-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Jim wrote:

I think this is the central key problem.

To establish any medium of exchange, one faces an enormous critical mass problem, as the stupendous expenditures by paypal and its competitors demonstrate.

Maybe once average people become fully comfortable with the idea of online banking and bill-paying services, they'll be more receptive. I think it might just be a question of widespread digital cash being few years ahead of its time. Also, I wouldn't rule out the "intelligence divide" as a factor here: if half the population has an IQ under 100, what are you doing to make your product accessible to people of average intelligence, and below? AOL is so popular for a reason: ease of use while providing services average people really care about (all that family, community and chat garbage, etc). So maybe it's worth putting a little effort into thinking of ways to AOLize (for lack of a better term) digital cash: a mass market reqires mass appeal. Something that's all-too-easy to forget, especially if you're the kind of person who got all excited over learning how to program BASIC in elementary school, the way most of us probably did. ~Faustine. *** The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms. - --William O. Douglas, Associate Justice, US Supreme Court -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPsdk version 1.7.1 (C) 1997-1999 Network Associates, Inc. and its affiliated companies. (Diffie-Helman/DSS-only version) iQA/AwUBO/cGQPg5Tuca7bfvEQIBiQCdGIYRqJmHFiGK5rUARTN0J/m8qP8AoPnN fUGhS8oVvJayjy0zd4ADCwXE =zSwB -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----