A Better 2022

It's time for another rant from yours truly. Here is a list of things that I would like to see the entire technology sector as a whole change in the new year. But most importantly is the final section which is a commentary on how people treat each other in the crypto space.

Free Trials / Try Now Offers / Free App Downloads

How many times have these situations happened to you?

1. You navigate to a companies website and review the service that they offer. It looks awesome and every page has multiple buttons promoting a free trial / try it now. Clicking on this button however, requires you to enter a credit card in order to use the free trial. For me personally, unless I'm already pretty sure I need this service, I'm moving on to another option. A free trial should help persuade me to use their service by letting me get a peak at what I'll be paying for instead of requiring me to enter my credit card before I've even made a decision if the service will fit my needs. A free trial should show off why your service is better than the competition with the least amount of effort on my part to get my foot in the door.
2. Ok, fine, I'll accept that you need to track the people who use a free trial and requiring a credit card is probably a great way to stop those who abuse the system. I'll let that one slide for now, but this next practice really irritates me. In order to use said free trial you must select a plan that you will be billed for if you don't cancel the free trial before it expires. This is an absolute horrendous practice that has to stop. Let me use the free trial and if I'm really interested, trust me, I will pay for your service to keep using it. Don't force me to pay or having to remember to cancel it before a certain date. A simple email notification that my free trial is about to expire would be more than enough.
3. Apps in your favorite App Store that are free to download but don't clearly state that a paid account is required to use them. This practice has started to be phased out, however, apps should not be shown as free when viewing them in the gallery. They should be denoted with an asterisk or some other mark to indicate that while the app is free to download, a paid account with the app creator is required to use it. I shouldn't have to open the details and read the fine print or download the app to discover it's not really free.

Subscription Based Software Services

There are some instances where a subscription model works. But in a lot of cases is the subscription really providing me with so many updates, new content, or new features that it deserves a monthly fee? Too many companies are adopting this model regardless if it's the right fit for what they offer.

Crypto Cults / FUD / Hate / Etc.

Let's just assume for a moment that you really don't like Apple products, their stores, their phones, their computers, the people who use them, and everything about Apple. Now follow me on a journey of what it's like in the crypto world right now.

Imagine walking through a mall and instead of walking past the Apple store you go inside and proceed to tell everyone how horrible you think their products are. People would think you are insane and you'd be escorted out by security.

While you're walking around the mall you see a person using an iPhone so you go up to them and berate them for using Apple products. Clearly this is an opportunity to insult their intelligence and perhaps their upbringing too while you're at it.

Later you pull out your Android phone and log into all the social media sites. Because you hate Apple so much, you make sure to follow them on every platform, because that's normal. So you comment on every post, every reply, and make sure everyone knows how much you hate Apple. Even going as far to criticize and attack them on a personal level because of their choice to use Apple products.

I guess in this example, you might as well log into all the stock trading chat websites and make sure you let those people know that they are an idiot too. In fact, rather than just attacking people, maybe you just spread lies that their product can't handle some new web technology, or that it's a scam.

You wouldn't do this in real life with anyone's personal preferences or with any other traded asset. So why is it so pervasive in crypto? Do you care if someone decides to invest their money in Tesla? Even if you do, I doubt you go out of your way to attack them. So why do you care if they invest in some shit coin or in a competing crypto project?

Do your own research, remain open to learning more, don't be close minded to any crytpo project, allow your ideas to change over time, adjust accordingly, follow your investments, make smart decisions, leave emotion at the door, stop acting insane towards other groups, learn from your mistakes, read a white paper or two (at a minimum the Bitcoin white paper), have real and open discussions about projects, listen to what others have to say, debate your opinion in a civilized way, and grow together as a community rather than feeling the need to bring others down.

Otherwise you look like the two teenage girls in the photo above. Which makes me literally laugh at loud at the people who act this way.