Initiative Q - Money from nowhere?
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@hardwaregeek said in Money from nowhere?:
@blakeyrat said in Money from nowhere?:
Just don't fucking vote at all. It doesn't do anything. It's a fucking waste of your time. If you have something to say, man-up and fucking say it, don't hide behind some button with a fucking arrow on it.
Sometimes the only thing you want to say is, "I agree with what you said," and a simple vote is less of a waste of time for both the person indicating agreement and all the people who would otherwise have to read a bunch of content-free "me too" posts.
I actually upvote a lot of blakey's posts. I'll start posting
replies, I think.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
- Making progress in payments is hard. For a seller to adopt a new technology, they need to see enough demand from buyers, and vice versa. While everyone would be better off adopting the new technology, the rational decision is to wait until others adopt first - which therefore never happens
- All the payment technologies we have today were designed under this massive limitation. If you could somehow remove it, you could build a far better network.
What would be better about the network? You talk about how your system will be super duper times better than what we have. Why couldn't you make it work with other currencies? If people see the benefits of such an awesome system at least some will start using it. Paypal broke into the market. Why couldn't you?
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
- You have no payment network. It's all hypothetical.
That's exactly the idea. If you build the payment network AFTER you have critical mass, then you can bring the top talent in the field, and have them focus on functionality and efficiency, rather than being limited by "chicken and egg" concerns.
Eh...but even if you have all these people sign up for the free monies, that doesn't give you critical mass for them using it. They all still have dollars and euros and yen or whatever. And if you have all that but no one has any way to install your payment app and use it, because it doesn't exist, then you don't really have critical mass of the thing you actually need.
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
In the long-term, Qs have value because they're coupled to a superior payment technology, and you must have Qs to access it.
This is some epic question begging, even for around here. There's a giant leap where you come up with a network that's lightyears ahead of anything we have now. I can't see any justification for this. All I see is that you want to corner the market because we're all using your new currency. I feel like we're all being trolled.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
the signal to noise ratio is dropping rapidly
YMBNH
The objections raised so far:
- The big payment players don't have that problem. They already have critical mass.
They have critical mass for their existing network. To make a significant leap forward, they need to move everyone to new network and technologies. In that aspect they suffer the same problem as newcomers: everyone will wait for someone else to move first.
They do have the advantage of brand recognition and incentives they can give to existing members (and sometimes that works, which is why the market leaders are fairly constant in this space), but to truly make progress, it's not enough.
It's not just the new payment system you're offering, it's the new currency too. If Visa released a new payment system, and made it easy to access, places could easily incorporate it because it deals in good old USD and the only cost to them is that of setting it up. Once they receive payments through this new system, they have the payment in the currency they're using.
- Current payment technologies are good enough. There is no real need to improve them.
Read here many examples of how payments can improve: https://initiativeq.com/knowledge/payment-network
Ordinarily I'd agree with you on principle; 'if I had asked the people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.' But then I read it.
- You talk about cards and cash being outdated and NFC as the solution - Android Pay, Apple Pay, and Samsung Pay are already extremely popular. And cards are used when people don't want to leave it up to their phone, and cash is used when people don't want to leave it up to technology at all (since, y'know, street vendors aren't the type to have payment systems). The QR code is no better than a card, the 'audible' code (whatever that means) is no better than NFC. So already cash transactions will be a thing of the past, leaving you totally dependent on technology.
- You talk about stores where you just scan barcodes and don't bother checking out, but that means that the store has to be tightly coupled to you. It's not just 'hey, we bought new card readers with that new system thing', it's a full integration down to the stock level. There are a lot of small businesses who would never go for that; it'd be almost like being a franchisee.
- You talk about single sign on for online stores. I like my card number being completely decoupled from my personal information. I don't want to have to keep the same, for instance, email address across all services.
- You have no payment network. It's all hypothetical.
That's exactly the idea. If you build the payment network AFTER you have critical mass, then you can bring the top talent in the field, and have them focus on functionality and efficiency, rather than being limited by "chicken and egg" concerns.
No. You can't bring the top talent because you have no money.
- People will register, but that doesn't mean they will use the payment product.
The idea is to use Q grants to incentivize the whole adoption process, not just the initial sign up. After tens of millions of users register, additional Qs will be granted for buyers installing an app, for sellers integrating it into their PoS or website, for making your first transaction, for making a deposit and so on.
Note that as the project progresses the perceived value of Q increases, and so does its ability to incentivize cooperation.
I signed up because it costs me $0 and about five seconds. Installing an app will get you far fewer takers because that's storage space and device privacy. Sellers integrating it into their PoS will cost money, especially since there wouldn't be any equipment for it in the beginning so they're paying not just the purchase price but the development price. And at some point, the things have to start being backed. USD is worth money because the US backs it. That's a pretty strong backing. Q will either, depending on how you look at it, be backed by a for-profit company, or be backed by nothing at all. All of the problems with cryptocurrency, with none of the decentralization.
- Why would anyone trust Qs to have any value? How do you prevent people from dumping it in the market?
In the long-term, Qs have value because they're coupled to a superior payment technology, and you must have Qs to access it. This value is well established by the "equation of exchange".
The equation of exchange falls flat here because the velocity is completely tanked by the network effect. USD is used everywhere, even in other countries, and your only incentive for using Q is technology that already exists and technology that nobody will want to adopt.
In the short-term, Qs' value roughly represents the probability that the long-term goal will be achieved.
No. In the short term it has absolutely zero value until I can buy a cheeseburger with it.
The tricky part is that the probability of success is correlated with the value of Q. The higher the value of Q, the more resources Initiative Q has to execute its plan, and vice versa.
Wait, you have more resources the higher the value is? That sounds like you're planning on making more Q to pay your employees and contractors with, in which case I would direct you to read the history of, say, Zimbabwe.
The challenge is therefore to manage Q so it grows gradually in value as the project progresses, and avoid a short-term drop that could trigger a downward spiral (value drops -> lower probability of success -> value drops further).
