Understand the smile curve and get out of the cognitive valley of the blockchain

The underlying value logic of the blockchain is extremely clear and solid, and has long been tested in practice. The problems that hinder its success have also been identified and are being resolved one by one. Success is only a matter of time, and it will definitely bring new benefits to the global digital economy. Come paradigm shift.

Written by: Meng Yan, Solv Lianchuang

Ten years ago, at this time in 2013, "Internet thinking" became popular in China. I have not seriously studied the ins and outs of this matter, but in my impression, the launch of the "Luo Ji Thinking" video column at the end of 2012, and the explosion of Xiaomi mobile phones at about the same time, should have played an important role in promoting the popularity of "Internet thinking" . Although Chinese people began to surf the Internet in the late 1990s, it was only after the success of the mobile Internet and the emergence of "Internet thinking" that common values and beliefs in the Internet were established.

The other side of the explosion of "Internet thinking" is annoyance and frustration. Many people should still remember Ma Yun's famous "invisible, despised, incomprehensible, and too late" theory. In fact, the success of the Internet is a promise fulfilled in advance. As early as the end of the 1990s, people predicted the Internet revolution and clearly described the blueprint of the Internet digital economy. Economists like Varian also created network economics. During the .COM bubble period, application scenarios such as Internet search, social networking, e-commerce, media, games, and streaming video were all proposed. The direction has already been pointed out to you, and the reason is also clearly explained. The olive branch has been handed over countless times, but it only takes more than ten years to fulfill the promise.

I'm a walker. I read a lot of books and articles on the Internet and digital economy in the late 1990s. I firmly believed that the Internet changed the world and that the digital economy was the greatest opportunity of my generation. I entered the smart mobile device industry as early as 2001 He is engaged in the development of Pocket PC, so he also has unique learning and practical conditions for mobile Internet technologies and trends. It can be said that my starting point is very high, but then I really completely missed the Internet and mobile Internet. What happened in the middle?

I have carefully reflected on this issue and found that my understanding of the Internet has gone through a "smile curve". Specifically, when I was still in school, because I had no contact with practice, my mind was mainly books and theoretical knowledge. But looking back afterwards, although my understanding of the Internet during this period was castles in the air and swallowed whole, but because of the first thinking directly from cutting-edge thinkers, it was relatively close to the essence and had a higher starting point. However, as my contact with the industry deepened and my practical experience became more and more abundant, my cognition deviated and declined, and I entered a long canyon. It was in this cognitive valley that I became suspicious of the Internet business model, insensitive to the progress of technology and business, and turned a blind eye to the olive branches extended by my friends again and again. It is too late to wait until the Internet is completely successful and the cognition has been improved again, and the dividend of the Internet era has been completely missed.

According to my observation, the phenomenon of "cognitive smile curve" is very common. Most people's views on new things conform to a three-stage rule. At first, they think it is the case, but in the middle they think it is not the case, and finally looking back, it is still the case. At the beginning of the pure theoretical analysis, although it was air-to-air, because the ideas and materials came directly from thinkers in the frontier field, it was closer to the essence and end, and had a relatively high starting point for understanding. When you start to get in touch with practice, you will find that there are many difficulties and serious doubts. In addition, there are always so-called experts who will explain why this is not working and that is not working for you during the downturn of the industry. When the final conditions are ripe and the work is done, and then look back, it turns out that it was right at the beginning, but in the middle stage, it was covered by floating clouds.

As far as my perception of the Internet is concerned, the main twists and turns occurred in the most difficult period of the Internet after the dot COM bubble collapsed. The halo of Internet companies has been shattered, and their stock prices have fallen into immortality. Those of us young people who have been eagerly looking forward to the success of the Internet revolution urgently need an explanation. Theoretically began to doubt the prospects of the Internet.

There were three negative points of view that most affected me at the time.

The first is that the Internet does not have a healthy business model, and you don’t know how to make money when you do it. Except for selling advertisements, you are making money.

The second is that e-commerce does not conform to China's national conditions. China's social morality is low, fraud is rampant, and it is impossible to establish the credit system required by e-commerce.

The third is that the Internet can only be used as a supplement and a tool for the real economy, not to mention the establishment of a new economic order and industrial form.

These three points of view are not only theoretically consistent and meaningful, but also seriously consistent with my experience at the time. For example, at that time, CSDN built a technical book e-commerce website, and the person in charge was my friend, so I had the opportunity to closely observe an e-commerce website from scratch. Almost the whole process of gradually declining and finally returning to dust, let me see that there are really many seemingly unsolvable problems hidden in the details. To give an example, cash payment and cash on delivery were popular at the time. After delivering the goods, the courier returned with banknotes in cash and handed them over to the courier company, and then the courier company settled the payment to the e-commerce website. It is not an exaggeration to say that at that time, couriers disappeared every week after collecting money, and even courier companies evaporated in place after swallowing money and goods. How to solve it, we really couldn't see it at the time. Who would have thought that less than ten years later, Chinese people would be able to purchase food, medicine and financial products with confidence through online payment.

In short, this "smile curve" valley has caused serious deviations in my understanding of the Internet, and I have repeatedly rejected opportunities to join the Internet industry. Everyone knows what happened next. With the great success of the Internet and the rise of "Internet thinking", my understanding of the Internet has gradually reached the rising stage on the right side of the "smile curve", but at this time I have completely missed the opportunity.

Looking back on this period of experience and thinking, my purpose is of course not archaeology, but because I feel that the development model of the Internet seems to be rhymed by the blockchain again today. The blockchain industry is also in a difficult situation today, and the public's awareness of the blockchain has also reached the trough of this smiling curve. When many people first came into contact with and learned the blockchain, the ideals were quite clear. Isn’t it to eliminate the friction of reconciliation through shared ledgers, to automatically enforce laws through smart contracts, and to encourage collaborative behavior through the token economy? But these ups and downs, coupled with the verbal criticism of experts, and various difficulties and obstacles in the real world, gradually everyone became confused and felt that it was not the case. This is the status quo.

My insistence on the blockchain, in a sense, is to make up for the regret of missing the Internet. In my opinion, the underlying value logic of the blockchain is extremely clear and solid, and has long been tested in practice, and the problems that hinder its success have also been identified and are being resolved one by one. The success of the blockchain is only a matter of time, and its success will bring a paradigm shift to the global digital economy. So I have no reason not to stick to this direction, and I believe that it will not take too long to see the dawn. What I need to do now is to persevere and cross the canyon area of the cognitive smile curve.