At 05:04 PM 11/20/2001 -0700, Anonymous wrote:
Some thoughts on digital cash.
First, using anonymous cash to purchase physical goods online means giving up much of the benefit from the anonymity. If you have to give a delivery address, they obviously know who you are. It's still slightly better than using your Visa card because only the seller learns your address rather than a centralized agency that knows all of your purchases. But it's hardly worth it.
Coin (or better yet eGold) operated rental, non-USPS, parcel delivery locker business.
Second, using digital cash for purchases in the real world (grocery stores etc) is pretty much impossible today and relatively pointless anyway since physical cash exists. There might be some slight advantages in terms of not having to carry cash, resistance to theft, etc., but from the privacy perspective, things are about as good as they are going to get in the physical world. It's only going to go downhill from here. It may not be as bad as Scott "Get Over It" McNealy claims but realistically the use of surveillance cameras and face recognition systems is going to increase.
ATMs dispensing currency for ecash
Fourth, the significant exception is of course pornography, and we've had debates about whether it would make sense to create a privacy-protecting electronic payment system that catered to the porn market. It's profitable, it's information, and there are significant privacy considerations for some customers.
Unfortunately the greatest sensitivity to privacy comes with illegal products like child pornography. And the Reedy case has to be a significant cautionary tale. Thomas Reedy was proprietor of an age verification service which had a couple of overseas child pornographers among its customers; he ended up with life imprisonment for what was essentially a payment collection service. Any digital cash system for the porn market would therefore have to screen its clients (the sellers) very closely. It's the buyers to whom you are selling privacy, not the sellers, so this is not inconsistent with the business model. But it could be expensive. And by eliminating illegal porn you would be turning away much of your potential business, leading to a constant temptation to cross the line as Reedy did.
Offshore operation from less prudish countries.
Can we identify other markets, other applications where cash or cash-like technology can be useful? MojoNation is a good example. Their mojo is intended to be a cash substitute to optimize load balancing and data distribution. Unfortunately the MN network lacks compelling content and the economy is still crude. use
Automated publication from file names and meta-data. Removal of limitations of file size enabling publication of high quality video content.
Imagine if all these systems could be served by a single virtual currency, where resources and work donated in one forum earned points which would entitle you to privileges in another. Eric Hughes proposed something similar back in the days of the text-based MUD and MOO online games, so that you could transfer quota from one system to another. Or consider the example recently where several people expressed interest in having someone go back to the early cypherpunk archives and select interesting threads. What if each of us had some virtual cash we could transfer to whomever did the work.
eGold is already available.
The point is that there is a possibility today for an online market in informal, peer to peer style information services. There is work to be done, services to provide which remain entirely in the virtual world. If you could be rewarded for work you do online with "cash" that would allow you to request similar services from others, the monetary system can get off the ground. This might be a more promising start for a virtual currency than attempts to tie it immediately to dollars.
eGold has shown a substantial and profitable, though still not mainstream market, exists for an unregulated electronic currency. A similar system tied to dollars, pounds or marks, is greatly desired. steve