Quote from: relative on July 08, 2011, 08:52:18 AM

I know that's a common misconception in the age of "stimulus" programs, but generating jobs and spending isn't a positive effect per se.
remember all the jobs and network equipment purchases etc. generated by the dotcom bubble?

for now, bitcoin is a waste of resources (manpower, network, mining equipment...) with the potential of being useful in the future - paying off the resources used.
we'll see.

I agree with this.

The real possitive effect of Bitcoin in the economy is that it provides currency when the banking system is broke and cutting the transmission of savings towards investing. Even the Federal Reserve has admitted that the local alternative currencies that appeared during the Great Depression helped to keep valid business alive. Some deflation after a bubble is good, but too much deflation is bad (what Hayek called primary and secondary deflation).

Quote

We're still profiting from that. All those investment jumpstarted the modern, high-bandwidth, commercial internet as we know it.
For example, the overinvestment in data centers brought down the prices, which allows companies to host their web applications for only a few $100 per month instead of (ten)thousands like before.

Not all the investments of the dotcom bubble were malinvestments. A part of it has been re-used, but another big part was wasted. There was no need for all the crazyness and all the waste to create the infrastructure we have now.