[Lucrative-L] lucrative accounts revisited

[Patrick Chkoreff]

> From: "James M. Ray" <jray at omnipay.net>
>
> At 10:46 AM -0400 4/24/03, Patrick Chkoreff wrote:
> ...
>> With these cards you would have a true off-network solution.  I wonder
>> if it's feasible to do the crypto and hardware for this?
>
> While crypto-hardware is cool stuff, and I'm all-for-it, I think
> that ubiquitous bandwidth is much more likely to happen.
> We have to remember, we're INTO this stuff. Most people would
> not see the benefits of a $100 cryptocard nearly as quickly ...

I can see your point, but let me think about it a bit.  Alice is at a 
craft fair with digital coins loaded into a PDA that costs at least 
$100.  So she's already somewhat of a geek to begin with.  But she is 
glad that her general-purpose PDA is capable of handling coins in 
addition to her date and address book.  No need to pony up more money 
for a specialized crypto-wallet.

But for every geeky Alice, there are at least one hundred non-geeky 
Alyssas out there.  Alyssa is not likely to purchase a relatively 
expensive and difficult to use general purpose device.  She might, 
however, pony up for an inexpensive, easy to use, specialized 
crypto-wallet.  She would not consider anything that has icons and a 
stylus, but she would readily adopt a sleek little black-box 
crypto-wallet.  Maybe it even comes in her favorite colors.

So even if the network is as reliable and ubiquitous as the atmosphere 
itself, in this new digital coin economy both Alice and Alyssa are 
going to be carrying around SOMETHING.  Which is easier, persuading 
geeky Alice to purchase a cheap specialized device, or persuading 
non-geeky Alyssa to purchase an expensive clunky general purpose device?

Of course, the network will NOT be as reliable as the atmosphere 
itself, and there is at least one alternative.  Physical cash is the 
obvious choice -- after all, these digital coins are ultimately 
redeemable for valuable physical objects like gold and silver coins or 
notes for same, so I expect people to carry around a combination of 
valuable atoms and valuable bits as they shop.

But in the case of inexpensive crypto-cards, there is a second option.  
Direct offline beaming of digital coins from one device to another.  
Assuming it can be done simply, inexpensively, and securely.  So when 
the network is inaccessible and Alyssa is out of cash, she's still in 
luck.  Whip out the candy-red colored crypto-wallet and snag the 
sweater.


> ... Or Joris may
> be right, there's something to be said for physical cash...

Definitely.  At the very least, the issuer stores that in the vault to 
back up the digital coins.  :-)  But seriously, people are going to 
want to hold and trade valuable physical stuff because it is a form of 
wealth independent of the server, ubiquitous networks, or even 
crypto-wallets.  It's the real deal, the final deliverable upon which 
all bit-bashing is based.


> I'm also curious about how all this is going to be profitable.
> How (aside from a small e-gold donation, if he tells me his
> account number!) will Lucrative-Patrick get paid? Thanks.
> JMR

This is a very good question.  Obviously if you are an ISSUER I can see 
how it might be profitable -- you simply charge transaction fees 
whenever coins are swapped, split, merged, etc. at the server.  You can 
assess storage fees to cover your base costs or even try to nick a 
small profit there.  All of this would be implemented as tunable 
parameters in the server software, perhaps even DYNAMICALLY self-tuning 
based on market conditions, changing constraints on bandwidth and disk 
usage, etc.

If you are a mere CODER like Lucrative-Patrick and Fexl-Patrick, well 
sorry, we're just slaves in it for the fun.  :-)  Work for tips, become 
an issuer, hold a day job, whatever it takes to get your next fix.

-- Patrick
http://fexl.com