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Is personal funding viable?

blog.gittip.com

41–50 of 67 posts

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#41
post #4
post #2

I see that it supports credit cards, but it doesn't support bitcoin.

Yes, that could be related to the fact that bitcoin isn't something anyone with any familiarity with economics should take seriously. (For the purposes of this comment "familiarity with economics" should be understood to mean: has so much as shopped in a grocery store).

No need to take Bitcoin seriously. You can simply convert your BTC donations to USD as soon as you receive them.

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#42
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that could be related to the fact that bitcoin isn't something anyone with any familiarity with economics should take seriously. You justify with . This is a total non-starter. (For the purposes of this comment "familiarity with economics" should be understood to mean: has so much as shopped in a grocery store). Very low standard it seems. I shopped in a grocery store.

Then you'll know that you can't spend Bitcoin at a grocery store because it's some crap that people made up and not actual currency. Edit: My comment isn't US-centric, obviously, since I don't know where any of you hail from. Trolls.

No groceries yet, but you have to start somewhere: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#44
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind saying more or linking? I keep hearing strong opinions against bitcoin but haven't heard details.

The biggest problem I have with bitcoin is that the fixed bitcoin supply and decreased rate at which coins can be mined rewards hoarding behaviors. If you know that the bitcoins you have in your account today will be worth more in the future, you have a powerful disincentive to spend.

The Bitcoin money supply is currently inflating at a rate of 33.3% a year.

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#45
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind saying more or linking? I keep hearing strong opinions against bitcoin but haven't heard details.

The most clear-cut argument against Bitcoin is that it is a ridiculous waste of energy. The nature of mining in the protocol implies that if Bitcoin takes off on any significant scale, there is a dichotomy going on: either there are so few miners that single large actors can dominate the total hashing power of the network, making it vulnerable; or, a significant fraction of the total world computing power goes toward…

While this is an excellent point and one I hadn't heard before, I'm not so sure you're properly modeling the cost of maintaining other currencies. Must we include the Fed? The enormous physical system that securely moves money all the way from the mint to every single cash register? The opportunity cost of the time of all of the smart people who work on international currency arbitrage, but would otherwise be doctors and scientists?

Since paper money is backed ultimately by the threat of violence against those who counterfeit it, wherever they may be in the world, we must include some fraction of our defense spending as well. In fact, the more valuable the currency, the more must be spent on defense to protect it. Isn't this closely isomorphic to your dichotomy?

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#46
post #43

Unfortunately I think only the internet stars have even a chance of living like this... The irony is that these superstars normally already have huge paychecks :/

Agreed. This system rewards getting attention from the public, not necessarily adding lots of valuable features.

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#47
Hey Whit, kill the weekly payment thing and make tips one off payments. Have a look at the freemium model that is all the rage these days. Apparently players hate subscriptions and would much rather pay for one off consumables.

Also, allow tips of any size. $2048 or $4096 would not be crazy.

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#48
post #43

Unfortunately I think only the internet stars have even a chance of living like this... The irony is that these superstars normally already have huge paychecks :/

Agreed. This system rewards getting attention from the public, not necessarily adding lots of valuable features.

Yeah, this is the most serious criticism I've heard so far.

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#49
I love this concept!

Another idea that could work well is partnering up with some influential bloggers / open source evangelists and holding an international "Feed a coder" day, which brings awareness to the open source community and asks people to make a donation to their favourite projects / libraries / Wordpress plugins on that day.

There are a lot of Wordpress Bloggers out there who would be happy to donate to their favourite plugin authors but just haven't and this could push them over the line (this is just one community I'm quite involved with).

Re: Is personal funding viable?

#50
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind saying more or linking? I keep hearing strong opinions against bitcoin but haven't heard details.

The most clear-cut argument against Bitcoin is that it is a ridiculous waste of energy. The nature of mining in the protocol implies that if Bitcoin takes off on any significant scale, there is a dichotomy going on: either there are so few miners that single large actors can dominate the total hashing power of the network, making it vulnerable; or, a significant fraction of the total world computing power goes toward…

Note how ridiculous the counter arguments.

I too have made this argument several times and I have gotten similar nonsense in response.

I recall reading a story about some guy who was visited by police as they thought he was running an indoor pot growing operation, only to find after searching the premises that he was a bitcoin miner. It takes quite a power surge to draw that kind of attention from police. Bitcoin is geeky, and maybe it's idealistic in some good ways, but it's not "green" and it's not practical.

What happens when there's a loss of electricity?

Do we fallback to paper currency then?

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