Dear SnowDog,
> I think the move to changing the e-gold system to
> default to 'AUG (grams of gold)', is a good one.
I agree, but find myself in alliance with Robert
Hettinga's idea of using Vernor Vinge's term gAu
which is pronounced "gow" to rhyme with bow (as in
bowing to a lady, not as in bow tie). The "g"
is lower case in SI unitspeak, and should not be
capitalized. The chemical symbol is Au, not AU.
AUG is similar to AUD for Australian Dollar, and
therefore lacks some merit, compared to gAu. I
also prefer the order "grams of gold" to "gold grams"
which may be a registered trademark. Plus, "gow"
is easy to say, isn't in use as some other terms
like "dAug" (dawg) and invokes many happy memories
of the _Peace War_ stories by Vinge.
> An internet currency backed by gold, is in fact gold,
> not USD.
Eh. I think that's a simplification. An internet
currency backed by gold is a digital currency which
may be converted to gold. I think it is actually of
substantially greater value than gold itself. Market
forces indicate this added value in terms of the
profits of e-gold, Ltd., and other service providers.
> Once customers start thinking in 'grams of gold',
> the value in their accounts will stop changing.
Nope. That agio fee is going to keep things changing.
So will their spend patterns. But, you are correct
that the great variance in value due to the fluctuating
dollar value of gold will stop being a factor, which is
a major difference.
However, and we here reach my main point, changing
the way people think is difficult. It is a major
challenge which in marketing science comes under the
heading of "positioning." There's a good book you
might buy via Bananagold.com which should be in its
umpteenth printing: _Positioning: the Battle for Your
Mind_ by Ries & Trout.
One of the ideas from positioning is that people have
a tendency to form pathways in their thinking about stuff.
A great deal of nonsense about a provably non-existent
form of reasoning called "induction" stems from the
wizard ability humans have to generalize, to
categorize, and to reason about things from this
framework of categories.
A simple example is car rental companies. I may have
mentioned this example here before. Americans have
preconceived notions about what is a car rental company,
and which one is which. Ries & Trout use the analogy of
a ladder. There is a conceptual ladder of car rental
companies pre-existing in the minds of the general public.
Hertz is at the top of this ladder. Avis is second.
The rest duke it out for third and lower positions.
"Rent a wreck" is way down there. Related ideas about
quality, service, value, and price are attached to this
ladder. These perceptions are overwhelming.
Advertising and publicity that takes into account these
pre-conceived notions is effective. Advertising and
publicity which ignores these ideas is not. So, when
Avis promotes itself with "We're #2, we try harder" that
works, and when Avis has tried to make noises about Avis
being "number one in customer satisfaction" the ads have
essentially no effect. Such campaigns ignore the
existing ideas which consumers have, and are resisted,
and result in loss of market share. It is like Avis is
throwing money away. (Hershey's proved long ago that it
is possible to waste money on advertising; before WW2,
they never advertised; after they started advertising,
they lost market share rapidly.)
My point is that getting people to "think in grams" is
not going to be easy. People in Texas think in dollars.
People in France still think in francs, and are going
to have some difficulty thinking in Euros, which is
why the bankers have to force the system on those who
won't resist it (as some in Europe have).
Changing the way people think about money is important.
I'm not a defeatist in this area. I agree with Dmitry
that it is "more like religion than common business"
in that the competition digital currencies offer to
Feral Reserve Notes has political repercussions as
well as economic ones. But, it is important to recognize
the challenges we face.
> Calling a gram of gold $8.41, (or whatever), does not
> change what it really is -- a gram of gold.
That's true. And a gram of gold has intrinsic value.
However, the market has a pre-existing preference for
thinking of things monetary in terms of US dollars. A
great many currencies worldwide are tied to the dollar,
and a great many countries which have traditionally had
deficient currencies (e.g., Italian lira, Somaliland
shillings) see US dollars circulating alongside the
national currency, and many businesses are happy to
denominate prices in US dollars.
GoldBarter.com has already experienced difficulty with
customers misunderstanding the pricing of all auctions
in gold grams. One customer listed a $45 item for
opening bids at 45 grams, quite a bit more than she
intended. We helped her correct this problem, but it
remains the case that her mental conditioning to think
of values in US dollars is widespread.
It is a conditioning that is worldwide, and is in the
minds of hundreds of millions of people. And it is
a deep, long-term conditioning. Children are taught
how to think in terms of dollars at a very early age,
and are rewarded with money for thinking in these
terms. Individuals are punished by the loss of money
in transactions for making mistakes in converting
from one currency to another or failing to think in
the preferred currency.
As I've pointed out previously, information technology
affords us the capability to offer digital currencies
without forcing people to change their way of thinking.
I recognize that the programming and implementation of
these routines is non-trivial, but it is possible for
e-gold and other web sites to allow users to log in
to their accounts and see balances, prices, and all
other transactions *denominated in the currency of their
choice.*
So, a Yank could log in to his e-gold account and
see everything listed in dollars. A Brit could
see everything listed in pounds "sterling" and a
Texan could choose gAu if he pleases. This ability to
customize the appearance of the site may make more
sense than trying to rapidly change the way people
think.
After all, people strongly resist any ideas that challenge
their pre-conceived notions. Those of us in the liberty
movement have been trying with only limited success for
many decades to convince people that government is not
the solution to anything, whereas the public has a
widespread perception that "there ought to be a law" is
the solution to *everything*. Those of us in the space
migration movement have been trying without any
meaningful success for decades to convince people that
NASA is not opening the door to space, but is being
the door.
The challenge for all reformers is the inertia with
which people treat their own mental models. Everyone
has a model of reality or a framework within which they
contemplate information. Sure, it is a sad fact that
most people would rather take station with the blind
and ignorant ("those who having eyes, see not, and,
having ears, hear not") rather than challenge their
notions of how things work, but sad or not, it is a fact.
I like gAu as a unit of currency. I like thinking
of the value of things in terms of gold grams. But,
I am, and I admit it freely, weird. Much as each of
us might like it if more people were more thoughtful
about "what is money" and were more willing to challenge
the notion that fiat currency such as Feral Reserve
Notes *should* be the money they use in preference to
all others, we cannot avoid the fact that hundreds of
millions of people are not that thoughtful and don't
wish to challenge FRNs as the dominant currency, at all.
To summarize: from a marketing perspective, it will be
easier to sell alternative currency systems if the user
is able to customize the way he sees these currencies
to his pre-existing preferred way of thinking about value.
He has one, and for hundreds of millions, it is dollars,
not grams of gold.
For my own part, I would leave grams of gold there on
the screen alongside the customer's preference, to
encourage the transition to a digital gold economy.
But, I wouldn't ignore these existing mental models
and preconceptions because a great many people have
made a small fortune doing so...by expending a large
fortune.
Regards,
Jim
http://www.GoldBarter.com/ --> c'mon! buy something!
---
You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [email protected]
To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.e-gold.com/stats.html lets you observe the e-gold system's activity now!
