What happens when someone nearby using your Karma buys more data and the you pack up and leave?
Karma - pay as you go data by sharing your hotspot
121–124 of 124 posts
Re: Karma - pay as you go data by sharing your hotspot
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was thinking about this too, but there is one problem with a purely pay-it-forward type model - there is no 'debt'. That is, how does one earn karma in order to buy uptime? You can 'sell' your connection to someone else, but where do they get their karma from? Part of the solution might be to provide 'seed' karma to new users, but then you inevitably will have users who don't spend the karma they gain and so become…
> inevitably will have users who don't spend the karma they gain and so become karma sinks. This doesn't seem like a problem to me. A karma sink is a connectivity source. Surely we're trying to optimize for the latter quantity? If it makes you feel bad you can give away prizes or something.
The problem with a sink is that you remove 'currency' form circulation. Without a way of circulating the karma back or a way of generating new karma then you can get a lack of liquidity, and hence make it difficult for people to 'buy' connectivity because they aren't able to obtain any karma.
Re: Karma - pay as you go data by sharing your hotspot
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
> inevitably will have users who don't spend the karma they gain and so become karma sinks. This doesn't seem like a problem to me. A karma sink is a connectivity source. Surely we're trying to optimize for the latter quantity? If it makes you feel bad you can give away prizes or something.
The problem with a sink is that you remove 'currency' form circulation. Without a way of circulating the karma back or a way of generating new karma then you can get a lack of liquidity, and hence make it difficult for people to 'buy' connectivity because they aren't able to obtain any karma.
It's apparent to me that there will be multiple ways of "generating new karma". Don't all of these devices come with a certain amount built in? If that's not enough (e.g. once most consumers who would buy one have already done so) then people who find themselves short can buy some more with actual money, or devices that are online can "farm" karma at a certain rate, or whatever.
It's not difficult for the mint to print more money.
Re: Karma - pay as you go data by sharing your hotspot
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with a sink is that you remove 'currency' form circulation. Without a way of circulating the karma back or a way of generating new karma then you can get a lack of liquidity, and hence make it difficult for people to 'buy' connectivity because they aren't able to obtain any karma.
It's apparent to me that there will be multiple ways of "generating new karma". Don't all of these devices come with a certain amount built in? If that's not enough (e.g. once most consumers who would buy one have already done so) then people who find themselves short can buy some more with actual money, or devices that are online can "farm" karma at a certain rate, or whatever. It's not difficult for the mint to pri…
Oh, in this particular case I agree, the Karma company generates the karma and furthermore consumes it all as well.
What I was referring to was a distributed model where users essentially 'sell' their bandwidth to others for a credit against using someone else's bandwidth in the future. In that situation credit generation is a serious issue (how does someone 'pay' for my bandwidth if they don't have any credits themselves?). Using the term karma in that scenario is a bit confusing I guess :)
In an ad-hoc wireless network there is the concern that some users will be selfish with the bandwidth they use and provide. Solving the problem of credit generation will help in that situation and in the sharing of an uplink bandwidth. The main difference is that in an ad-hoc network simply being part of the network adds value, and the bandwidth costs are based on power consumption and actual throughput, rather than an upstream cost.