-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Jim wrote: >I think this is the central key problem.
>To establish any medium of exchange, one faces an enormous >critical mass problem, as the stupendous expenditures by >paypal and its competitors demonstrate. Maybe once average people become fully comfortable with the idea of online banking and bill-paying services, they'll be more receptive. I think it might just be a question of widespread digital cash being few years ahead of its time. Also, I wouldn't rule out the "intelligence divide" as a factor here: if half the population has an IQ under 100, what are you doing to make your product accessible to people of average intelligence, and below? AOL is so popular for a reason: ease of use while providing services average people really care about (all that family, community and chat garbage, etc). So maybe it's worth putting a little effort into thinking of ways to AOLize (for lack of a better term) digital cash: a mass market reqires mass appeal. Something that's all-too-easy to forget, especially if you're the kind of person who got all excited over learning how to program BASIC in elementary school, the way most of us probably did. ~Faustine. *** The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms. - --William O. Douglas, Associate Justice, US Supreme Court -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPsdk version 1.7.1 (C) 1997-1999 Network Associates, Inc. and its affiliated companies. (Diffie-Helman/DSS-only version) iQA/AwUBO/cGQPg5Tuca7bfvEQIBiQCdGIYRqJmHFiGK5rUARTN0J/m8qP8AoPnN fUGhS8oVvJayjy0zd4ADCwXE =zSwB -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
