Initiative Q - Money from nowhere?
-
@hardwaregeek said in Money from nowhere?:
, it is worth $0.0000000000000000000000.
With the programmers they'll get (remember where you are!), that's probably $0.000000. You know, the default floating point format precision.
-
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
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
If you were limited to working on one thing at a time, sure. But you clearly didn't hire top talent for your website, from the analysis done here, so there's an untapped pool of potential just wasting time. You ideally want to launch the network when your popularity and interest are at its peak, you can't start working on it then, otherwise you will lose all the momentum you worked to create. Which means you have to start well before you are popular.
So, just at a guess, how long do you think it might take to build your first version of this thing?
-
@kian said in Money from nowhere?:
So, just at a guess, how long do you think it might take to build your first version of this thing?
They say they can't even start hiring experts to begin designing it until they have this "critical mass". I don't know exactly how many email addresses "critical mass" is.
-
@kian said in Money from nowhere?:
So, just at a guess, how long do you think it might take to build your first version of this thing?
Are they going to rebuild Chesterton's Fence or just bulldoze it and pretend it was never there?
-
@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@kian said in Money from nowhere?:
So, just at a guess, how long do you think it might take to build your first version of this thing?
Are they going to rebuild Chesterton's Fence or just bulldoze it and pretend it was never there?
We'll have to see what the top fence experts say when they show up.
-
@polygeekery said in Money from nowhere?:
@kian said in Money from nowhere?:
So, just at a guess, how long do you think it might take to build your first version of this thing?
Are they going to rebuild Chesterton's Fence or just bulldoze it and pretend it was never there?
As far as I can tell, they're not even aware there is a fence.
-
@boomzilla wait until you get RFID/tap credit cards...
-
@boomzilla said in Money from nowhere?:
We'll have to see what the top fence experts say when they show up.
Oh wait, a chance to break out this clip again:
They have top men working on it right now. Who? Top. Men.
-
-
-
@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
@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.
I'm not saying they can't innovate at all. They have many strong tools that startups don't have. And still, projects like 3D-Secure failed, and PayPal beat Citibank's c2it.
- 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.
If they find it more convenient, they would want to have enough Qs at any time, eventually becoming their main currency.
- 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.
Not sure why you think Q reduces independence, but it's not important - if a seller thinks they'll make more profit accepting Qs they will do it.
- 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.
Generally true, but this campaign is different. It's about gradually building global trust in a new system.
- 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.
Exactly. The value is in the coupling with superior payment technologies.
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.
Sorry, but you're wrong. Q has value also if people think they could buy a burger with it in the future. If they believe the likelihood for that is low, then the value is lower, but still exists.
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.
see below.
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.
Indeed investors will need to believe this could eventually become a major payment system and generate significant revenues. If not, they won't invest.
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.In a sense you're right. Creating trust in new money is a bit like a perpetuum mobile, with the only difference it sometimes works.
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?
Accredited investors can buy it before the system is live (at a significantly lower price). Public use is after launch.
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.
Most people have multiple accounts holding money or other valuable assets. Each one offers them some advantages. Yes, adding a Q account to the mix should justify the overhead.
- 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.
Why do you think Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay are the only ones out there?
- 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.
Read the last section in the payment network page.
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.
Not if everyone asks for it at once.
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.
I think we can do much better, but if the Fed is what you trust, we can simply copy their governance. It's not secret.
Also - I can't help you with your campaign against SPA. Many leading companies believe it provides a better user experience. Write to them.
- The big payment players don't have that problem. They already have critical mass.
-
@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
@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.
You keep missing the point. People will have no incentive to be first to join Initiative L.
-
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Generally true, but this campaign is different. It's about gradually building global trust in a new system.
You're not doing that though.
If anything, you're building distrust by writing checks that, let's face it, ain't never gonna be cashed.
-
@blakeyrat 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
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.
It's not only about the number of people, but about commitment and incentives.If Q can incentivize users to install a payment app, and Visa cannot, that's a huge advantage.
@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.
That specifically sounds illegal, but if Q becomes popular, there will be some tough battles to win.
@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.
If they want, they can take a huge negative USD position and then sabotage.
But they will go to jail if they do so, as would Q directors who sabotage the system.
-
@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
the incorrect belief that cryptocurrency isn't easy to use.
What exactly is incorrect about that?
If it were easy to use, people would be using it. But who (outside the criminal realm at least) is buying and selling things with cryptocurrency today?
