Re: Bypassing the Digicash Patents

[Ray Arachelian <sunder@brainlink.com>]

On Sun, 4 May 1997, Hal Finney wrote:

> Presumably records are kept to protect against various risks.  Without
> that protection, you need other means to control the risk.  But if those
> means exist and they are cheaper than record-keeping, then again even
> without anonymity it should be cheaper to use those methods in place of
> the records.

Records are kept for (a) tax compliance, (b) as a way of further 
marketting spam that tracks usage/purchase patterns.  Presumably the 
marketting weasels require this info because of their belief that doing 
so will increase sales in the long run.

> (One possible explanation is that it would be a regulatory effect.
> People are forced by the government to keep records, to their detriment,
> that they would prefer not to keep.  With anonymous bearer certificates
> it would not be possible to keep the records so people might hope to
> escape the regulations.  However the problem with this reasoning is that
> the same forces which require the record-keeping would be likely to ban
> the use of instruments which prevent keeping records.)

I'd predict that in such cases mom & pop candy stores and small grocery 
stores wouldn't bother with record keeping, while big huge stores with 
marketting spam budgets would.

Though all things considered some record keeping is needed for inventory 
tracking, employee pay, etc.

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