Monetization

Monetization is the idea of getting money out of something.   If you provide labour, you monetize your labour by working for somebody.   You could go dig a hole on the side of the road all day long, but nobody would pay you for it.  You have to monetize it by working for somebody willing to pay for it.

Newspapers/tv/magazines monetize their content through advertisements and subscriptions

One could theorize that the adoption rate of the internet was hindered by the lack of the ability to monetize it.   What was the incentive for CNN to make a news webpage (monetized with ads) if it would draw viewers away from their TV channel.   I would venture to guess any company that had another means of monetizing their content delayed adoption of the internet as much as possible.   Dont believe me?

  Ask the music industry.  They fought the MP3 for year and years until Apple did it for them.   Why do you buy music from Apple, and not from an organization formed by the music industry?  Because the music industry fought so long and so hard, somebody else monetized it for them.

   We currently see this with TV.  The cable networks are so tied up in their subscription based cable they REFUSE to allow it to just come over the internet.  They have no incentive to try and monetize through the internet because it will be harder for them to monetize than the standard subscription based cable.    So what do we see?  We see Hulu, Netlix, and Amazon beginning to do it for them.  We also see the networks go around the cable company and just post their content on their website, monetizing it without the cable companies.

In brief summary... adoption of some capabilities of the internet have been slow because dinosaur companies have a hard time monetizing them.

Here is where this gets awesome

Bitcoin monetizes itself.   Since bitcoin IS money, it monetizes itself.   What incentive does an entrepreneur have to design a new photo software if he can't monetize it?  None.   What incentive does an entrepreneur have to develop new software for bitcoin?   Bitcoin of course!  If he designs a software designed for money, it monetizes itself.  If its a good idea, he will be able to sell it or get a transaction fee.

  What I propose is this.   Bitcoin adoption will be faster than the internet itself, it will be faster than most technologies that have little incentive because they are hard to monetize.  Bitcoin is easy to monetize because it IS money!  The internet took 20 years to get where it is today.... how long will it take bitcoin to become main stream?  I'm willing to bet about 2-3.