This is Q's monetary policy, which is too complex to discuss in detail here, but a general overview is available at https://initiativeq.com/knowledge/economic-model (co-authored with Prof. Lawrence H. White, expert in Monetary Theory).I read it. It's tripe no matter who wrote it. It's basically a parroting of the marketing blurbs peppered everywhere else on the website, coupled with the incorrect belief that cryptocurrency isn't easy to use.
But in a nutshell, the three main tools the monetary committee uses to maintain stability are:
a) Releasing Qs gradually, so the amount in circulation constantly matches the demand created by the economic activity.Release how? Nobody's going to buy them. And if you give 'em out for free, and buy 'em back, you're losing money even if Q is worth anything.
b) Maintaining sufficient reserves in other currencies that provide confidence to Q holders they can convert if they want.
See above. And where the hell will you get it? VCs tend not to invest in companies whose purpose is to give away money.
c) Distributing Qs to incentivize activities that maintain trust and stability, such as investments, salary payments, purchase of Q with other currencies etc.
People will not do anything until they can exchange Q for USD. And once they can, that's all they'll do with it. You've already said you don't want it to deflate, so there won't be any sense holding onto it except for using your superior payment network which doesn't exist.
Here's some more objections you don't actually address here.
- You predicate your entire system on people having technology. Do you realize that tons of people don't have smartphones at all? How do I give a homeless man a dollar with this system that does not work without technology? Furthermore, if your fantastically awful website which takes six seconds to load on a gaming computer because you render it all clientside is any indication, you have no idea how to optimize your technology for the common man who doesn't have the wonderful technology your developers use. This is bog-standard Silly Valley naïveté, and something that Visa doesn't have.
- You actually address the fact that the technology that you're offering that people will actually use, already exists, but you give the dumb-ass argument that it's not widely adopted enough. I can use Android Pay in pretty much any supermarket anywhere. Widespread adoption takes time, you know. If your company just worked on the technology you have, you'd still fail, because people with more experience and more popularity with wider reach and greater means, are already doing it except better. Instead, you offer that plus the giant leap of faith in adopting a brand new currency.
- Your currency is completely centralized. You are the ultimate authority on who owns what and how much. This is not something people want. Again, if my life savings was in Q, and you shut down the servers and bid everyone farewell, there wouldn't be a damned thing I could do about it. There is no central authority on Bitcoin ownership. The decentralized blockchain system ensures that it doesn't disappear without its physical medium disappearing, and new ones don't come out of nowhere. There is no central authority on USD ownership. The government may back it, or demand that it be moved, but the ultimate authority on who owns the $1 is who is holding the green piece of paper. I don't give a shit who the authority ends up being, I do not want a central authority on the ownership of my money.
I'll come up with more, but right now my mind's still reeling from the stupidity.
- The big payment players don't have that problem. They already have critical mass.
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@pie_flavor not to mention that you'd have to convert to USD or whatever to pay taxes. Because the government sure isn't going to accept Q. Or any other payment mechanism it doesn't control.
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@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
You talk about cards and cash being outdated and NFC as the solution - Android Pay, Apple Pay, and Samsung Pay are already extremely popular.
This amazes me.
Honestly, I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone use one of these things. I don't think that most of the places I shop at even support it.
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@boomzilla Your credit card reader, probably Verifone, breaks, they send you a new one, it has the new functionality in it. It is actually really common, although my reference points are Silly Valley and Chicago so maybe it's just a city thing.
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@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
coupled with the incorrect belief that cryptocurrency isn't easy to use.
That is a 100% correct belief. Cryptocurrency right now has SHIT usability.
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@blakeyrat I enter an address and an amount and it pays. Not sure what can be removed from that.
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@blakeyrat This post is to inform you that I enjoyed what you wrote.
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@pie_flavor Gee, how about if you typo the address by even one character, the money's gone forever?
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@blakeyrat What if you copied and pasted the address instead, like you're supposed to?
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@blakeyrat This post is to inform you that I enjoyed what you wrote.
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@pie_flavor Do any cryptocurrency apps say you're "supposed" to? No actually a lot of them say to keep your money in a "cold wallet" which makes copy and paste impossible.
Cryptocurrencies are so user-hostile right now I can only assume you're just posting that to be trolling, because damn, man. Damn. I mean I just started mentally listing in my head all the things that made cryptos user-hostile, and there's dozens of reasons.
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@blakeyrat Yeah, in which case you have a QR code or a file. Seriously, if you're writing out the whole address, you are doing it wrong.
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@blakeyrat This post is to inform you that I enjoyed what you wrote.
Do you see how this might get annoying after a while?
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@boomzilla said in Money from nowhere?:
Honestly, I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone use one of these things. I don't think that most of the places I shop at even support it.
I bet that they do but you are not aware of it because you have never seen anyone use it and you are not looking for it. Around here every major grocery does, almost every major retailer and even my corner convenience store does.
But no one has ever used it that I have seen. Why would you when you can just run your debit card?
Their adoption rate will have to be a million times worse.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Current payment technologies are good enough. There is no real need to improve them.
Read here many examples of how payments can improve: https://initiativeq.com/knowledge/payment-networkCompanies like Apple, Google and Amazon have developed such features, but they are still used in a small fraction of transactions. Initiative Q will make them standard.
There is a reason for that things to move slowly, and you'll have the same barriers we have for getting them. There is nothing about current currency that makes it harder to get those things adopted.
Let me contribute you how I think your business plan could be:
- Start focusing in a small town, and negotiate with all shops of said town to accept Q, with a small monetary incentive, avoiding too drain too much of your funding. Maybe you buy back Q from these shops at a slightly higher than market price.
- Then put lots of ads targeted only on this town.
- You sell Q for the citizens at this city, with an agreement with the shops receiving incentive that people will be able to get a slightly better deal paying with Q.
At this point, Q will have value on this starter town, because it should be accepted at a good chunk of their shops, and people have an incentive to pay with Q.
