Many people pointed out that the real cost of a Bitcoin in 2011 or whenever wasn’t the couple of cents that it cost, but the several hours of work it would take to figure out how to purchase it. And that costs needed to be discounted by the significant risk that a Bitcoin purchased in 2011 would be lost or hacked—or by the many hours of work it would have taken to ensure that didn’t happen. Also, that there was another hard problem of not selling your 2011-Bitcoins in 2014. I agree that all of these are problems with the original post, and that they significantly soften the parts that depend on “everyone should have bought lots of Bitcoins in 2011”. Obviously in retrospect this still would have been the right choice, but it makes it much harder to claim it was obvious at the time.
Many people pointed out that the real cost of a Bitcoin in 2011 or whenever wasn’t the couple of cents that it cost, but the several hours of work it would take to figure out how to purchase it. And that costs needed to be discounted by the significant risk that a Bitcoin purchased in 2011 would be lost or hacked—or by the many hours of work it would have taken to ensure that didn’t happen. Also, that there was another hard problem of not selling your 2011-Bitcoins in 2014. I agree that all of these are problems with the original post, and that they significantly soften the parts that depend on “everyone should have bought lots of Bitcoins in 2011”. Obviously in retrospect this still would have been the right choice, but it makes it much harder to claim it was obvious at the time.