Re: e$: Come aaaannnndddd Get it!

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 12:18 PM 11/16/95, Robert Hettinga wrote:
>At 8:57 PM 11/15/95, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote:
>>-------------------
>>        I will as soon as someone comes up with a _fully_ private digital
>>cash system and starts using it for something. As I understand it, Chaum's
>>ecash system is not one (i.e., non-privacy to the sender and of amounts to the
>>bank). If I'm incorrect, please tell me and I'll set up an account with MTB
>>immediately (if there's a text-based interface).
>
>Ahhh. Next year in Jeresalem...
>
>Tell me, are you actually selling something on the net yet? How many
>customers do you have?

Bob, let me do a minor vent here.

You are critical of E. Allen Smith's viewpoint, and essentially question
whether he has anything to sell. Not much of an argument.

Especially when folks are urging that "people put their money where their
mouth is" and get MTB accounts.

Me, I don't plan to sign up for various reasons:

1. I'm not selling anything, and won't sign up just for "moral support." (I
tried this once before, getting an AMIX account early on, and that system
offered more of a chance for a 2-way market. Still, a waste of my time.)

2. I wish Mark Twain Bank well, but the success of the kinds of digital
cash we hope to see will not likely hinge on the success of one particular
operations, such as MTB.

3. The success of BankAmericard (later renamed Visa) came when real
customers and real shops started to use it, not when early pioneers set
themselves up as clearinghouses and whatnot.

I have more interesting things to do, personally, than to be a pioneer so I
can then have nothing to sell, and little to buy....when "interesting
markets" start to appear, I'll look at it again.

In any case, I wish all the pioneers well, and am happy to see Lucky
Green's involvement.

But when you urge people to be pioneers, and they express reservations or
doubts about the system, attacking their motives or implying they have
nothing to sell anyway is not too helpful.

Just my views, but, then, I don't have any customers either.

--Tim May



Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government.
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Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
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Corralitos, CA              | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^756839      | black markets, collapse of governments.
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