"The explainers I found were bad — boring, biased, inaccessible" and if they can do it, why can't I?

This is bad, but it's bad in an instructive way for anyone who would like to understand the coverage of crypto, NYT's credulous attitude toward tech trends, bothsidesing, and the career of Kevin Roose. 

I spent a lot of the past year trying to learn about crypto, web3, NFTs, DeFi, etc. But the explainers I found were bad — boring, biased, inaccessible. So I pitched my editors on letting me write my own Crypto 101 series.

14,000 words later, here it is! https://t.co/1krPZ8nz1g

— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) March 20, 2022

It would probably take more than 14,000 words to go through all the problems with this. I'm trying to get Joseph in on the discussion, but even between the two of us, I doubt we can do a comprehensive job of it. For tonight, the best I can do is give you a quick tweet-level view. 

While many of the Emperor’s citizens have noted he’s not wearing anything and his penis is visible, the royal vizier has said that it’s obvious that the emperor “has an incredible wardrobe” pic.twitter.com/H5PUwRIVTQ

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron) March 20, 2022

[Before we go on, the phrase "the casino is a trojan horse with a new financial system hidden inside” needs to be singled out for special praise.]

and

"What went wrong with Mars One and Hyperloop coverage -- never let a resolved issue stand in the way of a nice think piece"https://t.co/NxBxJihvbC

— Mark Palko (@MarkPalko1) March 21, 2022

[When I said "Given enough time and money, there's no question something along these general lines would work," I meant a maglev vactrain. Musk's air-caster idea was so bad that all the "hyperloop" companies quietly dropped it immediately. Not a penny of those hundreds of millions of capital raised have been spent developing Musk's actual proposal. All they kept was the name.]   

When it comes to ____________, the NYT isn't afraid of being criticized by both sides of the debate.

"Crypto boosters will likely quibble with my explanations, while dug-in opponents may find them too generous. That’s OK."@DougJBalloon https://t.co/66dXbZpnuW

— Mark Palko (@MarkPalko1) March 21, 2022

"A balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts reality." — Norm Ornstein

Every good tech puff piece has to have a historical example of skeptics doubting some earlier revolutionary technology. These examples generally range from unrepresentative to complete bullshit. 

From Wikipedia:

"Facebook's initial public offering came on May 17, 2012, at a share price of US$38. The company was valued at $104 billion, the largest valuation to that date."

Apparently, some people did think it would work as a business.

— Mark Palko (@MarkPalko1) March 21, 2022

Here's a more thoughtful thread on this section.

This is such a telling (and false) framing. Through his misstating of the history of social media criticism, Roose also demonstrates what he thinks about crypto critics: they’re just dismissing it, not identifying substantive problems — which couldn’t be further from the truth. https://t.co/wQgGffbLMK

— Paris Marx (@parismarx) March 21, 2022

Editors also love to see some hot strange bedfellows action, even if you have to fudge a few details.

Another question about the @kevinroose explainer. Doesn't Trump actively hawking NFTs undercut his role as crypto skeptic? pic.twitter.com/R6OeXJcJJU

— Mark Palko (@MarkPalko1) March 22, 2022

Nor does the piece end on a strong note.

Or this guy.https://t.co/yvrdqI5AWQ

— Mark Palko (@MarkPalko1) March 22, 2022

There is such a rich and diverse library of criticism (@smdiehl and collaborators recently published a great collection at https://t.co/TNOduqWthR) and Roose keeps on going "well nobody knows what this will bring".

— tante (@tante) March 21, 2022

We have by no means mined out Roose's explainer -- everywhere you swing a pick, you're likely to hit paydirt -- and we seem to be less than halfway through the project.