Pricing Mojo, Integrating PGP, TAZ, and D.C. Cypherpunks

[dmolnar]

On Tue, 20 Nov 2001, Anonymous wrote:

> 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.

A friend of mine was considering a business plan for physical remailer+
"infomediary" for a class project a year or two ago. Precisely to get
around this problem. Sell learns the remailer's address. More than a few
remailers and you can chain them, etc. etc.

He was thinking about it in terms of the single proxy model, but if the
idea ever took off enough to have multiple competitors, you could try a
MIX-net. I don't think I ever pointed this out to him. I'll have to ask
him whatever came of the project.

> 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

Right - it's for optimizing load balancing and data distribution. Roughly
stated, it seems to me to be a DoS prevention mechanism. It's not at all
clear that Mojo will ever be meaningfully convertible to "real" money, at
least not to me. but then again, I'm often unclear.

> and the economy is still crude.  But the idea is sound; P2P networks
> which reward providers of information should flourish.  The slashdot
> quota system is another example.  Also, various "warez" sites work on
> an exchange basis, where people get credit for uploading files which
> gives them authorization to download.

and that in turn is a holdover from the old BBS days.

BBSes seem special in that the resources available are so *drastically*
limited. A BBS with one phone line could serve one user at a time. When
one person is on, nobody else has a shot. So a BBS without upload/download
ratios runs the risk of collapsing pretty quick under the weight of
leeches and m0es. When I ran a BBS, I ended up removing the files section
altogether; I thought messages were the most important part (and in any
case, didn't have a large enough HD to hold files...plus didn't want to
deal with the tension bewteen running a "free speech" BBS and screening
for pirate warez so as to not get arrested.) I think this accounted in
part for the obsession with "access level" which seemed common to many BBS
users.

(On the other hand, I also gave everyone a 90 minute time quota; way more
than most people ever used. So perhaps this "quotas or die" doesn't hold
true universally. Anyone else have anecdotal evidence from BBSing? )

Anyway, the point is that in such a resource-limited environment, quotas
and ratios are basic rationing tools. Use them or die(mostly). When you
move to an environment which has more resources, things seem to change.
You can get away for longer with less in the way of resource control.
So the principle that "networks which reward providers of information
should flourish" may be tempered by less which selects for those networks
over others.

another question -- is Slashdot popular because of its moderation system?

> 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.

OK, I should *know* this, but -- what about "flooz" and "beenz" ? weren't
they something along these lines before they folded?

-David