Repeat the process with a near second town. If it works well on the first one it should be easier on the second town.
Keep repeating it until Q turns successful enough to grow without the incentives, or the experiments fail and you pull back.
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@boomzilla I've had a few vendors get confused when they're about to "teach" me how to use EMV contact and I just ignore them and bwip my card against the PIN entry device for an instantly successful read. The only place I haven't had it work is CVS, and their stores gained support about the same time they gained support for Apple/Android/Samsung Pay, about 18 months ago.
The funniest was at the Tysons Apple Store. I was getting some earbuds and the sales rep asked if I was using Apple Pay. I said no, and she was asking her supervisor how to run a chip card when I got out my (clearly Windows) phone and
it against hers and it went through just fine. It was like their world suddenly broke, and it only got worse when my cousin (with her clearly Google phone) realized she didn't have my number, and I it to her like it was nothing. Because, unless you have an Apple phone, it was.Anyway, almost every PIN entry device now supports NFC. Not all do $phone Pay, and not all banks issue appropriate cards, but Visa payWAVE and MasterCard Contactless work just fine.
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@blakeyrat said in Money from nowhere?:
The only reason Mr. Q is in here talking it up is because he literally gets paid to, and even his enthusiasm has gotten weaker with each post.
Those who sell their souls need to be reminded of their lot in life.
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@jaloopa said in Money from nowhere?:
@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@blakeyrat said in Money from nowhere?:
World's Biggest Asshole Intercourse
You make me blush.
How big is your asshole?
It isn't how big it is that matters. It's how red it is.
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@heterodox said in Money from nowhere?:
Nonsense. I think there are like two people who use autovoting scripts and I don't think either of them target @masonwheeler.
FoxHole isn't targeting anyone at the moment, up or down.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Are you kidding? This is the best part of my day.
You really aren't doing a good job selling the culture of Quack.
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@groaner said in Money from nowhere?:
@lorne-kates said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
We've raised tens of millions of VC funding in previous projects.
No, my penis is bigger. Ask my girlfriend in
CanadaSvalbardIt stretches that far?
Yes, but then it hits the cold of Svalbard and shrinks back.
Filed under: One day I'll reach her polar vortex
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@hardwaregeek said in Money from nowhere?:
@blakeyrat said in Money from nowhere?:
Just don't fucking vote at all. It doesn't do anything. It's a fucking waste of your time. If you have something to say, man-up and fucking say it, don't hide behind some button with a fucking arrow on it.
Sometimes the only thing you want to say is, "I agree with what you said," and a simple vote is less of a waste of time for both the person indicating agreement and all the people who would otherwise have to read a bunch of content-free "me too" posts.
I agree with what you said.
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@hardwaregeek said in Money from nowhere?:
@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@jaloopa said in Money from nowhere?:
@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@blakeyrat said in Money from nowhere?:
World's Biggest Asshole Intercourse
You make me blush.
How big is your asshole?
I would link goatse, but that seems over a line.
That's over all the lines.
It's a serious breach.
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@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@lorne-kates said in Money from nowhere?:
And look, if I'M stepping into defend Poly, then you know you're sailing the wrong boat off a waterfall of burning bridges there, Mason.
I didn't know we were on quite that bad of footing...
We aren't, but no one on the forum would traditionally expect me to take your side on things. :upsidedown_owl:
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@boomzilla said in Money from nowhere?:
@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
You talk about cards and cash being outdated and NFC as the solution - Android Pay, Apple Pay, and Samsung Pay are already extremely popular.
This amazes me.
Honestly, I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone use one of these things. I don't think that most of the places I shop at even support it.A lot, though by no means all, of the card readers around here have the contactless payment logos on them. I even saw somebody use one the other day; I can't remember whether it was his wallet or his phone, but he waved something at it, it beeped, and he walked away with his purchase.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
This hypothetical better network would eventually overtake the others, simply because it offers faster, safer and cheaper transactions. That translates to trillions of dollars in annual volume.
imma gonna stop you right there, because this is the lemonade stand I talked about. There is literally no point in reading, discussing or investing in ANY other point of the whole system-- because of this exact statement.
hypothetical
Exactly. It's hypothetical, in the same way that warp drive is hypothetical. You aren't even pitching a proposed means to a network. You're just saying "if we had a better network". You don't even have some woo-woo misunderstanding of relativity to base your hypothetical warp drive on. Just "i'm gonna do it!".
To draw anyone into Q, you need to have a concrete plan of what you'll do-- concrete enough to bring in early adapters and also engineers who want to build what's on your blueprint. You have less than nothing. So you can never gain any serious traction, let alone critical mass. Non-started.
better network
You don't say how it's better. I'd harp more, but it feels like a retread of above. If I wasn't lazy, I'd edit these two paragraphs together.
fast, cheaper, safer
No details = non-starter. Even the most braindead moron can point to BitCoin and say "the blockchain makes everyone agree on things being ok so no one can cheat". (And since all bitcoin investors are braindead morons, it helps).
You haven't given any idea of what faster, cheaper or safer is. What is faster? I tap my card against the pad, the pad goes beep, I've made my buy. That seems fast enough.
Cheaper? No one who SPENDS money cares about this. I don't pay my merchant's fees (insert argument about passing onto consumer here). So trying to get a critical mass of SPENDERS wtith this is also a non-starter. You haven't done any research into who your target audience is. Another soft-mushy-shit of a foundation, and thus no confidence, and thus no reason to use your network, and thus no critical mass.
Safer? So I can't get mugged? But if I have an online transaction that isn't mine, I call my credit card company and say "that isn't mine" and it goes away. The FDIC assures me that no one will shit away my bank account on coke and hookers. Seems safe enough to me.
** That translates to trillions of dollars in annual volume.**
For who? Where does this number come from. An asspull, I assume. Do I get trillions of dollars? Does Q invent trillions of dollars? Isn't that trillions just the same 1 billion being passed around amongst 1000 endpoints? Again, as a spender, why do I give a fuck?
