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way - to OS - oecd - foma - money - the dif - to sow - to play - to pay - (revisions)

let me count the ways


How can I pay you?

I can phone it in, write you a cheque, order a transfer to your account, get smart, pass bills, signoff sheets, toss coins, fax authorizations, direct debit, move it online, go i-mode ...

Open money is information first, at its root - a matter of record, of account. Payment is just one account providing information to another.

You can move open money any way you can move information.


In contrast, moving "real" money can be complicated, slow and expensive, mainly because of the necessary security and precautions against fraud or theft - the stuff can easily get lost and then there are losers and that only leads to lawyers.

Nonetheless online payment systems are getting progressively easier and banking is becoming more friendly. Consider PayPal - perhaps the simplest of the current on-line payment systems.

It's very simple, very easy - faster than through banks or credit cards, and cheaper for both the buyer and vendor. PayPal, as intermediary, hopes the traffic and margins will provide sufficient protection against bad debt / fraud risks which determines the viability and cost levels of the service.

BUT - it's only good for transfers to and from other PayPal accounts, hence it's proliferation through the eBay community. And, it's still based on your credit in the mainstream money world, which of course, some of us have not got.

Quoted in Wired 9.09, The Money Shot, PayPal's CEO, Peter Thiel admits. "There's a trade-off between privacy, security, and convenience, you can have any two at 100 percent, but the third will be almost nonexistent."

That's no doubt true for "hard" bank money, but it doesn't apply to "soft" virtual money. The security issues are utterly different - virtual theft is virtually no problem - so you can have the privacy and convenience at 100%, no problem, and also at very low charge rates, since there's no provision needed for theft and fraud.

What PayPal does in "cash" it can do even more easily in "cc" and the additional cash transfer this will generate is reason enough that they (and other such providers) will soon do so. It's an added feature that will draw in more users.

Another reason is that PayPal's market is presently limited to internet users who want to send money to other internet users, and many of them, as internet users, have other means. But many open money users will NOT be on internet, so any service, like PayPal, that carries their "cc" trading, will likely pick up some part of their cash payments traffic.

The number of people using cc will surpass the number using internet, and sooner than you might suppose.

So, when will cc.PayPal.com be open for open money? When will "cc" get the PayPal dispensation?

There are also many others who could readily do the same or similar things - power and phone companies, and other such service providers, for instance. Travel systems will drop air-miles and start using air minutes. Even banks will work this out in time.


In Japan there's DoCoMo - a cell phone and mobile internet service already used by 20% of the country, and by perhaps 40% of Tokyo. DoCoMo phones are really internet terminals first, and voice phones second. I-mode is information mode - people use i-mode to play games, check stocks, pay bills through banking sites. Soon they will be able to reach their "cc" virtual money sites just as easily, and then any DoCoMo phone is a virtual money mover. Again, see Wired 9.09 - The Pocket Monster.

    your phone or mine?

      he says "that's ccY900 - here's the phone"

      the payment screen has ccY900 already entered
      she keys in her "cc" account id and passcode,
      hits confirm, and hands it back

      he glances to check and confirms the transaction

      that's it, all done and recorded in both accounts

All that's needed for Japan to have mobile and universal access to virtual money is a well organized and operated naming system for managing the allocation of open money domains.


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