Redditor veritasBS posted this article from 1994 casting doubt on the actual number of internet users. The comparison between the language in this article and current Bitcoin critics is right on. It was especially enlightening for me as we recently lost a potential investor because he decided Bitcoin was too volatile. Despite being generally critical of the number of internet users, the author concedes:
"There is still widespread agreement that the growth of the Internet, and the number of people using it, is exponential; it is seen doubling in size every year."
Replacing "the internet" with "Bitcoin" and the sentence now reads, "There is still widespread agreement that the growth of Bitcoin, and the number of people using it, is exponential; it is seen doubling in size every year." I have read almost this exact sentence more than once recently! 23 years have passed since this article was written and the internet has become an integral part of our everyday life. Will Bitcoin take as long? I don't think so. As currencies become unstable and the global economy grows, I expect to see more national currencies replaced by de-centralized, non-regulated bitcoins or other alt-coins.
"If you start looking at Internet services that require interactivity, things like billing or accounting across the Net, there might be nicer ways to do it if you could directly connect to people," Mr. Schwartz said. But if more and more Internet users erect one-way barriers, he added, "the services you can use are more limited."
Monkeys at Keyboards can help you get started accepting Bitcoin today!