The mob always wins in the end, but I never understood why many on HN have been so cynical about Bitcoin. At least Satoshi tried, whoever they were. They gave a gift to the world, but it sadly got co-opted and taken over first by small-time grifters and now by the big boys at Wall Street. In hindsight it was probably bound to happen, because money buys influence and a casual decentralized group of coders can never win against banks and governments.
Anyway, digital gold is still better than nothing. It's still an innovation as a store of value, even if the payments idea is basically history (some Bitcoin maxis just don't understand that yet). Also Bitcoin has inspired a whole ecosystem of other blockchains. If you want the original concept of a peer-to-peer electronic cash system, Monero is probably one of the best to check out currently. Governments are btw currently going after Monero, because unlike the common myth about Bitcoin, it actually enables anonymous payments - just like cash. And so of course we can't have that. Multiple exchanges already announced they were forced to delist XMR.
The time period is part of it, but I think the physicality matters too. You can debate gold's inherent value as you can with bitcoin, but you can't argue that it's not even a thing that exists. You also can't create more of it - which some would argue you can't with bitcoin either, but all it would take is consensus. Plus one could argue that other coins are equivalent goods.
The aesthetic and industrial applications of gold are what makes it intrinsically valuable - that being the key distinction, and distinct from Bitcoin. If you ignore the useful aspects, of course it's no different from any useless thing.
>... but I never understood what many on HN have been so cynical about Bitcoin.
Eh, I think you actually might! Hell, you said it yourself - the mob always wins in the end. It doesn't matter what Satoshi made, the mob took it and made it into something else. It's what Bitcoin turned into that HN is collectively cynical about.
What Bitcoin has been turned into is still revolutionary, but not in the way it was supposedly intended. The original intention as per Satoshi's whitepaper and posts was to empower people and give them an alternative to banks. It was supposed to be a cash system run by the people for the people. The democratization of money.
Ignoring that this idea was mocked by many from the start for reasons we can only speculate about, it seems there's a lot of confusion about what Bitcoin currently is as well. Mocking the idea that poor people in Congo will be saved by Bitcoin - sure. Making fun of laser-eyed Bitcoin maxis telling you we'll all totally use Bitcoin for payments (have you heard of the Lightening Network bruh?) - of course, I joke about them too.
But what you have is the first time in the history of the planet that there is a public ledger that can be used by anyone, transparently and permissionlessly, to store and transfer value. It's not in the hand of any bank or government. Nobody can freeze your account because you're fully in control. You can run your own node to push transactions if you wish to. It can absolutely not be falsified, unlike cash or book money. This is still extremely valuable. Especially when you add programmability, which Bitcoin only has in a rudimentary form, but other "smart contract" platforms already do much better. Because now you can automate transactions and those transactions don't necessarily have to be about money.
Anyway, digital gold is still better than nothing. It's still an innovation as a store of value, even if the payments idea is basically history (some Bitcoin maxis just don't understand that yet). Also Bitcoin has inspired a whole ecosystem of other blockchains. If you want the original concept of a peer-to-peer electronic cash system, Monero is probably one of the best to check out currently. Governments are btw currently going after Monero, because unlike the common myth about Bitcoin, it actually enables anonymous payments - just like cash. And so of course we can't have that. Multiple exchanges already announced they were forced to delist XMR.