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The Business Idea Dump

6K views 118 replies 10 participants last post by  Razare 
#1 ·
So I got too many of these, if you want a business to run, but can't come up with ideas, this thread is for you.

Everyone, post your business ideas!


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What constitutes a good business idea?

- Competitive Advantage


Copy-cat doesn't work, unless there is a reason the copy-cat will succeed. So a business can have an advantage without being a new idea. A competitive advantage might be location, for example. If you open a restaurant where people want a restaurant but there is not one, you satisfied this criteria.

In most instances of competitive advantage, the ideas are not new, but it is a new mixture of old ideas, in the right time and place, with good marketing.

- It functions economically

You should be able to calculate cost of goods sold and operating expenses. This lets you predict what margins are, and how much revenue is needed to break-even.

If it is a product you are selling, a break-even point should be calculated.

- Is it a really good idea? Or an okay idea?

This is a factor of sales revenue, and net profit generated from sales. Just depends what the business is.

I personally like 10% net profit over sales revenue and/or investment as a good business idea. 10% approaches the precipice where it's hard to beat that return in the stock market. Like for example, a business with 1 million in sales but 1% net profit isn't very good. It's a good business to sell to a competitor and move on, but it's not a good business to operate.

One business I worked for, had about 1 to 2% net profit most years on 5 mil in sales. The bosses hated it. They had to pay tax at the end, but the bank account never went up.
 
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#2 ·
1) Jinga 2.0

Competitive advantage: The game could be patented.

Economics: You sell the patent to a game company, it's not economically viable unless you want to source production, ect.

Good idea: Yes, it's just wood blocks, very low cost, with great margin. The highest expense besides production would be marketing, and creating product awareness and demand. Whether it would have demand would be key, and the game needs play testing to see if it's worthwhile or not.

2) Micro-payment online games, which do not utilize credit cards.

Competitive Advantage: Most online games utilize credit cards, by using alternative digital currencies, you bypass the transaction fees of 2% on cards. The advantage being, payments down into the 25 cent range and lower are possible.

You could make a game which is 10 cents per play or something quite easily, and since it doesn't seem like much, people might play who otherwise wouldn't play your game, since it's probably lower quality. 10 cents? Who cares!

Economics: Almost free money, just website hosting.

Margin?: Just have to pay for operating the website.

3) Operate most any business in the US that we normally have, but use a Netherlands tax loophole

Competitive Advantage: If I own 10 restaurants in the US, but those restaurants pay a royalty to a corporation in the Netherlands, like 6% of sales... then that money is expensed by the US corporations, and 0% corporate tax is levied in the Netherlands.

This is what Starbucks does.

Economics: Depends on the business, but it needs to be sizeable enough for this method to be worthwhile. Has to be larger operations usually... but I don't think it has to be as big as Starbucks. If there was a corp that had 15% Net profit, and they remitted 5% to the Netherlands in Royalties, it would reduce Net profit to 10%. Which is like a 33% drop in tax, if taxes were flat.

Good idea?: If taxes where 300k, you shave off 100k quite easily. Probably worthwhile for a lot of businesses out there not creative enough to do this.

(someone else posted about this recently, good find)
 
#3 ·
I really like the idea of fruit sushi. Basically a fruit medley carved into sushi shapes.
 
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#7 ·
It's a good idea, I've seen someone post pictures of those recently.

Someone in a city could probably make a good small business out of it.
 
#8 · (Edited)
Private Book - This is facebook, except the host does not have access to your data. All server data is encrypted by user private/public key systems. There are also limited access keys for friends.

In this way, someone you give the friend key to, has access to your page, but no one else will. Friends could expose you to the world, but if you gave each a unique key, you would know which friend exposed you if the server acted as a 3rd party arbiter to say what key is decrypting a given page.

(Edited: Needs a revenue stream. It could have somewhat non-specific advertising, or it could be creative, and allow members to operate businesses as innate functionality of the platform. For example, Amazon referrals could be built into the system, and it splits a commission between the poster, and the host website, as an example.)