-
@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.Two days ago, I was at the store and I saw the guy at the checkout terminal next to mine use NFC on his phone to pay for his groceries. I see terminals all over the place saying they support the technology, and it's starting to get some level of mainstream adoption as more and more phones come with it built in. I think my phone supports it, I just haven't actually gone and enabled it because
.
-
@hardwaregeek said in Money from nowhere?:
@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 $0.0000000000000000000000.
It also has value if people think there is a non-zero probability it could be exchanged for food in the future. The higher the probability, the higher the value.
Are you willing to be take your paychecks in Q? If not, why not? Let me know when you are, then we can talk about it having value.
Depends on the Q:$ ratio
-
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
It's about gradually building global trust in a new system.
You can't build global trust in a system that doesn't exist. End of story.
-
@hardwaregeek said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
It's a complex gradual process of incentivizing trust.
I suspect b >> a.
I was immensely confused about the random blue arrow and curious comment.
-
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
It's about gradually building global trust in a new system.
But you don't have a system. You're not going to build it until you have trust. But I'm not going to trust it until I see a system. A proven system.
-
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
If Q can incentivize users to install a payment app
: Look at this cool payment app I have!
: What can you pay for with it?
: Look at this cool payment app I have!Oh right. Now those users can pay each other...
-
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
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.
Depends on the Q:$ ratio
Stability is important.
https://what.thedailywtf.com/topic/24242/a-fool-and-his-not-really-money-are-soon-parted/1214For independent developers like Mercer, though, relying on crypto and its volatile markets to continue contributing code can be crushing. Zcash in particular was hit hard this year, down from $876 per coin in January to $192 at the time of writing.
"The bear market really killed me," Mercer said. "You know ... when the blood spilling happened, I woke up and 25 percent of my money was gone."
-
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
@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.
I'm not saying they can't innovate at all. They have many strong tools that startups don't have. And still, projects like 3D-Secure failed, and PayPal beat Citibank's c2it.
3D-Secure was a new security layer that nobody interacted with except for payment partners and banks, so it's completely irrelevant to the discussion and I have no idea why you'd bring it up except for padding for your ridiculous argument. And yes, the best technology in the field rises to the top - PayPal succeeded, and that's far more relevant than who they were better than.
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.
If they find it more convenient, they would want to have enough Qs at any time, eventually becoming their main currency.
So you do hope to eclipse USD.
Do you realize the level of societal dysfunction when you have multiple currencies on the same damn streets? For no reason at all?- 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.
Not sure why you think Q reduces independence, but it's not important - if a seller thinks they'll make more profit accepting Qs they will do it.
Well, I explained why I thought Q reduced independence. If people can scan barcodes and walk out with the product, then their entire payment system and stock will have to be managed by Q. And there's no reason to think they'd make more profit - more complicated payment systems mean more overhead in processing fees, and at the very best they'd be making the exact same profit as before. The reason systems like Android Pay work is that the seller doesn't have to do a damn thing, and the card reader is the only thing that handles it, which gets upgraded as part of the seller's existing contract.
- 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.
Generally true, but this campaign is different. It's about gradually building global trust in a new system.
You can't build trust with no product. I would probably trust your magical currency that will eclipse USD more if you hadn't given me fifty thousand of it for free.
- 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.
Exactly. The value is in the coupling with superior payment technologies.
Which you plan to pay for in Qs, which will be able to be used for payment because of the value, which will be because the project progresses, which will be possible because you pay for it in Qs.
When someone says you're using chicken-and-egg logic, that means you're wrong. There is no way at all that you could be using chicken-and-egg logic and end up being right.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.
Sorry, but you're wrong. Q has value also if people think they could buy a burger with it in the future. If they believe the likelihood for that is low, then the value is lower, but still exists.
I don't give a shit whether it'll get me a cheeseburger in the future. Fat lot of good that does my hunger. Money that cannot buy me a cheeseburger does not have value.
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.
Indeed investors will need to believe this could eventually become a major payment system and generate significant revenues. If not, they won't invest.
And they would have no reason to believe it, because you saddle it with the immense stupidity of an additional currency. Investors will invest in it because Q will have value because investors will invest in it...
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.In a sense you're right. Creating trust in new money is a bit like a perpetuum mobile, with the only difference it sometimes works.
Did I say trust? No. I don't believe I did. What I was drawing attention to was the fact that a currency with zero value is not an incentive for anything, meaning that you cannot use it as an incentive to increase its value, meaning it goes fucking nowhere. You cannot get money from nowhere and that is fucking final. And you can't respond to this with 'but investors' because the step of giving Qs value comes before getting investors, otherwise there is nothing to invest in.
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?
Accredited investors can buy it before the system is live (at a significantly lower price). Public use is after launch.
