Time and time again this image has been proven true. And it fits so well with the human narrative, our brains are physically wired to dislike change, this is why people divorce: Both people change ever so slightly over time until they can no longer tolerate each other. The wife became something else, and the husband unwilling to compromise or adapt to that change. He married her for who she WAS, there was nothing in the social contract saying to expect things to be different 10 years from now!
This is an effective survival technique flowing over to modern times. As a result, we, especially the older ones of us, become stuck in our ways and vote against unusual or unfamiliar things, we outlaw things that don't fit our narrative and we shy away from things that seem a bit too complicated.
This, I agree with.
However.
This image takes advantage of something we call Survivor Bias.
For every one great thing that comes to exist that we feared, there's about 20 million things we feared that never made it off the ground, or temporarily did only to turn out to be deadly af. We don't hear about them for that exact reason; They never made it off the ground. We only hear the success stories.
Alternatively, the thing we feared coming popular actually did become popular, and actually did turn out to make everything in life objectively worse in some way. Crocs, for example.
In reality, for all we know, Bitcoin etc could just fade into nothing just like 99.9% of everything else.
Take a look at CD's. They were created in the 80's, and failed to gain traction until the 90's, with even portable CD players being around since 1984. Before 2000 hit, CD's were already dying off, thanks to Napster and iPods in 2001, giving a grand total lifespan of about 10 years, 20 if you include the overlap between it and new technologies.
Did we need the CD giant to stand on the shoulders of? I don't know but I doubt it. If we kept using cassette tapes, we'd likely be in the same position we are now.
We could imagine the same thing happening with Blockchain technology. Some other technology totally different to blockchain could come out that renders blockchains totally obsolete after just a few years. Bitcoin has already been around almost 10 years, and it could potentially have already had its peak.
Everybody knows what a blockchain is now pretty much - everyone willing to think about it, anyway. The media has already had its way with it, and we're not at the point where this no longer familiar thing is just some fringe thing for nerds and scammers - the same reputation it had 10 years ago.
Now, it could very well have a real burst of popularity, taking the world by storm once it (hopefully STEEM) gets properly integrated into our daily affairs; social media, Starbucks, gaming, rent-a-bikes, metro cards and so forth. If that happens, I'll be a happy chap indeed. I've wanted to ask a Starbucks barista if I could 'Pay with steam', creating a room full of chaotic laughter for the better part of 2 years now. The joke also works when your apartment's water bill is about to be cut off.
But it's just as likely that it could take the world by storm for a few years before some other enigmatic coder nerd comes up with an even better solution that has absolutely nothing to do with digital currencies and ledger systems, as a result of some scientific discovery we have not yet figured out.
What if we finally figure out how to create living bacteria from scratch (we're already pretty close). What implications could that have on blockchain technology? Writing off the top of my head I can't really think of much other than the removal of the need for payments altogether by creating a credit-based parasitic bacteria that lives within our cells, to be easily scanned by a sniffer dog who keeps track of your 'social debt'. I dunno. Don't steal my idea.
People shouldn't be worried about being on the wrong side of history too much. It is, like the markets themselves, a complete gamble.