Secured Credit Card Processing - This company would be a credit card processing middle-man, but the point of this business model would be ultra security. This business could offer a variety of options... 2 factor authentication for every transaction, private key secured transactions, ect. It could even do it's own platform for processing payments, which bypasses traditional visa/mastercard systems since the security is outdated.

Blockchain Accounting Software - The idea here is that we have a set of secured accounting books, which exist on the blockchains, so the data will never be lost. Nor will the data be compromised if security procedures are followed.

Also, with technology like Monero with the "auditor key", the books could be audited without giving a person authority to transact. It allows for viewing of transactions only.

This software could also transact through any exchange which is supported for connectivity, so it could keep balances in crypto-currencies without having to transact with any national banking system.

But since it would be capable of tracking accounting balances which do not exist on the blockchain as real digital assets, it could then also reconcile to a normal bank account.

This accounting software would also have a standardized format to issue all manner of documentation: invoices, PO's, payments, ect. So transacting from one entity on the blockchain accounting system to another would be easy.

To transact with traditional businesses, 3rd party business could be formed to do things like issue invoices, checks, ect.
 
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#11 ·
Private Book - This is facebook, except the host does not have access to your data. All server data is encrypted by user private/public key systems. There are also limited access keys for friends.

In this way, someone you give the friend key to, has access to your page, but no one else will. Friends could expose you to the world, but if you gave each a unique key, you would know which friend exposed you if the server acted as a 3rd party arbiter to say what key is decrypting a given page.
That's been tried. Almost exactly what you specify.
 
#10 · (Edited)
@Razare your business threads and the distinct accounting perspective is interesting, in some parts a little over my head (investment specifics). My angle in the past was focused on filling a need based on seeing what people want, and have use for, and my ability to frame things with comparisons showing how something is worth the money (a small marketing niche). There is something to be said for turning all the social media wheels but these "soft-skills" are becoming more of a gamble with so many people taking their shot. Seems like things like Etsey are for hobbyists, but being networked this way might benefit crafters and such? Marketing, unless you are in the big leagues, might be becoming replaced with novice experimentation, freebies and templates.

The break-even point is basic for a business plan but your threads show quite a bit of financial sophistication beyond basics. You mention the problems of debt as a bank's asset, if I understand you correctly. But what can we do other than incremental banking and financial reforms? Do you think something like Bitcoin becoming a mainstream alternative will help us transition?

Right now I just have so many things rattling in my head, so many new ways people can do business. 3D printing blows my mind. I don't know where to believe things are going.

Can a person (today) build an online business using a peer to peer alternative currency? Seems I heard of something that could rival bitcoin. The pivotal technology is encryption? If you have any links that make a concise explanation of bitcoin or any businesses using alternative currency I'd love to hear about that. <your blockchain might be touching on this but I wonder if something exists similar anywhere right now. I mean fresh books does a cloud accounting (sort of) but not actual transactions.
 
#14 ·
You mention the problems of debt as a bank's asset, if I understand you correctly. But what can we do other than incremental banking and financial reforms? Do you think something like Bitcoin becoming a mainstream alternative will help us transition?
I think I mentioned problems with banking in other threads maybe. Here, I was just outlining a business which would exist as a blockchain entity, or perhaps a real entity, with blockchain accounting. But such an entity could be a hybrid of both traditional banking and digital assets.

Now, one of the reasons I probably wouldn't do this blockchain accounting system is that at present, if implemented correctly, it would first be used by criminal organizations.

Normally, criminal syndicates keep books, but they're very hidden and easily destructible. They can't risk the police seeing them. This is kind of bad if you want to report to management. This sort of system would fix a lot of issues with accounting systems for black markets, because the digital books would be a public record that the NSA could not decrypt.

For example, the guy who ran the silk road and was caught by authorities. All his funds are still sitting in an account on the bitcoin blockchain, and no government can seize it. These sorts of accounting systems would also be popular in countries where businesses are at risk of being nationalized, or other corrupt things are happening.

The long-term use would be that all businesses adopt similar systems... because it essentially grants a cheap, decentralized, auto-backup and verification of all entries.