All this tells me is you have no concrete plan (so I shouldn't trust you and shouldn't join), have no ROUGH plan (no trust, etc), no idea what you're doing (no trust), and have done zero market research into who will actually use your product (no trust).
All this means that 0.1% chance you think you have is way, way, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay fucking lower. Asymptote lower.
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@twelvebaud said in Money from nowhere?:
Apple/Android/Samsung Pay
I don't trust any of these entities to properly and consistently display a 16x16 pixel icon on a LCD screen without it maybe crashing, glitching, or taking 10 seconds to load.
I'm not letting any of them be my payment method.
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@hardwaregeek said in Money from nowhere?:
I can't remember whether it was his wallet or his phone, but he waved something at it, it beeped, and he walked away with his purchase.
I do that all the time, but instead of a phone it's a gun, and instead of a beep it's a bang.
Super easy payments.
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@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
It's not just the new payment system you're offering, it's the new currency too. If Visa released a new payment system, and made it easy to access, places could easily incorporate it because it deals in good old USD and the only cost to them is that of setting it up. Once they receive payments through this new system, they have the payment in the currency they're using.
There's no reason this (hypothetical) amazing payment system has to have its own currency, inherently limiting the rate of adoption. Let's call this for what it is. These guys want to be in control of a currency. They want the equivalent of the "genesis block", which really is 'money from nowhere' if they get adoption.
They seem to be (repeatedly) missing the point though that it limits the rate of adoption even more when you don't have a product for anyone to adopt. You may get the equivalent of Kickstarter "backers", a few thousand people who are (one or more of) amused, curious, get-rich-quick wannabes, or gullible idiots, but there's no way you get "critical mass".
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@boomzilla said in Money from nowhere?:
This amazes me.
Honestly, I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone use one of these things. I don't think that most of the places I shop at even support it.I know most of the places I shop at probably do, but like you I've not ever seen anyone ever use it.
For myself, my phone is the last thing I want connected to my financial data, and I don't think I'm in more than the 70th or so percentile of paranoia in saying that.
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@heterodox Exactly. People like their caveman credit cards or god forbid paper money. People will not use a currency that can only be transferred through phones.
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@twelvebaud said in Money from nowhere?:
Anyway, almost every PIN entry device now supports NFC. Not all do $phone Pay, and not all banks issue appropriate cards, but Visa payWAVE and MasterCard Contactless work just fine.
Yes. I was specifically referring to the pay by phone, which I've never seen anyone do.
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@lorne-kates said in Money from nowhere?:
You haven't given any idea of what faster, cheaper or safer is. What is faster? I tap my card against the pad, the pad goes beep, I've made my buy. That seems fast enough.
I had some rants somewhere around here about my grocery store converting to using chipped cards. At first it really slowed stuff down. But they realized it and changed the system. Now my card goes into the reader for just a few seconds and then I can remove it. This typically happens while the checker is still ringing up items. It's now nearly as convenient as swiping and no where near as painful as it used to be. Sadly, no one else seems to use a system that smart.
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@kian said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
- You have no payment network. It's all hypothetical.
That's exactly the idea. If you build the payment network AFTER you have critical mass, then you can bring the top talent in the field, and have them focus on functionality and efficiency, rather than being limited by "chicken and egg" concerns.
This is perhaps the bit that confuses me. Why do you need to wait for a critical mass before hiring the people that will create the system? The engineers designing the system, writing the code, and building the infrastructure, basically everyone doing this very difficult, very critical point 3 in your plan to turn Qs into money, don't care about the "chicken and egg" issue.
Speaking as top talent, even if no one ever uses the system, you keep the investor capital flowing into my bank account at a reasonable rate, and I'll build you what you want. Let the marketing people, economists, C-suits and all those folks worry about getting people to use it and making a profit out of it. I'm with my headphones on doing my thing. If you fail, it won't be because the system I built didn't meet the design goals and I'll just get another job. If you succeed, I'll be well positioned to cash in on the success. So it's a win-win for me.
I can see two reasons you might want to wait until you have critical mass before building anything. One, you want to pay your top talent with Qs and equity and such, and hope that once there's buzz you'll be able to get them to work for free. But top talent's gotta eat and I'm pretty sure anyone that falls for it isn't going to be top talent. Two, you doubt you can get the investor capital until you show a critical mass, and expect to be able to create the system in a hurry once you get that capital. I doubt what you build in a hurry with investors asking where your payment system is will live up to your expectations.
Sorry, I thought it was obvious. Building a new payment network takes far more time and money than launching a sign-up campaign. Always do the more cost-efficient tasks first.
- You have no payment network. It's all hypothetical.
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@boomzilla said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
- Making progress in payments is hard. For a seller to adopt a new technology, they need to see enough demand from buyers, and vice versa. While everyone would be better off adopting the new technology, the rational decision is to wait until others adopt first - which therefore never happens
- All the payment technologies we have today were designed under this massive limitation. If you could somehow remove it, you could build a far better network.
What would be better about the network? You talk about how your system will be super duper times better than what we have. Why couldn't you make it work with other currencies? If people see the benefits of such an awesome system at least some will start using it. Paypal broke into the market. Why couldn't you?
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
- You have no payment network. It's all hypothetical.
That's exactly the idea. If you build the payment network AFTER you have critical mass, then you can bring the top talent in the field, and have them focus on functionality and efficiency, rather than being limited by "chicken and egg" concerns.
Eh...but even if you have all these people sign up for the free monies, that doesn't give you critical mass for them using it. They all still have dollars and euros and yen or whatever. And if you have all that but no one has any way to install your payment app and use it, because it doesn't exist, then you don't really have critical mass of the thing you actually need.
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
In the long-term, Qs have value because they're coupled to a superior payment technology, and you must have Qs to access it.
This is some epic question begging, even for around here. There's a giant leap where you come up with a network that's lightyears ahead of anything we have now. I can't see any justification for this. All I see is that you want to corner the market because we're all using your new currency. I feel like we're all being trolled.
