We may be talking about different hate. I think gnarbarian is talking about their current experience, and I'm certainly talking about my current feelings.
That said, the 2011-12 critique that Bitcoin was a pyramid scheme turned out to be approximately correct. Much like Herbalife, the actual product was never good for much, and its actual utility was basically irrelevant to its rise. And as with many pyramid schemes, a collapse came when the supply of new entrants became insufficient. There are differences, of course. Pyramid schemes have a central authority, while Bitcoin doesn't.
I definitely agree that this is a perennial HN problem, though: "And that anyone who believed otherwise was an evil heretic, to be ridiculed." The field necessarily attracts idealists; so much of making software is continuing to insist on an idea until the computer eventually agrees. But it's regrettably easy to go overboard.
That said, the 2011-12 critique that Bitcoin was a pyramid scheme turned out to be approximately correct. Much like Herbalife, the actual product was never good for much, and its actual utility was basically irrelevant to its rise. And as with many pyramid schemes, a collapse came when the supply of new entrants became insufficient. There are differences, of course. Pyramid schemes have a central authority, while Bitcoin doesn't.
I definitely agree that this is a perennial HN problem, though: "And that anyone who believed otherwise was an evil heretic, to be ridiculed." The field necessarily attracts idealists; so much of making software is continuing to insist on an idea until the computer eventually agrees. But it's regrettably easy to go overboard.