Like my accounting system at work, I will use this as an example of some of the issues with traditional software:

- We can set user access controls in the software. The database however, must be freely accessable. Users could bypass the software and directly modify the database software behind the scenes. A fraudulent person with access could change a lot of historical entries, that should not be changed.

Blockchain is an easy way of implementing encrypted security user rights, where it is impossible to make an entry without an encrypted key, and no user no matter what level of their access is, could override that requirement. The top level administrator would be unable to, at best they could just issue a correction override with their signature, but they could never modify the total log itself, only amend a new entry into the log with their identity.

These sorts of systems are the future of business and that's why IBM and Microsoft are so interested in the technology.

Yet accounting is one of the tertiary places this technology will be developed, because the immediate uses are more exciting, like digital gold, digital contracts, Ethereum, and such.

Quite likely this whole accounting framework could be built atop Ethereum as an open-source project.

Right now I just have so many things rattling in my head, so many new ways people can do business. 3D printing blows my mind. I don't know where to believe things are going.
3d printing is nice, but in my view the cost of using it will always exceed the costs associated with traditional manufacturing.

Therefore, it can only be used in making models, templates, and demonstrations in terms of viable business solutions.

I think it could create a more creative population, but it wont ever solve things like low-cost Chinese manufacturing overseas.

Can a person (today) build an online business using a peer to peer alternative currency?
They already got it, basically.

https://openbazaar.org/ <--- I think it accepts other types, but quite likely Bitcoin will be the main currency on this marketplace.

The IRS has issued guidance on handling bitcoin transactions.

https://www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/IRS-Virtual-Currency-Guidance

So if you want to accept bitcoin at any business, you can... just not a lot of people use it yet. So basing a business upon it has to be a situation like OpenBazaar or something like that.

Seems I heard of something that could rival bitcoin.
I think bitcoin could easily die. It was like the first lightbulb or the first corporation, or the first railroad.

Yet because it was first to market, it has the first-to-market premium assigned to it by the market. It's like the first i-phone is more popular because it was the first. The i-phone copy a couple years later is just less popular.

The pivotal technology is encryption?
With blockchains, yes. Bitcoin basically operates on an encryption that is currently beyond any known cracking methods... even for things like NSA quantum computers. There are attacks possible on the system, but generally not on the encryption portion of the system.

To put it another way, if I wanted to bring bitcoin down, I wouldn't attack the encryption, I would attack the servers operating it. This is in stark contrast to things like DVD encryption which had been hacked before it was even released publicly.

After the stuff runs for several years, basically some platforms on blockchains will form which are beyond normal computer hacking methods.

Think of UNIX. UNIX is very old and open source. A properly configured UNIX system cannot be hacked. You can call up the company who runs the server and tell them a nice lie to try and get access, but the computer system wont give it to you. All a person could do is the DoS or DDoS attacks. Blockchains by their nature will be able to exist beyond DoS and DDoS attacks.

Presently, though, they have cracks in the systems because the technology is so new. The NSA could bring down bitcoin if it wanted to... perhaps not permanently, but temporarily, yes.

I mean fresh books does a cloud accounting (sort of) but not actual transactions.
Yes, so it would be "cloud accounting" which has existed for a long time really... just never had a buzzword until recently.

The difference is with most clouds, the cloud could in theory be hacked or infiltrated.

For example, if I use a cloud server, the admin of that server has 100% access to my records. He could sell them to my competitors, or their system could be compromised and my data violated.

With a blockchain cloud it is secured against this.

Everyone can have access to the log, but no one can decrypt the log if it is done like Monero. Bitcoin operates on a public record that everyone can see. So rich people in other countries can be abducted and ransomed for their bitcoin wallet that is publicly visible. With a system like Monero currency, this can't be done. Most of the transactions in Monero are bogus entries, and because the bogus entries are more common than the legitimate ones, no one can see who sent to who, or what anyone's balance is.

Only with a private key can anyone make sense of the record, but the system is protected against issuing fake entries. So the encryption knows a legitimate entry from an illegitimate one, but no one viewing the record can know.