You're asking questions that are answered literally a few sentences later in the same post.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
You're asking questions that are answered literally a few sentences later in the same post.
"Answered" in the same way that your mass will be critical. Which is to say, not in the important way. For instance:
Why will your thing be better?
It will be cheaper!
But how will you make a cheaper network?
I already said, "It will be cheaper!"Perhaps you can see why people think you haven't answered.
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@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
the signal to noise ratio is dropping rapidly
YMBNH
The objections raised so far:
- The big payment players don't have that problem. They already have critical mass.
They have critical mass for their existing network. To make a significant leap forward, they need to move everyone to new network and technologies. In that aspect they suffer the same problem as newcomers: everyone will wait for someone else to move first.
They do have the advantage of brand recognition and incentives they can give to existing members (and sometimes that works, which is why the market leaders are fairly constant in this space), but to truly make progress, it's not enough.
It's not just the new payment system you're offering, it's the new currency too. If Visa released a new payment system, and made it easy to access, places could easily incorporate it because it deals in good old USD and the only cost to them is that of setting it up. Once they receive payments through this new system, they have the payment in the currency they're using.
Already answered in the original post why VISA can't easily launch a new network
- Current payment technologies are good enough. There is no real need to improve them.
Read here many examples of how payments can improve: https://initiativeq.com/knowledge/payment-network
Ordinarily I'd agree with you on principle; 'if I had asked the people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.' But then I read it.
- You talk about cards and cash being outdated and NFC as the solution - Android Pay, Apple Pay, and Samsung Pay are already extremely popular.
They're growing nicely, but still very far from "extremely popular".
And cards are used when people don't want to leave it up to their phone, and cash is used when people don't want to leave it up to technology at all (since, y'know, street vendors aren't the type to have payment systems). The QR code is no better than a card, the 'audible' code (whatever that means) is no better than NFC. So already cash transactions will be a thing of the past, leaving you totally dependent on technology.
When a better technology arrives, the old one doesn't become illegal. People could still use cash.
- You talk about stores where you just scan barcodes and don't bother checking out, but that means that the store has to be tightly coupled to you. It's not just 'hey, we bought new card readers with that new system thing', it's a full integration down to the stock level. There are a lot of small businesses who would never go for that; it'd be almost like being a franchisee.
If you have a large user base interested in it, many stores will be glad to improve their service and reduce costs. I agree that some won't.
- You talk about single sign on for online stores. I like my card number being completely decoupled from my personal information. I don't want to have to keep the same, for instance, email address across all services.
- You have no payment network. It's all hypothetical.
That's exactly the idea. If you build the payment network AFTER you have critical mass, then you can bring the top talent in the field, and have them focus on functionality and efficiency, rather than being limited by "chicken and egg" concerns.
No. You can't bring the top talent because you have no money.
Yes. In case it wasn't obvious, of course the campaign is done first, because it requires less resources than building a new payment network.
- People will register, but that doesn't mean they will use the payment product.
The idea is to use Q grants to incentivize the whole adoption process, not just the initial sign up. After tens of millions of users register, additional Qs will be granted for buyers installing an app, for sellers integrating it into their PoS or website, for making your first transaction, for making a deposit and so on.
Note that as the project progresses the perceived value of Q increases, and so does its ability to incentivize cooperation.
I signed up because it costs me $0 and about five seconds. Installing an app will get you far fewer takers because that's storage space and device privacy. Sellers integrating it into their PoS will cost money, especially since there wouldn't be any equipment for it in the beginning so they're paying not just the purchase price but the development price. And at some point, the things have to start being backed. USD is worth money because the US backs it. That's a pretty strong backing. Q will either, depending on how you look at it, be backed by a for-profit company, or be backed by nothing at all. All of the problems with cryptocurrency, with none of the decentralization.
Again, as the project progresses, the ability to incentivize actions using Qs increases.
- Why would anyone trust Qs to have any value? How do you prevent people from dumping it in the market?
In the long-term, Qs have value because they're coupled to a superior payment technology, and you must have Qs to access it. This value is well established by the "equation of exchange".
The equation of exchange falls flat here because the velocity is completely tanked by the network effect. USD is used everywhere, even in other countries, and your only incentive for using Q is technology that already exists and technology that nobody will want to adopt.
In the short-term, Qs' value roughly represents the probability that the long-term goal will be achieved.
No. In the short term it has absolutely zero value until I can buy a cheeseburger with it.
I see zero value in crocodile skin boots, yet the market gives them high value.
You are not the only person in the world. There are many people out there, with different needs and appetites for risk. On average, the value of Q at any given time would be proportional to the perceived probability of reaching the wide adoption goal.The tricky part is that the probability of success is correlated with the value of Q. The higher the value of Q, the more resources Initiative Q has to execute its plan, and vice versa.
Wait, you have more resources the higher the value is? That sounds like you're planning on making more Q to pay your employees and contractors with, in which case I would direct you to read the history of, say, Zimbabwe.
As explained multiple times. Qs are sold to accredited investors and used to fund the project and maintain monetary reserves.
The challenge is therefore to manage Q so it grows gradually in value as the project progresses, and avoid a short-term drop that could trigger a downward spiral (value drops -> lower probability of success -> value drops further).
This is Q's monetary policy, which is too complex to discuss in detail here, but a general overview is available at https://initiativeq.com/knowledge/economic-model (co-authored with Prof. Lawrence H. White, expert in Monetary Theory).I read it. It's tripe no matter who wrote it. It's basically a parroting of the marketing blurbs peppered everywhere else on the website, coupled with the incorrect belief that cryptocurrency isn't easy to use.
You think cryptocurrency is currently an easy to use payment method?
But in a nutshell, the three main tools the monetary committee uses to maintain stability are:
a) Releasing Qs gradually, so the amount in circulation constantly matches the demand created by the economic activity.Release how? Nobody's going to buy them. And if you give 'em out for free, and buy 'em back, you're losing money even if Q is worth anything.
