On Mon, May 13, 2002 at 01:20:35PM -0700, Morlock Elloi wrote: > > Go after those who already _know_ they need untraceability. Go after > > niches where VALUE >> COST. Don't try to argue that the world needs to > > replace its multi-billion dollar infrastructure of > > The question is - are there enough of these to justify development. Or maybe > they all already have their private cryptographers.
On-line porn. Their transaction costs are huge, because many of their customers realize that the bills are gonna show up on the statement that their wife reads, so they repudiate. This pushes up the costs to the rest of the customers. An anonymous system would keep the customers from getting busted by the wife. If it were also non repudiable then there would be an added incentive for merchants. Alowing cheaper minipayments would also be a bonus-- lots of porn transactions are in the $5-10 range where the cheapest fixed costs for a CC transaction is like $1 plus a percentage. On-line porn people are probably more likely to spend a little time setting up an account than Sally Sixpack is. Didn't Tim write something about this within the last year? The problems of course are 1) hooking it into the existing money system and 2) keeping from getting busted for "money laundering". Eric