Now, some cloud platforms are now encrypted against the administration company, so that this company does not have any knowledge of transactions... and only the users have the key to see the data. The problem with them is, it is still centralized data. To maintain the data, we still must rely on that 1 company to remain operational. We also must trust that they are doing the security correctly.

Blockchains eliminate the trust component, though.
 
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#13 ·
This article (below) doesn't talk about alternative currencies but when these payment methods deal with interpreting the relative or market value across currencies, we are part way there? Payment methods are another aspect of business starting to make me feel old. Using a debit card for Amazon (or suppliers and bills) is as far as I've gotten. I've never used paypal, though I've installed their widget for customers. I've never used a phone app to pay anything.

This link has many links to pay method varieties being used now.
How Digital Payments Will Change Commerce in 2016 | Investopedia

More expansion of facebook is a threat to a free society? Not that I blame facebook if buyers are impulsive but . . . . . all the power facebook gains because of the volume of followers they have right now . . . . mind blowing, and I hate facebook, the contol they have and all the data collecting they must do.
 
#16 ·
@Razare

Prototyping , and renting of software like autodesk has chosen to do, is a big big shift. Printers are cheap in comparison to things like retail rent in a (physical) high traffic area. Maybe production is slower than factories - and materials?Components that can go into a variety of products may use the old factory methods. All the customization possibilities though - changes the game entirely. I think this makes a big difference in design and what designers do, and who (product and cad) designers work for.

I think you prove Steve Jobs deserves the credit - nothing happens until somebody SELLS something.
 
#17 ·
I agree about the prototyping and models business.

Just that with plastic, injection molds are always cheaper and faster than a 3D printer, so anything we have today made with injection molding plastic, will remain cheaper with that method.

I think people get excited for the wrong reasons... like yes, *you* could make a part you could not previously make. Yet if you're going to make 100,000 of those parts, you're wasting your time and money with 3d printing. If the part is worth making 100,000 copies of, it's cheaper to go get a plastic injection molder, and do it that way.

So if a person tries to enter the products market with a 3d printer, what will happen is, if they are doing this because they are on a low budget... someone who can invest large sums will steal the idea, and make the part cheaper than the other person and beat them out of the market. Now, if the part is patented... ok... but why make a business with a 3d printer? Just sell the patent, or get investors who can buy the plastic injection mold machinery.

Now, yes, it could be the case that we require highly customized parts for individual cases. The issue with this is, we would have to hire administrative engineers to like, make parts that we need 1 of. So my 1995 calculator breaks and an engineer can make a new case for it... or I could just buy a new calculator.

So in my view, the domestic appeal is for tinkerers and inventors, but really what they're inventing then is ideas and intellectual property... they're not reinventing production methods.
 
#18 · (Edited)
I can't find the link to it right now but I saw something of a new business designing prosthetics that make an artistic statement, plus the use of 3d printing for dentures or teeth.

What I was thinking is that someone with quite a few inventor ideas or a specialization would have one printer for many prototypes and printers are available right now for around 2000 dollars. Also, a prototype can be made on somebody else's printer - just have to figure out ownership of property and maybe old patent laws and processes will have to change.

The sharing economy, collaborative commons and the distribution of products by sending a file, This could go in so many directions. How about making your own eyeglass frames or shoes for people with unusual fit concerns. Lamps, tables and maybe modular housing can be produced from an stl file.

When a person buys a product - will they buy the product or the file to make the product?
Encryption and who has access to files at what level can be part of this?
 
#28 · (Edited)
Economy of scale becoming less relevant - example:
One of those links about Nike shoes - the file for knit shoe uppers is sent to a company with the equipment to knit the exact product from file. The knitter's scale can come from many kinds of distributors and manufacturers; Nike can sell many variations on one design without changing the break-even-point, just minor changes to a file not a re engineering of factory processes. So they sell a low volume of each individual instance but a large enough volume of a whole product category.

The scale part might come in the materials and types of printers because you have to be able to guarantee the customer gets exactly what the file dictated. This is not as little of a thing as it might sound. Software and material's behavior can be misaligned and screw-ups happen. Screw-ups cost money, often more money than just one defective product.
 
