Joseph Fink: remind me, when companies create an actual revolutionary technology that is going to change the world, do they usually have to beg users to adopt it, give it away for free for years, and at last resort force it on people with no way to disable it? Is that usually how revolutionary tech works?

remind me, when companies create an actual revolutionary technology that is going to change the world, do they usually have to beg users to adopt it, give it away for free for years, and at last resort force it on people with no way to disable it? Is that usually how revolutionary tech works?

This reminds me of the observation that the most recent actual innovation in banking is the ATM. Everything else is just a grift.

What about online banking?

Yeah, BACS/International transfer to my friends and family any time of day or night is definitely innovative.

Is it though transferring services that already existed to customers so you don't need as many employees isn't really innovative internet banking is just self check out for finances

Er. Hardly. The information I used to have to go to a place to give in handwriting to another person at a specific time in order to attempt a transaction which would not be confirmed or denied for 24 hours or more, I can now do on my phone in bed. It's more like ordering delivery than self-catering.

Yeah but those tools are just the ones they need for their staff to do those things anyway. Most of the innovation is routing around how shit the American banking system is

It is. It was wholly new, it makes life easier, and everyone adopted it as soon as they could. Nefarious profit-seeking motives don’t make it not an innovation. The definition of innovation does not include altruism.

An automated teller machine isn't?

The on Innovation there was the machine readable way of determining a customer that didn't really exist before that youtu.be/x9mwgKMrZ1U

The world's first ATM – BBC London Newsyoutu.be The world’s first ATM was unveiled fifty years ago in June 1967 at a Barclays Bank in Enfield. But with an ever-growing number of ways to pay will the hole in the wall endure? Alpa Patel reports.

It’s certainly innovative to me. I don’t have to write and mail cheques every month. I don’t have to leave the house to pay my bills. Bonus: I now pay off my credit card every time I use it. My bank hasn’t had a dime of interest from me in years!

There is no ATM in my village any more. They put a new one in recently, and it was ram-raided within a month. Being able to pay easily without cash is brilliant. Cards or contactless device, or bank transfer and even Paypal are all so much better than having to have cash or a cheque book!

I have used a cheque book but not often. Between turning 18 and available online banking was under 5 years for me.

My dentist only got a card machine as a result of covid! They were my main need to use cheques in the last 10 years. (I still receive them occasionally from my grandad as gifts, but can now pay them in with my phone! which is infinitely better than feeding them to an ATM.)

Yeah the one in my small town was broken into three times. So now there's no bank presence at all. Apparently there had also been a branch which had also been robbed. So we all drive at least half to hour for the stuff that you can't escape having to use a bank for.

That’s directly from the ATM. The ATM was a hardlined internet banking service that allowed you to deposit, check balance or withdraw cash pretty much anywhere. Your phone is just the atm now and has a wire transfer service as well

There are many things you can do with online banking that cannot be done with an ATM, though

Sure but the actual innovation was the ATM. Online banking is just turning that innovation into an app using other people’s innovations. Keep in mind that the banks didn’t even create the first banking apps or even fund them

why is everyone acting like banking via your goddamn phone isnt an innovation. If moving from the atm to literally wherever you are with additional finctionality isnt an innovation then atm isnt an innovation either because that's "just Computer," which we already had.

Why do we need to reduce it to a single innovation?

And Bizum

You can say that, but I got this text from my bank the other day about them upgrading my interest rate, so innovation is very much alive!

"Upgrade" 😂 Such shamelessness, it's a hazy mystery

They wouldn't be telling you about it at all if there weren't laws requiring it.

I feel like being able to digitally send someone money from your phone at any time was a pretty big leap

This was an observation from the 1970s? 2003: Interac e-transfers 1982: Debit cards 1969: ATMs

Interac is pretty fucking sweet but only Canada has it

Depositing a check with your phone is pretty cool.

Other than the check part.

The PIX system in Brazil, where we can transfer money directly using smartphones, is pretty innovative. No fee, instant transfer, instant confirmation. Far far better than the old way.

I got a text message on my Android phone for Google's AI Messenger product earlier today. I clicked "block and report spam"

Me, losing my mind when the self checkout won’t let me mute it anymore.

I switch mine to Spanish. I'd rather be told what to do, when I already know what to do, in a language that I don't quite understand. It's kind of romantic.

Remember how the first few generations of smartphones were frequently waitlisted, because demand exceeded the supply?

Yes. And here we are.

Trapped in the amber of the moment.

It would be nice to shadow walk to a different moment, ala Corwin.

This is a good argument, but amusingly the answer is “sometimes, yeah”. Introducing potatoes to Europe was an absolute game-changer in terms of nutrition per acreage, but met with skepticism so folks like this guy had to hype it/invent dishes to show it off, etc. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine...

Antoine-Augustin Parmentier - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

For the record I fucking hate LLMs/Cr&pto/NF+s, etc, and I wish all the people that make and hype that bullshit all the finger cramps and stepping on a lego in the world.

Sounds like you hate scammers

"Not even the dogs will eat them" ... as I recall from some potato reading somewhere!

I'm Irish and even I don't consider the potato a revolutionary *technology*.

You do you; a calorie crop without $$ infrastructure like mills for processing, and can grow in areas that weren’t useful for food before is revolutionary IMO. If you say the 🥔 isn’t “tech” I disagree sharply. Indigenous folks worked diligently for generations to domesticate/develop it, it’s tech.

Dunno, just feel you saw an opportunity to roll out your potato facts and went with.

I am, mostly, pulling your leg though. Sure, the domesticated potato can be considered a scientific application, but I would suggest that maybe the OP was talking about modern technological devices and applications as opposed to something like that.

Mostly because they said "companies" and I'm not sure those indigenous folks were associated business constructs. Plus, they refer to the end point as "users" and if any describes me as a "potato user" I'm reporting them for using a slur.

I do agree the person doing the salesmanship was very far divorced from the people who developed the potato in that case; it just came top of mind because I work in the industry of biotech, and I frequently think about what technology is and what improving lives actually constitutes; no worries.

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