space flight, Hubble, and rovers more than most but there’s no denying those are luxuries paid for by the ridiculously huge wealth created by “global line of sight as a service”It feels reductive and perhaps anti-imaginative perhaps to look for the “one weird trick” in some low level technical feature, but actually that’s the imaginative thing to do if you want to break out of science fiction and fantasy to real things.Like literally space economy relies on two arbitrary technical facts: an equilateral triangle can circumscribe a circle, and geostationary orbits exist. Result: we can see around the corners of our world. (Source: https://threader.app/thread/1443986452866424840)
Hit Statistics
ReloadToggle panel: Hit StatisticsThis post is not yet published.