#36 ·
I used JQuery and Bootstrap today ....... yaaayy :perc3:y


A small victory, but I think this free bootcamp, even though it started simple - it kinda puts some loose ends together for me.
I might not have seen the benefit in it if I hadn't done coding on my own. The way it is set up you can skip parts, but some little things make quite a difference. I think it is easy to get intimidated by jargon. And I keep hearing about new things, hard to know what to get into or not, so . . . . . . .

I think these kinds of on-line education things are a breakthrough. Right now, you just can't build brick-and-mortar (or face to face) infrastructure fast enough. It's not just a matter of learning, it's about being able to get on the same page with people who have similar expertise or a particular range of needs for someone's skills.
 
#51 ·
Relating to green technology...

We need a devices will attach to light switches without modifying the traditional light switch.

Different versions...

- Highly sensitive motion sensor with timer... it will only turn lights off if motion has not occurred in X period of time, programmable. Turning lights on due to motion would be optional, but not really needed.... who wants the cat to turn lights on? Off would be the energy saving method.

- For traditional wall plugin locations, we could have those powered so they could link to home wifi. They could operate on programmable rules then, linked to a cloud portal for the user. If my cell-phone location is within X proximity to my dwelling, leave everything on. If I leave the house, kill the power, unless manually overrides happen. In this way, a person could just run out the door and leave, and their whole house might shut down behind them. It could even kill power so that the wi-fi connectivity drops on all the plug-ins to save more power... so that the person would have to switch things back on after they arrived in the home.

- We could also have wall-mounted motion sensors come up out of the wall plugins, so they could operate like the light switches in some instances where that makes sense.

The wifi might increase overall power consumption while everything is operational, though? Can't be much, since they can run out of USB level power.

I'm sure some of this already exists, I just don't know what to look for, or if it's exactly what I'm describing.
 
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#61 · (Edited)
Was responding to someone about crypto-currency technology...

Here is what the next-generation of internet businesses will be:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum
https://safenetwork.wiki/en/FAQ

With these two ideas, we have a decentralized Turing complete programming system, as well as decentralized file storage.

What will happen shortly, and is in development now, is that platforms are being developed where they exist in a decentralized network.

The advantage of this is they bypass government laws. For example a person could have a decentralized gaming casino, using decentralized programming / file storage.

At which point, only going after the person directly is the recourse for government. This is a valid legal recourse if the government can locate the person. If they cannot, then there is not a single computer system to shut-down to stop the operation of the casino.

As the internet moves toward decentralized tech using things like Maidsafe or other decentralized tech, it then makes it more difficult to blacklist websites. At that juncture, the 3rd generation internet businesses will often be illegal businesses in many nations.

When new technology is developed, which will radically transform society, it is generally put to the illegal or scandalous activities quite soon. Such as printing Bibles, which was illegal in its day. They also printed porn with the printing presses.

This just happens because this is where the highest economic incentive exists to utilize the new technology.

After these platforms form, other technologies will begin to happen to utilize decentralized corporate governance, with technology similar to https://bitshares.org/.

In theory
... we could create this business right now, and go hide in a nation where they couldn't get us, and operate our illegal gaming casino. The technology is all there, but as soon as they find out who you are, FBI & IRS are gonna look for you!

So it's not a practical business idea unless you're willing to become an international business criminal... or to term it another way, you didn't yield to the authority of the US Gov. which controls the world.

This all said, the 3rd generation internet businesses will have legal and interesting opportunities.

For example, tax dodging! Launch your internet business from a nation which allows incorporation without income taxes due. But then vacate the government... or launch it from a place with no government! If the business can function itself on a decentralized network, who is to say where it exists?? Product business would have trouble with this, but if the service-based business were automated on the network, then it doesn't even continue operations at a physical location.

------------------------

Yet more seriously, there are practical businesses that will improve things and offer better services/products as a result of this.

One of the more interesting applications is perhaps international contracts and financial services.

For example, contracts could be secured under the rules of the decentralized network, thus allowing for laws to be enforced by a 3rd party arbiter anywhere in the world. In this way, it could bypass traditional court systems and expedite many legal situations and contracts.

