This episode confused me. Partly it was because the bitcoin story was boring, and dare I say it a bit stupid, one commenter wrote. What ever happened to all the computer problems they had several episodes ago. Surely that has not just been dropped? another viewer wrote. The Wall Street Journal dinged it for requiring far too much attention to tedious detail.
the world isn't ready for bitcoin?
I wouldn't jump to that conclusion.
I just read the WSJ's review of the episode. The writer seemed to be a little annoyed at how boring the who bitcoin case in the show was.
I think that's a pretty clever way to present the best possible emotional context for bitcoin at this time: banality.
No one gets particularly excited or awed by the idea of PayPal... to some, the name is one that ignites anger. The show even threw in the whole "but bad people might use this, like drug dealers and child pornographers!", and at the end of it all? Yawn. The over-attention to detail almost seems deliberate, designed to make it seem to technical and boring to possibly be malicious.
When viewers find out Bitcoin is real, they may ignore it. They may buy some. But what they won't do is start panicking about how destructive it is, or trying to see what's wrong with it, or accusing it of being a scam or ponzi scheme. The show seems to have neutralized such objections.
And for that, I salute the writers of the episode. Well done, sirs!