They can. But they won't. Because without the payment network, there's nothing to invest in.
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.
Most people have multiple accounts holding money or other valuable assets. Each one offers them some advantages. Yes, adding a Q account to the mix should justify the overhead.
No. Each one may offer them advantages but they all use USD. I am not talking about the difficulty of a new account, I am talking about the difficulty of a new currency. Every time you bring up a positive, it's a positive of the payment network, and every time someone brings up a negative, you nullify it by comparing your payment network. We don't have any fucking problems with the payment network. We have problems with the CURRENCY.
- 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.
Why do you think Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay are the only ones out there?
Because they're the ones that make the NFC devices. Other companies do the backend instead of the frontend, like PayPal.
- 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.
Read the last section in the payment network page.
I'm reading it. There are a lot of things you could be referring to as 'the last section' and none of them reference the fact that all my money is a number in a database. Again, there's laws about banks, but there's no laws about you. If there end up being laws about you, the laws will be to tell you to pack your shit and leave.
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.
Not if everyone asks for it at once.
Okay.
And?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.
I think we can do much better, but if the Fed is what you trust, we can simply copy their governance. It's not secret.
You may have noticed that governance was the caveat in the paragraph. The advantages are the ones you cannot copy.
Also - I can't help you with your campaign against SPA. Many leading companies believe it provides a better user experience. Write to them.
Tip: You're using one right now. You may notice that it doesn't take six seconds to load the topic list or a thread. Meanwhile, I didn't say SPA. I said rendering server-side. This website is an SPA while rendering pages server-side, and it is completely possible to browse the site with JavaScript completely disabled. There is nothing whatsoever about your four pages of static content and a login screen that can't be rendered server-side, even if SPA functionality can be loaded on the client after visiting the page. And if you think your fancy dynamic art requires tons of JS to load I urge you to think again. Just keep repeating that figure to yourself. Six seconds.
- The big payment players don't have that problem. They already have critical mass.
-
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
@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.
You keep missing the point. People will have no incentive to be first to join Initiative L.
They don't need one. You forgot to quote the rest of what I was saying where Visa has a deal with most payment providers and can incentivize the rest. And then it gets supported on the seller's end, at which point people adopt it because it's easier.
-
@masonwheeler said in Money from nowhere?:
@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
the incorrect belief that cryptocurrency isn't easy to use.
What exactly is incorrect about that?
If it were easy to use, people would be using it. But who (outside the criminal realm at least) is buying and selling things with cryptocurrency today?
The 'A fool and his not-really-money are easily parted' thread is
.
-
@blakeyrat said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Generally true, but this campaign is different. It's about gradually building global trust in a new system.
You're not doing that though.
If anything, you're building distrust by writing checks that, let's face it, ain't never gonna be cashed.
-
@blakeyrat said in Money from nowhere?:
If anything, you're building distrust by writing checks that, let's face it, ain't never gonna be cashed.
Just had a thought... Sure they'll cash them. As long as you want Qs!
-
@kian said in Money from nowhere?:
So, just at a guess, how long do you think it might take to build your first version of this thing?
I already asked him that question at least once, as have you, and he didn't answer it. Instead, he doubled down on his original talking points.
I even gave him a hint that he's probably going to want to offer at least $200k per annum salaries for this dream team (of lets say 10 developers), and yet it's still too hard to figure out how much VC the initiative will need. Doesn't take a math whiz to know it's going to cost millions of dollars per year just on the warm bodies.
Now, in terms of how long? We have no milestones, we have no design documents or specifications. Heck, we don't even have requirements. At this point, the project duration is ∞.
Filed under: your project plan is lemniscating on thin ice
-
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
@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're not doing anything yet. At all. Just marketing wankery.
- You have no payment network. It's all hypothetical.
-
I realize I'm late to this party, but everyone's been posting this faster than I could read, so it took me 3 days to catch up.
Anyways, before I cash in on my sweet Q buckzzz, the least interesting thing first:
@heterodox said in Money from nowhere?:
He's just getting downvotes for being gullible and cunty at the same time (neither of which alone is usually worthy of a downvotes around here).-
I don't feel that's true!
From my observation, he himself seems to downvote whatever he disagrees with (gathered from people identifying him as the downvoter). That's not my or most people's modus operandi, usually (not always) only shit-posting gets a downvote but not good-but-differing-opinion posts. But, since there's no formal definition what a vote really means, I guess he can define it to mean "dis-/agree with" and be consistent.
