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bogus comments on General Bitcoin discussion thread (June 2011) - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (102)
That may be true, but it also has disadvantages such as scalability. AFAICT, every Bitcoin node must maintain an up-to-date ledger containing all transactions made to date: obviously, this is unsustainable in the long run.
The "fixed number of bitcoins" policy is also an issue. According to Bitcoin developers, having more miners makes the network more resilient to attack, in addition to speeding up transactions. Eventually, the subsidy to mining activity will become too low and agents will need to partially replicate its effect with transaction fees. This is sobering enough for a network which touts free transactions! as a selling point; however, what's more worrying, resiliency will also drop dramatically as mining activity slows. Paying a mining bonus would be more fitting, since the benefits of increased mining are shared by all holders of bitcoin.
The code can easily be modified to use only a partial ledger if necessary. It's not yet enough of a problem that anyone has bothered to do so.
"Free transactions" is more of a common misconception than a selling point, as SilasBarta discusses in the sibling.
Fair enough. The promoters of Bitcoin should not tout the "free transactions!" since this will only apply for the next twenty years or so and transactions thereafter will impose a fee orders of magnitude lower than most services if you want them confirmed quicker.
I do not think the transactions are free even now, it is just that they are spread out across the entire money supply rather than charged only to the participants in the transaction. The cost of the block are the 50 coins added to the money supply, which slightly decreases the value of every other coin.
In most contexts, that would be close enough to count as "free transactions".