If for example, both parties enter into such a contract which force resolution by the 3rd party arbiter designated on a network, then international business can be securely performed without much hassle or worrying about which municipality is ultimately in charge and if the laws might change concerning the situation.

It would allow for contracts which last beyond the life of government's even.

It also has a lot of applicability to 3rd world situations.

For example, if the rule of law exists in any nation, but they are unable to manage property rights, we could implement them a public record of property rights using these technologies. The property could be transacted on a smart-phone level, rather than a court room. So in the jungle, I could perform land deals with anyone, and they would be legal and abiding contract situations, which exist on a non-fudgeable public record, instantly update-able.

So for a poor nation, we could basically unlock the ability for the nation to borrow by using their land as security. Not that this really solves the situation, but it is a nifty idea for improvement.

Really, all that would be needed is a police force capable of following the system and enforcing it, to unlock the land value within a given nation. The properties could even be put up to speculative bids online. They could even be put up under odd contracts such as futures. Like a future option to buy at X price in 2050... at which point the land owner could sell that contract while keeping their land for many years.
 
#62 · (Edited)
@Razare at some point we could control the internet and internet access if we wanted to or need to. On the one hand I am not for any politician who is against internet neutrality. I think the net IS different than cell phone companies, and internet access should be preserved as a public utility type of service. BUT there are physical ways to shut down networks - if the world came to that.

I may have not yet absorbed everything in your above post but it is very interesting.

I know the argument is made that poor countries are poor because of a lack of infrastructure for property rights, thus they have no way to participate in earnings other than direct working of the land, which they technical don't even own. But more carving of property without integrating into a larger global society - I mean this could end up with people who are no longer just homeless but state-less - in an accelerated fashion. - Two edged sword.
 
#63 · (Edited)
@Razare at some point we could control the internet and internet access if we wanted to or need to. On the one hand I am not for any politician who is against internet neutrality. I think the net IS different than cell phone companies, and internet access should be preserved as a public utility type of service. BUT there are physical ways to shut down networks - if the world came to that.
It can be physically shut down, but I would argue the profit incentive for using the networks is too great so governments have their hands tied from acting against the network like this.

I know the argument is made that poor countries are poor because of a lack of infrastructure for property rights, thus they have no way to participate in earnings other than direct working of the land, which they technical don't even own. But more carving of property without integrating into a larger global society - I mean this could end up with people who are no longer just homeless but state-less - in an accelerated fashion. - Two edged sword.
Well, carving up the property using this technology would still subject the property transfers according to local/national laws. Meaning, if a bunch of rich foreigners buy out your land in a nation, and the government gets fed up with it and wants to remove their ownership and give the land back to the government (government greed) or the people, then it could do so.

And the system would still be a beneficial system to use for before, during, and after such a transition... because while national policy may change, ultimately on the ground level, we need to know who owns the land.

Also, I'm generally against borrowing but even so, there are other ways to use it.

A land owner, could take a parcel of their land and lease it to someone contractually, thus giving the lessor and leasee land rights according to a government enforced system of property rights, with the ability for the police force and court system to easily recognize the lease's existence and authenticity, without hiring lawyers, ect.

Blockchain tech only circumvents governments to the point where the information is digitally stored in a decentralized system. What real people do with the information in the real world, will always be a factor of interpersonal behaviors and concepts like governance.

So in the instance of land deeds. The government could still seize all the land, but there would be either a departure from the blockchain system by the government, or the government issues a new "transaction" to the blockchain, claiming the deeds for those pieces of land. The system could be setup initially to even allow the government to issue transactions above all other authorities... or if it is not allowed, a new blockchain is authorized with the deviation in protocol, and while the old deeds still exist, they are effectively worthless and just digital information.

The point of the blockchain tech would be to facilitate a faster and cheaper governance process, while not changing the way governance works in this instance. Instead of registering a land transaction at a government office that takes days to approve, some 100 miles away... you do it on a smartphone in a few minutes, and it's recognized by the government real-time.
 