On the other hand, he himself gets consistently downvoted for anything he says. If it's something others see as shitty, he'll get lots of downvotes. But even if he says something completely unobjectionable he still has exactly 1 downvote.Now, back on topic if I can find all the posts I wanted to reply to again.
-
@topspin said in Money from nowhere?:
I realize I'm late to this party, but everyone's been posting this faster than I could read, so it took me 3 days to catch up.
We haven't hit 1000 yet, so this is slow compared to some threads!
-
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
- 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.
Not sure why you think Q reduces independence, but it's not important - if a seller thinks they'll make more profit accepting Qs they will do it.
Moreover, integration with brick-and-mortar stores down to the UPC level puts you into the inventory and logistics business. There are companies in this space with decades of experience in that business domain. While you won't necessarily have to take on their workload, you will have to perhaps integrate with a dozen or so of the existing major systems and replicate enough of their thinking to be able to interop with them. To help develop this integration, you might be assigned one overworked person at each company as a point of contact, if you're lucky!
Do you not see how you are already up to your eyeballs in scope creep?
Why do you think Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay are the only ones out there?
Because the mobile world is a hellhole of walled garden bullshit?
Not if everyone asks for it at once.
Good thing there's an FDIC!
Also - I can't help you with your campaign against SPA. Many leading companies believe it provides a better user experience. Write to them.
"We do it because other companies do it" is the lamest defense ever when in an industry saturated with fad-chasing idiots.
-
@anotherusername said in Money from nowhere?:
You can give people free e-bucks as much as you want, but unless they can spend them on something useful, they're just Qs sitting in an account. Can I pay my rent or the electric bill with Qs? Can I buy gas, groceries with them? Then I certainly wouldn't want to accept them for anything I wanted to sell. I think you greatly underestimate the barrier to entry; I as a buyer can't buy anything with them, because nobody as a seller wants to accept them, because then they'd just be Qs sitting in their account.
Yeah, I agree with that. It's worth nothing because I can't spend it, and I can't spend it because it's worth nothing. @initiativeq himself mentions a "game theoretic deadlock" while talking about something else, but it's exactly that here. @pie_flavor calls this
Your entire damn system is the economic equivalent of plugging a power strip into itself.
The one problem I have with the reasoning of these objections, which I otherwise consider obviously correct, is: It worked for Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is worth nothing, but people still use it. Well, it was worth nothing, stupid, a waste of electricity, and a scam. It's got a blockchain, but a scam on a blockchain is still a scam. So it should have stayed worth nothing forever, because there was no reason for it to bootstrap itself to have any value. If you'd have told me "hey, I'll give you 5000 BTC for a pizza" back when it was worth nothing, I'd have told you to fuck off:
So they printed monopoly money and want me to accept it as payment? Why, I can just print my own monopoly money if I want to.I have no idea how Q could quantum tunnel through the "Q is worthless" barrier, but Bitcoin did. It makes no sense at all that it did, but I'm usually wrong with these predictions (not because I'm an idiot but because everyone else is
), so really who knows.So it basically amounts to this:
@mott555 said in Money from nowhere?:
So in this thread everyone accuses Q of being a scam, but joins in just in case it isn't? Do I have that right?
@blakeyrat said in Money from nowhere?:
@mott555 Yah. I did the same with Bitcoin, and it kind of worked out.
-
@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
Tip: You're using one right now. You may notice that it doesn't take six seconds to load the topic list or a thread. Meanwhile, I didn't say SPA. I said rendering server-side. This website is an SPA while rendering pages server-side, and it is completely possible to browse the site with JavaScript completely disabled. There is nothing whatsoever about your four pages of static content and a login screen that can't be rendered server-side, even if SPA functionality can be loaded on the client after visiting the page. And if you think your fancy dynamic art requires tons of JS to load I urge you to think again. Just keep repeating that figure to yourself. Six seconds.
Hint for those who are following along: the usual benchmark for acceptable response times is typically in the sub-second range! The only exceptions might be when dealing with very large datasets. A static site is not dealing with a very large dataset.
-
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
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're stupid.
-
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
Always do the more cost-efficient tasks first.You should start with step x: profit, then.
-
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
When a better technology arrives, the old one doesn't become illegal. People could still use cash.
So usd is still a currency. So there's no need to use Queefs except to convert into usd. Gotcha.
as has been explained multiple times
Hmm maybe that means you're either shit at explaining, or your explanations are shit.
-
@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
Your entire damn system is the economic equivalent of plugging a power strip into itself.
