Basically, the benefit of the internet was that it was the first "open" telecommunications protocol (as opposed to telephone for example), which allows for permissionless innovation. Applications (i.e. Facebook) can be built on the internet without approval of any central party.
Bitcoin is an open protocol for "ownership." We're not even beginning to scratch the surface of what applications can be built upon it.
(chopped up for brevity:)
"Internet applications, such as email and the World Wide Web, are defined in protocols implemented on devices at the edges of the network, like servers and home computers, not in the guts of the network: routers, switches, hubs, and exchange points. The lower layers of the Internet can be completely oblivious to the specific applications that are in use; they just focus on getting packets of data to the right place.
...
If Sir Tim [Berners-Lee] had to explain to a telecom executive what hypertext was in 1990 before he could create the web, it may never have happened. If we had to rely on telecom companies to provide video calling, it would probably be more expensive and inferior to the video calling services we have today.
...
The permissionless innovation and devolution of power fostered by the Internet may be obvious, or nearly so, in retrospect, but not in advance. From Krugman’s perspective, perhaps, the Internet was just another medium for communication, of which we already had plenty. Why should it have been such a big deal?"
If you set up 10 Digital Ocean accounts ($50 / month) and mined some scrypt-based coin (optimized for CPU mining) and pointed all ten at a pool, that's only ~30khash/s. Your desktop PC probably has more than 30khash/s mining potential. D.O. is one of the few hosts that doesn't block mining and we'll see if that lasts. So 30khash/s is maybe 20 cents worth of altcoins/day minus fees to convert that into dollars. So you're already losing $44/month, hurting everyone on your hypervisor and difficulty is rising. And I think Litecoin was an attempt to make CPU mining more lucrative ;-)
Basically, the benefit of the internet was that it was the first "open" telecommunications protocol (as opposed to telephone for example), which allows for permissionless innovation. Applications (i.e. Facebook) can be built on the internet without approval of any central party.
Bitcoin is an open protocol for "ownership." We're not even beginning to scratch the surface of what applications can be built upon it.
(chopped up for brevity:) "Internet applications, such as email and the World Wide Web, are defined in protocols implemented on devices at the edges of the network, like servers and home computers, not in the guts of the network: routers, switches, hubs, and exchange points. The lower layers of the Internet can be completely oblivious to the specific applications that are in use; they just focus on getting packets of data to the right place. ... If Sir Tim [Berners-Lee] had to explain to a telecom executive what hypertext was in 1990 before he could create the web, it may never have happened. If we had to rely on telecom companies to provide video calling, it would probably be more expensive and inferior to the video calling services we have today. ... The permissionless innovation and devolution of power fostered by the Internet may be obvious, or nearly so, in retrospect, but not in advance. From Krugman’s perspective, perhaps, the Internet was just another medium for communication, of which we already had plenty. Why should it have been such a big deal?"