Mervyn, Are you saying bitcoin doesn't create wealth?
Yes, exactly! Bitcoin doesn't even aim to create wealth. It aims to store and transfer wealth, but because of it's overly simplistic financial properties, it fails to succeed in it's goals. Without a mechanism to keep stable unit value, bitcoin is a gimmick of an currency, that is more of an innovative gambling platform, then a serious financial tool.
Why do you bother with it then?
I like the idea that it is based on and I think that we'll see some interesting developments based on that idea.
To me, worshipping bitcoin is like worshipping macintosh 128k and thinking that it will be the future. The idea has potential, not the present simplistic models. Worshipping bitcoin is based on the assumption that technology isn't constantly evolving, but about stagnation. It's the mentality of the get rich quick folks who are afraid on development and they wish that the world would be as static as their own intellectual development.
I don't think you understand software, networks, the network effect, or protocols very well.
We're not dealing with hardware here, this is software, both the core protocol and the network are bitcoin. If some ground breaking code is written that threatens our network, the core protocol can adapt. Bitcoin will remain live and well because it's participants are bitcoin and we have billions of reasons to stay, very little reason to leave en masse.
Bitcoin is fluid if need be but it is the layers that are built on top of the protocol that will make it a success. Why build out on top of a protocol with an inferior network when the bitcoin protocol is all you need.
The network effect applies to carbonated soft drinks and social networking sites, where it's customers don't care about the quality of the product, but just use what they're used to use. Financial services don't work like that.
Bitcoin and it's ledger isn't a protocol. It's a specific brand of product. The bitcoin source could be defined as a protocol, but you could even do that only if you close your eyes long enough. E-mail is a protocol, and unlike bitcoin, the later adopter don't have to pay the earlier adopters to use this protocol. Bitcoin is more of an pyramid scheme then a protocol, but I don't even consider it as a pyramid scheme, but I see it more like an gambling platform.
Anyway.. keep worshipping bitcoin if it's important to you. If you look at my post history, then you can see that I have talked about all of this too many times. Explaining that bitcoin is just a single step in this new evolution of finance, is like explaining scientologists, that their ideology is a fairy tale.