#64 ·
@Razare what you seem to be getting at is a borderless society. I'm saying this will take a long time and even as it happens - you seem to be thinking that the virtual world totally overrides the physical world. You can't own (physical) property without any physical government muscle and infrastructure agreeing to it. At some point individual contracts can be thwarted by governments insofar as you still have a physical body and do some measure of activity in a physical world.

So great, an actual transaction or paperwork can happen a lot faster but that doesn't eliminate the mess of global politics. Faster paperwork is a small thing compared to problems of interdependence with countries who don't live by the same rules.
 
#66 · (Edited)
If you read my post closer, I was saying the government ultimately overrides what a blockchain says... because physical people in a physical world, trump digital information ultimately.

But the advantage is when a society and blockchain system is managed together, to streamline governance to make things more efficient. So no, this is not the end of national governance, nor the ultimate bringer of world peace.

It's just a better transaction / record system... but it's not "just a better system" it's better on the level of the pony express vs. the telegram.

It's not just a little better where we say, "Oh, that's neat..." it's better in the sense, it's so insanely better no one hardly understands how better it is. It is alien to the way people think and you have to get a visionary mindset to see where it goes.

And what happens is, as certain nations hop on with the new technology to transact this way, the economic incentives of businesses move in that direction, and it begins dragging resistant governments with it. That is ultimately why it will come to pass as a way of transacting... if I increase the profitability of all businesses worldwide by 1% if they simply say "Yes"... that proposition is more powerful than every government on the Earth. Because I'm affecting one of the few mechanisms which can drag a whole society and government, which is ultimately their self interest.

We can all say a telephone is evil, but we use them. Same with smartphones, television, automobiles, airplanes, drones, ect.

We don't use these things because they are better morally, or because they gave us world peace, or necessarily did much for us, other than streamlined efficiency some fractional amount... thus mandating we *must* use them.
 
#65 · (Edited)
Just a further example of the land deeds that are now possible within the last year really, that a government could implement...

Take the example of a land deed system on the blockchain, where a technology like Ethereum is allowed as part of its implementation.

Ethereum could keep the deed active so long as a payment is made before the 10th of every month, should the leasee fail to pay digital currency to the Ethereum address monthly according to the rules of the program, Ethereum then gives the opportunity for the lessor to revoke the lease. The entire process of property rentals & disputes could be administrated without a traditional court process... unless of course someone wants to hold up on the land, but at that juncture, simply showing the police the evidence of the revoked lease terms should be sufficient to bring their intervention.

And obviously, such a system can be programmed for nuances, such as 30 days to leave, ect. The police don't force you off the land, until 30 days after the lease agreement is cancelled.

With systems like this now available, there are more applications in our world than I can count. Software leases, for example. Tangible property leases. Intellectual property rights management. Alternate contractual assets, such as blockchain commodities / future contracts... which is like the 21st century's version of silver and gold coins. But likewise, we could make oil coins if we wanted to. Service usage tokens, tradeable worldwide. Red bull coins... 1 coin buys 1 red bull at participating stores, works just like a coupon, but the store gets the money for turning in the red bull coin they have. Food stamps? Credit cards?

Then things like corporate stock as blockchain shares. At which point stock trading will no longer occur on exchanges like the NYSE, it will happen on a decentralized network which doesn't exist in any one nation, and so the world can participate in owning digital stocks from anywhere.

Taxes? My fair tax idea from the other thread, we could issue the baseline monthly tax prepayment into someone's personal blockchain account, and when they spend at stores, the remittance only pays for the tax portion of the purchase, and they must pay for the other with their own funds. Thus making it a pure tax-payment as opposed to any kind of subsidy... not that I would want to do this, but it outlines the level of specialized systems it allows for in governance.

Now, the next incarnation of these systems will be the paired integration as I have alluded to. Ethereum + Factom, where two technologies combine, into a government system, which ultimate produces a complex system that allows for advance use.

In this way, I expect something like multi-protocol nexuses to form. Essentially, bridges form which bridge multiple things. Here is an example of a currency bridge:

https://shapeshift.io/#

When someone runs a shapeshift transaction, basically their transaction hits the market near-instantly, without them registering for a trading account. There is the robust traders in the background creating the market, and then on the shape-shift end, there are the lay-people who just have a small currency conversion they need to perform.