Already explained in detail in the document.
b) Maintaining sufficient reserves in other currencies that provide confidence to Q holders they can convert if they want.
See above. And where the hell will you get it? VCs tend not to invest in companies whose purpose is to give away money.
As explained multiple times. Qs are sold to accredited investors and used to fund the project and maintain monetary reserves.
c) Distributing Qs to incentivize activities that maintain trust and stability, such as investments, salary payments, purchase of Q with other currencies etc.
People will not do anything until they can exchange Q for USD.
Agree.
And once they can, that's all they'll do with it. You've already said you don't want it to deflate, so there won't be any sense holding onto it except for using your superior payment network which doesn't exist.
As explained, Qs are released for trade only after the payment network already exists.
Here's some more objections you don't actually address here.
- You predicate your entire system on people having technology. Do you realize that tons of people don't have smartphones at all? How do I give a homeless man a dollar with this system that does not work without technology?
Again, being the best doesn't mean answering 100% of market need.
- You actually address the fact that the technology that you're offering that people will actually use, already exists, but you give the dumb-ass argument that it's not widely adopted enough. I can use Android Pay in pretty much any supermarket anywhere. Widespread adoption takes time, you know. If your company just worked on the technology you have, you'd still fail, because people with more experience and more popularity with wider reach and greater means, are already doing it except better. Instead, you offer that plus the giant leap of faith in adopting a brand new currency.
I answered this question multiple times.
- Your currency is completely centralized. You are the ultimate authority on who owns what and how much.
That is incorrect, as explained multiple times.
This is not something people want. Again, if my life savings was in Q, and you shut down the servers and bid everyone farewell, there wouldn't be a damned thing I could do about it. There is no central authority on Bitcoin ownership. The decentralized blockchain system ensures that it doesn't disappear without its physical medium disappearing, and new ones don't come out of nowhere. There is no central authority on USD ownership. The government may back it, or demand that it be moved, but the ultimate authority on who owns the $1 is who is holding the green piece of paper.
notes are a fraction of the money in circulation.
I don't give a shit who the authority ends up being, I do not want a central authority on the ownership of my money.
Your money is being controlled by a central authority today. Holding a piece of paper means nothing if the authority decides to print 1000 times more of it, or simply decides it's no longer legal tender.
In the real world complex problems are solved through complex governance and checks and balances. We will follow the same principles.
- The big payment players don't have that problem. They already have critical mass.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
the signal to noise ratio is dropping rapidly
YMBNH
The objections raised so far:
- The big payment players don't have that problem. They already have critical mass.
They have critical mass for their existing network. To make a significant leap forward, they need to move everyone to new network and technologies. In that aspect they suffer the same problem as newcomers: everyone will wait for someone else to move first.
They do have the advantage of brand recognition and incentives they can give to existing members (and sometimes that works, which is why the market leaders are fairly constant in this space), but to truly make progress, it's not enough.
It's not just the new payment system you're offering, it's the new currency too. If Visa released a new payment system, and made it easy to access, places could easily incorporate it because it deals in good old USD and the only cost to them is that of setting it up. Once they receive payments through this new system, they have the payment in the currency they're using.
Already answered in the original post why VISA can't easily launch a new network
Yes. Something to the effect of 'everyone would wait for everyone else to start using it'. Which this was a response to. The salesman does not suddenly start supporting NFC, the manufacturer of his equipment does. Which Visa has a deal with, or can incentivize. And now Android/Apple/Samsung Pay is everywhere.
- Current payment technologies are good enough. There is no real need to improve them.
Read here many examples of how payments can improve: https://initiativeq.com/knowledge/payment-network
Ordinarily I'd agree with you on principle; 'if I had asked the people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.' But then I read it.
- You talk about cards and cash being outdated and NFC as the solution - Android Pay, Apple Pay, and Samsung Pay are already extremely popular.
They're growing nicely, but still very far from "extremely popular".
I was referring to adoption of the support, not adoption of the technology. The fact that so few people use it should clue you into how many people actually want a system that can only be used by phone.
And cards are used when people don't want to leave it up to their phone, and cash is used when people don't want to leave it up to technology at all (since, y'know, street vendors aren't the type to have payment systems). The QR code is no better than a card, the 'audible' code (whatever that means) is no better than NFC. So already cash transactions will be a thing of the past, leaving you totally dependent on technology.
When a better technology arrives, the old one doesn't become illegal. People could still use cash.
So the few people who support Q will have the bare minimum amount to make a few purchases. That's not really what you're going for when you're giving away tens of thousands of dollars' potential worth of the stuff.
- You talk about stores where you just scan barcodes and don't bother checking out, but that means that the store has to be tightly coupled to you. It's not just 'hey, we bought new card readers with that new system thing', it's a full integration down to the stock level. There are a lot of small businesses who would never go for that; it'd be almost like being a franchisee.
If you have a large user base interested in it, many stores will be glad to improve their service and reduce costs. I agree that some won't.
You're doing that thing mason does where you read my post but you don't really internalize it. A store will not be so glad to improve their service and reduce costs if their stock and payment system is entirely managed by an external entity. People like independence. You are possibly marketing this in the wrong country.
- You have no payment network. It's all hypothetical.
That's exactly the idea. If you build the payment network AFTER you have critical mass, then you can bring the top talent in the field, and have them focus on functionality and efficiency, rather than being limited by "chicken and egg" concerns.
No. You can't bring the top talent because you have no money.
Yes. In case it wasn't obvious, of course the campaign is done first, because it requires less resources than building a new payment network.
That's not how campaigns work. You campaign for stuff that exists, or you campaign for funds for stuff that people want to exist.
- People will register, but that doesn't mean they will use the payment product.
The idea is to use Q grants to incentivize the whole adoption process, not just the initial sign up. After tens of millions of users register, additional Qs will be granted for buyers installing an app, for sellers integrating it into their PoS or website, for making your first transaction, for making a deposit and so on.
