Vince Callaway wrote:
>--------SNIP: much good stuff-----------<
I'm not 100% sure I even understand the original question, but I think he
was referring to the InExchange/OutExchange spread, which may be considered
a "startup cost" to get into the system. I'd like to present an anology.
Suppose we're all primitives living near a river and that on one side of the
river lightning keeps striking at random on a regular basis. For some
reason, that's the side of the river where our tribe put its marketplace
(that's the fiat-currency part of the economy). Despite the danger, we spend
all our time there because that's where the things we need are.
One day some of us decide to trade goods and services on the other side of
the river, where people don't get killed by lightning at random intervals
(that's the e-gold side of the economy). As we wade across the river, we get
bitten a few times by pirhanas (that's the exchange spread), but we'll heal,
and once we're across we'll be safe from the lightning.
But once we're trading goods and services on the safe side of the river we
realize that there's only a handful of us there. Bob the spear-maker is
there selling spears, but Joe the witch doctor is still on the other side of
the river. To buy services from Joe I'm willing to wade the river, suffer a
few bites, and return as soon as possible lest I be struck by lightning.
That may be acceptable once in a while, but if I keep wading back and forth
to do business on both sides I'm going to be eaten alive and might as well
have stayed on the "convenient" side of the river and been hit by lightning
instead.
This is the problem confronting those of us who'd like to use e-gold
exclusively but still need to deal with those misguided souls who insist on
paying and getting paid with fiat currency. I could endorse every check
someone writes me to GoldChanger or some service like that and do an OEDP
for every bill I need to pay, but then I'm crossing the river with every
transaction.
The long-term solution is for everyone to move to the safe side of the river
and stay there. Short-term, however, everybody has very a rational reason
for not wanting to go first: those early pioneers will have to keep crossing
the river to get the things they need from the old marketplace.
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