Eric Rescorla wrote: > Elasticity is about how much consumption changes when price > changes, not about what people who were already going to buy > choose to buy.
Sorry, Eric, I'm not quite with you on this... You said: > > Maybe, maybe not. You've never heard of price inelasticity? You haven't established anything beyond some apparent intention to consider inelasticity, as if it is some superior magic property we have to do battle with. Then, you said: > The fact of the matter is that we have no real idea how > elastic the demand for certs is.... Firstly, most goods are elastic. The natural order of things is that if you want to establish that your particular claimed good is otherwise, then you might want to show it? Please? So, let's call this bluff: please show why and how the demand for certs is inelastic! Secondly, I'm proposing self-signed certs. What does price inelasticity mean when the price is zero? > Ian, it's a major econometrics project to determine how > elastic a given good has. To imagine that you can do > it with a little handwaving is simply naive. Thirdly, after we have established the inelasticity of the certs in question - a tough call - and we've also established that it means something even when the price is zero... ...we now want to establish how useful a tool is that won't measure it, as you assert, without such a "major econometrics project?" I'm curious, why did you bring econometrics up if it is too hard to use? And, why should *I* use it? The certs are elastic, until I see something to the contrary. Fourthly, econometrics delivers explanatory power. I.e., the past. It is weak on predictive power. I.e., the future. That's because the assumptions are arbitrary. And, that's why marketeers don't use econometrics: they prefer to change the assumptions, which takes us out of the data set. Which is where I am: the assumptions. First step, examine the assumptions of the past. That's what we on this list have been doing for the last 6 months. Second step, change them. iang PS: I'm curious, is there some URL that talks about application of inelasticity and econometrics to crypto? Somebody who's selling the notion? --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