Note that as the project progresses the perceived value of Q increases, and so does its ability to incentivize cooperation.
I signed up because it costs me $0 and about five seconds. Installing an app will get you far fewer takers because that's storage space and device privacy. Sellers integrating it into their PoS will cost money, especially since there wouldn't be any equipment for it in the beginning so they're paying not just the purchase price but the development price. And at some point, the things have to start being backed. USD is worth money because the US backs it. That's a pretty strong backing. Q will either, depending on how you look at it, be backed by a for-profit company, or be backed by nothing at all. All of the problems with cryptocurrency, with none of the decentralization.
Again, as the project progresses, the ability to incentivize actions using Qs increases.
This is chicken-and-egg logic. The project will progress because we incentivize them with Qs. Qs have value because the project progresses. You can't just build yourself up from literally nothing like that. At some point you have to add actual value into the equation.
In the short-term, Qs' value roughly represents the probability that the long-term goal will be achieved.
No. In the short term it has absolutely zero value until I can buy a cheeseburger with it.
I see zero value in crocodile skin boots, yet the market gives them high value.
You are not the only person in the world. There are many people out there, with different needs and appetites for risk. On average, the value of Q at any given time would be proportional to the perceived probability of reaching the wide adoption goal.They're expensive to obtain materials for and manufacture, and are currently stylish. If I had one, I could sell it for money and buy a cheeseburger with it. Q is worthless until I can buy a cheeseburger with it.
The tricky part is that the probability of success is correlated with the value of Q. The higher the value of Q, the more resources Initiative Q has to execute its plan, and vice versa.
Wait, you have more resources the higher the value is? That sounds like you're planning on making more Q to pay your employees and contractors with, in which case I would direct you to read the history of, say, Zimbabwe.
As explained multiple times. Qs are sold to accredited investors and used to fund the project and maintain monetary reserves.
Your entire damn system is the economic equivalent of plugging a power strip into itself.
The challenge is therefore to manage Q so it grows gradually in value as the project progresses, and avoid a short-term drop that could trigger a downward spiral (value drops -> lower probability of success -> value drops further).
This is Q's monetary policy, which is too complex to discuss in detail here, but a general overview is available at https://initiativeq.com/knowledge/economic-model (co-authored with Prof. Lawrence H. White, expert in Monetary Theory).I read it. It's tripe no matter who wrote it. It's basically a parroting of the marketing blurbs peppered everywhere else on the website, coupled with the incorrect belief that cryptocurrency isn't easy to use.
You think cryptocurrency is currently an easy to use payment method?
I think that for people who actually care about a third-party currency, the current issues with use are not enough of a deterrent.
b) Maintaining sufficient reserves in other currencies that provide confidence to Q holders they can convert if they want.
See above. And where the hell will you get it? VCs tend not to invest in companies whose purpose is to give away money.
As explained multiple times. Qs are sold to accredited investors and used to fund the project and maintain monetary reserves.
Investors don't buy worthless things. They fund startups so the startup can start making money. They don't fund startups so the startup can start giving away money.
c) Distributing Qs to incentivize activities that maintain trust and stability, such as investments, salary payments, purchase of Q with other currencies etc.
People will not do anything until they can exchange Q for USD.
Agree.
And yet you believe that people will be incentivized by them. Before they're worth USD. In order to make them worth USD.
Like I said. The economic equivalent of plugging a power strip into itself.And once they can, that's all they'll do with it. You've already said you don't want it to deflate, so there won't be any sense holding onto it except for using your superior payment network which doesn't exist.
As explained, Qs are released for trade only after the payment network already exists.
Where would the payment network's funding come from if you were planning on selling Qs to fund it but can only sell Qs after it exists?
Here's some more objections you don't actually address here.
- You predicate your entire system on people having technology. Do you realize that tons of people don't have smartphones at all? How do I give a homeless man a dollar with this system that does not work without technology?
Again, being the best doesn't mean answering 100% of market need.
Bitcoin is used in two places: secure anonymous government-independent transactions, and rich retards having a day at the metaphorical races. People do not mind converting between currencies because the first one is rare and the second one makes them money. Q is marketed as a replacement for the dollar, not as something to be used where you can't use the dollar. People will mind converting between the two in such a system, because it will be an everyday occurrence and will cost them money.
- You actually address the fact that the technology that you're offering that people will actually use, already exists, but you give the dumb-ass argument that it's not widely adopted enough. I can use Android Pay in pretty much any supermarket anywhere. Widespread adoption takes time, you know. If your company just worked on the technology you have, you'd still fail, because people with more experience and more popularity with wider reach and greater means, are already doing it except better. Instead, you offer that plus the giant leap of faith in adopting a brand new currency.
I answered this question multiple times.
I don't believe you did.
- Your currency is completely centralized. You are the ultimate authority on who owns what and how much.
That is incorrect, as explained multiple times.
Either I didn't read it, or you didn't say it. You could at least reference the post, because I'm not scrolling up through five hundred of them.
This is not something people want. Again, if my life savings was in Q, and you shut down the servers and bid everyone farewell, there wouldn't be a damned thing I could do about it. There is no central authority on Bitcoin ownership. The decentralized blockchain system ensures that it doesn't disappear without its physical medium disappearing, and new ones don't come out of nowhere. There is no central authority on USD ownership. The government may back it, or demand that it be moved, but the ultimate authority on who owns the $1 is who is holding the green piece of paper.
notes are a fraction of the money in circulation.
I don't care. Banks might care. But every dollar in my account is a green piece of paper I have held, and can hold again.
I don't give a shit who the authority ends up being, I do not want a central authority on the ownership of my money.
Your money is being controlled by a central authority today. Holding a piece of paper means nothing if the authority decides to print 1000 times more of it, or simply decides it's no longer legal tender.
