Payments as an answer to spam

[Patrick]

> 
> In the case of micromint I agree, there still has to be a centralised
> mint, so one can reasonably make a direct economic comparison with
> blind signature based coins or whatever and do the cost benefit
> analysis and decide which scheme to use (micromint may be cheaper per
> coin after the large initial investment has been recovered); however
> with hashcash it's major advantage is that it doesn't require any
> infrastructure.
> 
> Having a centralised e-cash bank issuing coins (or a group of banks
> with inter-bank clearing) is a highly non-trivial task when you're
> talking about micropayments that are expected to be attached to every
> email.  The volume alone is staggering.  And it's not clear what the
> 
> Adam

	While it's true that some infrastructure is required for a
value-based stamp (as opposed to destruction-of-value proof of work
stamps), that infrastructure is also useful for many other purposes: the
same mints that handle email stamps can also handle bearer instruments
for game tokens, site passes, subscriptions, deeds, shares, and good old
fashioned loot/money/cash.

	It also provides an opportunity for a clever entrepreneur to
make money by running a self-sustaining service; this financial
incentive can be a powerful factor in getting things done.

	Also, a value-based stamp bought for cash can also be acquired
by consumers through side channels. Perhaps an ISP can purchase huge
batches at steep discounts and redistribute them to users as a service;
they can be given away as promotions; perhaps a spammer or advertiser
could throw in email coupons as an incentive to read, or grocery stores
could print them on the backs of receipts. As a very-low-value but
useful token, it would be a prime target for commercial vectors. Again,
a clever entrepreneur can come up with hundreds of angles.

	I believe that micropayments get stuck in the millicent ghetto
because even a few million transactions at low value is probably not
worth the effort. But the market for email stamps could be in the
billions of transactions per day, and maybe that would be worth the
effort.


Patrick
http://lucrative.thirdhost.com/


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