I believe many of these systems will form in the future, more complex and detailed for multi-industry needs on an international level.

For example, I could create a chicken futures market in any city within a nation that allowed such a system, just by managing chicken tokens with an automated futures market system, that used other currency/assets as deposit.

So I'm a chicken farmer in some poor country, I use my smart phone to sell my chicken futures tokens at the nearby city. I have to leave X amount of backing in my account, locked up by the block-chain itself, until I deliver the chickens, otherwise my deposit is forfeit. Such systems can also have things like margin calls... but for example, the system might be willing to allow me to not keep as big of a deposit if I am insured. This would be like crop insurance.

So then, the chicken farmer could get their proceeds early from the futures market, so long as they delivered, and if there was a catastrophic failure, they simply make an insurance claim. If they are committing insurance fraud, they are a criminal and get prosecuted.

But the beauty of this would be, we could trade chickens like they are coins. There would be a risk of failure of delivery, but those risks can be managed, and failure of delivery is ultimately secured by the other assets on deposit and the insurance.

A person could also do fractional reserve chicken banking or something... I issue my chicken tokens, and they are good for redemption at any time, so go trade them! But I only keep 30% reserve for the chickens I have available... dishonest and the cause of many global economic crises... but still, doable!

And doable in a greater way than before, because with shapeshift, ultimately my chicken coin becomes USD with a few clicks on a smartphone, there would be no need to become a market broker, nor any need to go to the physical market.
 
#67 ·
Ethereum could keep the deed active so long as a payment is made before the 10th of every month, should the leasee fail to pay digital currency to the Ethereum address monthly according to the rules of the program, Ethereum then gives the opportunity for the lessor to revoke the lease. The entire process of property rentals & disputes could be administrated without a traditional court process... unless of course someone wants to hold up on the land, but at that juncture, simply showing the police the evidence of the revoked lease terms should be sufficient to bring their intervention.
If this is a system that's supposed to work by bypassing the normal mechanisms, why would the police enforce this if the government most likely won't recognize this due to this bypassing their processes? Contracts and enforcement of contracts require recognition from the state and what you suggest is an active subversion of the state and would therefore most likely not be recognized by the state.
 
#69 ·
Smart business and governments will just embrace the new technology.

For example, NYSE could bring its brand and authority to blockchain assets, and essentially become the spear-head for the transnational corporation movement, opening the online-decentralized exchange for digital corporations.

At which point, they could use their funding along with other corps to push our government to accept this situation. And since the decisions all boil down to corporate interest in the US, I imagine it might work out.

If a large business succeeded in doing this, it would essentially have the US legal backing to create the new types of transnational corporations, while itself existing as a corporation subject to the rule of law in a given nation. It would stand to earn billions in revenue.

Western Union has already begun the transition to accepting digital assets because it was affecting its business heavily.
 
#73 ·
Here is the factom blockchain explorer in operation today:

Factom Explorer

My viewpoint only differs in that I was suggesting you put the actual land transaction on the blockchain, and not just a hash of the record of the transaction on the blockchain.

It is a minor difference, but what I was proposing seems more practical from an administrative standpoint... but Factom's system better pairs with traditional government, because it allows them to keep their record systems the same as always, but then upload to the blockchain, the proof of record.

I am just suggesting, the actual record be on the blockchain.
 
#74 ·
Or another example...

Is music file sharing illegal? Yes.

Did the government successfully eliminate the behavior? No.

What was the consequence of the failure in government to eliminate the behavior?

The free market resolved the issue by lowering the cost to obtain music, and making it free w/ advertising in many instances, such as youtube.

The reason 99 cent songs were ever released, were a result of the failure of government and court systems to successfully regulate a behavior it could not control. And so, the re-positioning was to reduce the costs, making legal activity affordable so people would rather just legitimately own a song than get it illegally.

There is an economic benefit and advantage to purchasing a product from an authorized dealer, and this premium is worth something above what a non-recognized system can provide.
 
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