In the real world complex problems are solved through complex governance and checks and balances. We will follow the same principles.No. My money in particular is controlled by the central authority of a bank, but I keep records and if they decide I have less than I actually do, I can take them to court because the green pieces of paper were owned by me. If the government decides to print more money and my green piece of paper is suddenly worth less, that's a problem, but I put a lot more trust in the federal reserve than in a company who can't render webpages server-side. And you can't just say 'complex governance and checks and balances'. Give me some concrete plans or shut the fuck up.
- The big payment players don't have that problem. They already have critical mass.
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@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
This is chicken-and-egg logic. The project will progress because we incentivize them with Qs. Qs have value because the project progresses. You can't just build yourself up from literally nothing like that.
They can sure try!
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@initiativeq Whether or not I am wrong about Visa and their ability to implement a new service, if Initiative L gets created who offers all the technology you do without the requirement of a new currency, their product will be about a million times more likely to succeed than yours. No hand-waving, no investments, no nothing will get around that. If you scrapped the currency and just proceeded with the technology, you might have a chance in hell of succeeding. Or you could rebrand the currency as credit. PayPal does this with mobile pay - you have a small amount of credit that you can use with an NFC transaction, and it gets topped up automatically but exists as credit so it's easy for them to manipulate. You could effectively do everything you're doing now, and cut out the central committee and all that, and rebrand your currency as credit. And you could succeed. But Initiative Q as it stands right now has no chance in hell of succeeding, and you have been categorically unable to convince anyone in this thread otherwise, which does include a couple of business owners such as @Polygeekery.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Already answered in the original post why VISA can't easily launch a new network
But what you seem to not realize is that all the challenges that apply to them also apply to you. And a lot more besides, by creating a "new currency", something which VISA has wisely never tried to do.
Yes, you're building a "critical mass" network. But you'll never get as many people in it as people who are already in VISA's debit and credit card network, plus none of the people in your network are using your product for payments currently, while VISA does not have that problem.
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
They're growing nicely, but still very far from "extremely popular".
Well considering it's a product a lot of people (like me for example) never asked for and don't want, it's probably doing pretty good.
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
If you have a large user base interested in it, many stores will be glad to improve their service and reduce costs. I agree that some won't.
BTW, part of the reason VISA has an easier path than you do is because they're in all those stores now. Once you create this super great payment system, how do you know VISA won't retaliate? ("If you install a card reader capable of accepting Qs, you can no longer accept VISA.") It's happened before.
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
You think cryptocurrency is currently an easy to use payment method?
Pie flavor's a moron.
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Your money is being controlled by a central authority today. Holding a piece of paper means nothing if the authority decides to print 1000 times more of it, or simply decides it's no longer legal tender.
Enlightened self-interest is a powerful motivator.
If I'm on the Q board, I don't necessarily have to rely on Q's remaining valuable. I could sabotage the fuck out of it, I already have US Dollars so if Q's fall, it's no skin off my nose. The same is not true of the people making decisions for the US Dollar, which are government officials and banks, and all of whom use US Dollars as their store of value.
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@boomzilla said in Money from nowhere?:
@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
You talk about cards and cash being outdated and NFC as the solution - Android Pay, Apple Pay, and Samsung Pay are already extremely popular.
This amazes me.
Honestly, I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone use one of these things. I don't think that most of the places I shop at even support it.I've seen some symbols on some devices at some stores. But yeah, never seen anyone use it. I don't. No way in fucking hell am I giving Android, Apple, or Samsung access to any of my banking details! (No, I do not have a CC registered in the Android Store - or Windows Store for that matter)
You know what's really funny? I just got a LinkedIn recruiter email this morning...
Have you heard about Stellar yet? We are building a universal payment protocol to allow anyone in the world to send money anywhere, instantly and at zero cost. You can think of this as “global venmo”, or “money as email”.
Maybe Stellar and Q should get together...
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@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
@blakeyrat This post is to inform you that I enjoyed what you wrote.
Do you see how this might get annoying after a while?
YEAH. So knock that shit off. This ain't the Garage!
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Already answered in the original post why VISA can't easily launch a new network
I, and I think everyone else on these forums and most of the rest of the world, think that your answer is complete handwaving bullshit.
VISA would not need 100% adoption on day one. They would not even need it on a fast timeline. If it were that much better they could phase it in as payment processing terminals are replaced over years. You on the other hand will need extremely rapid adoption or your little flight of fancy is stillborn. There is no other way around it.
You seem to think you can handle a slow adoption strategy. You can't. It is not possible because you would have a huge segment of the population that cannot do business with you and will have no incentive to do so. You will be Sealand but with a huge cash burn.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
launching a sign-up campaign.
What we keep trying to point out is that signing up all these people means exactly nada. You have to sign up the merchants. Unless the only transactions you'll support are person-to-person. Fuck that, I'll continue using my USD... Talk to us when you get Amazon on board...
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Already answered in the original post why VISA can't easily launch a new network
Which is total bullshit.
: On $(future_date), we're switching you from network1 to networkZ. You won't notice a thing.
: Cool. Thanks for the heads up!
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@dcon said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Already answered in the original post why VISA can't easily launch a new network
Which is total bullshit.
: On $(future_date), we're switching you from network1 to networkZ. You won't notice a thing.
: Cool. Thanks for the heads up!Sort of like the transition to chip cards.
"We are moving to chip cards. Any business that is not able to accept chip card transactions on $DATE will be paying higher fees due to higher chances of fraud on their transactions."
"Cool. Where do we order the new terminals?"TenaciousD forgets that we have recently been through the type of transition he says VISA can't do.
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@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
On average, the value of Q at any given time would be proportional to the perceived probability of reaching the wide adoption goal.
Money has value because I can exchange it for food, clothing, keeping a roof over my head, fixing my car. Until Q can be exchanged for (at least some of) those, or for something else ($, £, €, ¥, ₪, gold, diamonds, bottle caps, whatever) that can be exchanged for those, it is worth $0.0000000000000000000000.
Are you willing to be take your paychecks in Q? If not, why not? Let me know when you are, then we can talk about it having value.