A+
-
@groaner said in Money from nowhere?:
@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
Tip: You're using one right now. You may notice that it doesn't take six seconds to load the topic list or a thread. Meanwhile, I didn't say SPA. I said rendering server-side. This website is an SPA while rendering pages server-side, and it is completely possible to browse the site with JavaScript completely disabled. There is nothing whatsoever about your four pages of static content and a login screen that can't be rendered server-side, even if SPA functionality can be loaded on the client after visiting the page. And if you think your fancy dynamic art requires tons of JS to load I urge you to think again. Just keep repeating that figure to yourself. Six seconds.
Hint for those who are following along: the usual benchmark for acceptable response times is typically in the sub-second range! The only exceptions might be when dealing with very large datasets. A static site is not dealing with a very large dataset.
Initiative Q: 6s
lingscars: 2s
-
@tsaukpaetra said in Money from nowhere?:
I was immensely confused about the random blue arrow and curious comment.
A complex number is the sum of a real number and an imaginary number.
I suspect b >> a.
I suspect the imaginary component (of this complex plan) is much larger than the real component.
-
@kian said in Money from nowhere?:
But you clearly didn't hire top talent for your website, from the analysis done here
Oh oh oh oh oh I almost forgot one!
Their absolutely amazing "contact us" form.
Wait, did I say form? I meant mailto: link.
-
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
g. Q has value also if people think they could buy a burger with it in the future.
You're stupid.
-
@topspin said in Money from nowhere?:
The one problem I have with the reasoning of these objections, which I otherwise consider obviously correct, is: It worked for Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is worth nothing, but people still use it. Well, it was worth nothing, stupid, a waste of electricity, and a scam. It's got a blockchain, but a scam on a blockchain is still a scam. So it should have stayed worth nothing forever, because there was no reason for it to bootstrap itself to have any value. If you'd have told me "hey, I'll give you 5000 BTC for a pizza" back when it was worth nothing, I'd have told you to fuck off:This was addressed upthread. The difference is that buttcoins brought a couple things of value to the world:
- Blockchain technology
- A convenient channel over which to buy drugs or Captain Picard
-
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
It also has value if people think there is a non-zero probability it could be exchanged for food in the future.
The probability that you're stupid is 100%
-
@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
PayPal succeeded, and that's far more relevant than who they were better than.
Being better than Citibank is not a high bar.
-
@groaner said in Money from nowhere?:
This was addressed upthread. The difference is that buttcoins brought a couple things of value to the world:
- Blockchain technology
As I also mentioned: monopoly money on a blockchain is still monopoly money. Yay, you can't double spend it! But it's still inherently worthless.
- A convenient channel over which to buy drugs or Captain Picard
Yes, right now the sum total value of bitcoins should be how much it's used for buying drugs / money laundering. But how did it get to that point? You can launder money with anything, like Tide bottles, as long as it's worth something. Once it was, it was very convenient compared to stealing detergent, but how did Fat Tony start accepting monopoly money in the first place, when it was for all intents and purposes worthless?
-
@hardwaregeek said in Money from nowhere?:
A complex number is the sum of a real number and an imaginary number.
Visual comprehension fail. I couldn't see the black part of the transparent image against the nearly-black background my current theme presents.
-
@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
@initiativeq said in Money from nowhere?:
@pie_flavor said in Money from nowhere?:
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.
Sorry, but you're wrong. Q has value also if people think they could buy a burger with it in the future. If they believe the likelihood for that is low, then the value is lower, but still exists.
I don't give a shit whether it'll get me a cheeseburger in the future. Fat lot of good that does my hunger. Money that cannot buy me a cheeseburger does not have value.
He's right about that. That's how the entire stock market operates. It used to be about getting paid back in dividends, but by now valuations are all about how much the market think something will be worth in the future.
So if he says Q's worth are proportional to the probability they'll be worth something in the future, I agree with that. Just think that probability is 0. (Well, should be, ignoring my own posts above)
-
@dcon said in Money from nowhere?:
@topspin said in Money from nowhere?:
I realize I'm late to this party, but everyone's been posting this faster than I could read, so it took me 3 days to catch up.We haven't hit 1000 yet, so this is slow compared to some threads!
Just give it another week or so...
-
@groaner said in Money from nowhere?:
Hint for those who are following along: the usual benchmark for acceptable response times is typically in the sub-second range! The only exceptions might be when dealing with very large datasets. A static site is not dealing with a very large dataset.
My current implementation for Master Server takes about 300ms to load and render, but processing the first batch of updates (it's basically loading the server's state, about 2kb worth of JSON or so) takes a few seconds.
Still not sure how to fix that...
Edit: Nevermind, probably not a good idea to give out my personal tokens...
