Bob Smart <smart@mel.dit.csiro.au>
I've speculated above on the possibility of people supporting the testbed by providing some useful services while charging play money. We shouldn't depend on that. There is a class of applications which are fun but need (or at least are helped by) money to give the measure of success or failure. These are games, competitions and gambling. I believe that done right they can be sufficiently interesting with play money that people will want to take part: enough people to test the scalability of the various proposals.
Some of the games that can be played between individuals on the Internet really need the ability to have a bet to make play really meaningful: poker and backgammon are examples. The question is: will betting with "play" money work or will people play frivolously because the money does not have real value?
You should take a look at the Iowa Electronic Markets. There have been a few thousand participants betting real money on these markets for two or three years. They would be a natural testbed for Internet dollars. To see what it's like look at telnet://iem.biz.uiowa.edu. --- Hal.Varian@umich.edu Hal Varian voice: 313-764-2364 Dept of Economics fax: 313-764-2364 Univ of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1220