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fun fact: escrow comes from the french word "escroc" which means crook. words, am I right ? well, TBH both comes from the same word, not directly related. still, fun to see how the same words can end up having exact opposite meanings.
I would love to see escrow expand from the realm of high-value purchases to more modest transactions, because it's a pretty good way to promote good conduct online. (Full disclosure: About 12 years ago I built a startup that would do this, but it never took off.) Imagine signing up for a social-media account that requires a small amount of money -- say $1 to $10 -- be put down as a type of security deposit. If, durin…
1. They have (or are willing to use) an online payment source (credit card, paypal, etc.).
2. They have (or are willing to spend) a disposable income.
3. They trust you to get their money back.
Also, you're going to deal with a huge amount of customer service as every single person argues with you that they didn't violate the terms and deserve their money back - that's going to cost way more than any fees/interest you'd earning from the escrow.
I would love to see escrow expand from the realm of high-value purchases to more modest transactions, because it's a pretty good way to promote good conduct online. (Full disclosure: About 12 years ago I built a startup that would do this, but it never took off.) Imagine signing up for a social-media account that requires a small amount of money -- say $1 to $10 -- be put down as a type of security deposit. If, durin…
I would love to see escrow expand from the realm of high-value purchases to more modest transactions, because it's a pretty good way to promote good conduct online. (Full disclosure: About 12 years ago I built a startup that would do this, but it never took off.) Imagine signing up for a social-media account that requires a small amount of money -- say $1 to $10 -- be put down as a type of security deposit. If, durin…
I would love to see escrow expand from the realm of high-value purchases to more modest transactions, because it's a pretty good way to promote good conduct online. (Full disclosure: About 12 years ago I built a startup that would do this, but it never took off.) Imagine signing up for a social-media account that requires a small amount of money -- say $1 to $10 -- be put down as a type of security deposit. If, durin…
Interestingly, both are platforms for individuals to sell goods to other individuals. And both internalized the feature (no apparent 3rd party involved).
I would love to see escrow expand from the realm of high-value purchases to more modest transactions, because it's a pretty good way to promote good conduct online. (Full disclosure: About 12 years ago I built a startup that would do this, but it never took off.) Imagine signing up for a social-media account that requires a small amount of money -- say $1 to $10 -- be put down as a type of security deposit. If, durin…
I would love to see escrow expand from the realm of high-value purchases to more modest transactions, because it's a pretty good way to promote good conduct online. (Full disclosure: About 12 years ago I built a startup that would do this, but it never took off.) Imagine signing up for a social-media account that requires a small amount of money -- say $1 to $10 -- be put down as a type of security deposit. If, durin…
However I think this is a great idea to explore for "exclusive" / "high value" forums, say for trade / special-interest groups. I'd be happy to put down a $10 stake to participate in something like Hacker News, for example, if that would help to combat astroturfing and bad behavior. (Honestly for how much I post on HN I'd be prepared to stake more.)
There's been a lot of research done in this area by the Ethereum devs under their migration from "Proof of Work" to "Proof of Stake", including research on the game-theory of "slashing conditions" (i.e. when you lose your stake). You get some cool community-policing possibilities by allowing any member of the community to collect a bounty paid for by claiming part of the forfeited stake, if they can present an example of a member breaching the rules. For something requiring review this would perhaps have less benefits, but could still be useful; rather than moderators having to watch every message go by, they would just look at the "flagged" queue, and users would now have a financial incentive to add something onto the flag queue, perhaps also having to pay a small amount to take that action as well, to disincentivise spamming "flag" entries. I'm sure you could build this all on Ethereum if you were so inclined, with "admin moderation" being a call to an external trusted Oracle service where the moderators live.
Of course there are also substantial risks in turning a system based on community goodwill into a financial game; people behave differently when they are purely optimizing for a financial game vs. when they are not.
https://community.algorand.org/blog/utilizing-algorands-asc-...
https://developer.algorand.org/docs/build-apps/apps/#escrow-...
Super easy for developers to get started with too: https://developer.algorand.org/
I would love to see escrow expand from the realm of high-value purchases to more modest transactions, because it's a pretty good way to promote good conduct online. (Full disclosure: About 12 years ago I built a startup that would do this, but it never took off.) Imagine signing up for a social-media account that requires a small amount of money -- say $1 to $10 -- be put down as a type of security deposit. If, durin…