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Comment by dnautics | Hacker News Reader

In practice, Airbnb has failed at its aim of providing airbed style accommodations for conference goers.

They have succeeded wildly in providing accommodation for conference-goers. The last conference I went to many people were staying in AirBnBs and even coordinating to share them.

They succeeded by expanding the mechanism to support actual discovered user needs. Which is what Bitcoin signally failed to do.

Is bitcoin becoming a store of value really as obviously better for it than AirBnb becoming a more general accommodation provider? If not, it's not really a fair comparison.

Besides, AirBnb didnt even fail in providing accommodation for conference goers with included breakfast. It still works perfectly in its original intended use.

Airbnb is a business. It's "aim" is to grow and make money.

Bitcoin was a political experiment before it was a technological one. You don't pivot political beliefs the way you pivot a business. The technological experiment is still ongoing, but the political experiment has failed its goals.

Airbnb is a service, where bitcoin is a commodity. I don't mean to imply you are wrong. I simply mean that there may be an even more interesting parallel out there where a commodity is no longer being used in its originally intended way which may support bitcoin's evolution of purpose.

Airbnb is a service. Bitcoin is a commodity in the same way online poker chips are a commodity

How is bitcoin a commodity? I think you give it too much credit to elevate it to that status.

It's structure and behaviour much more resembles a commodity than it does any other asset class; it is basically digital gold. The CFTC agrees and considers itself the responsible regulator.

With the important distinction that it's not an economically useful commodity. Sure, the CFTC regulated it, because their remit is one of the broadest. So you could call it a commodity by default. But it's not like you could make jewelry or breakfast cereal from Bitcoins in the same way you could use commodities like gold or wheat. So it's arguably more like a gambling instrument than any real commodity.

Really, though, I think the closest financial match is a private currency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_currency

These are illegal in most places because they historically have caused a lot of problems without much in the way of redeeming value: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banking_in_the_United_States#1...

Gold has a value beyond what it is worth (and which aids to its value): you can use it as a jewellery.

Digital currencies can be used via computers and networks while physical currencies such as banknotes and gold requires sneakernet.

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