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Because most people don't yet have a bit of e-gold to give, yet. :) I know Fairtunes has an account (and I could even make the balance publicly-viewable if any owner wants).

I have repeatedly tried to get Courtney Love (or any musician) to notice that we've been able to do micropayments or macropayments efficiently, cutting out the middleman and saving people money even if they keep using plastic. Wanna buy an animated gif (hey! it's PUSSY! WooHoo!) for ten cents worth of e-gold? It has been possible for over a year... Try it.

Step back and think about gold logically, even though it's the most emotional element on the periodic table. The stuff makes damn good money, and this e-gold bunch (me included) are NOT going away. We'll keep doing, keeping promises made about the internet and its possibilities instead of hyping the theoretical. Journalists interested in fundamentals (if that's not an oxymoron anymore...) should contact me. Thanks.
JMR

Because most people don't yet have a bit of e-gold to give, yet. :) I know Fairtunes has an account (and I could even make the balance publicly-viewable if any owner wants).

I have repeatedly tried to get Courtney Love (or any musician) to notice that we've been able to do micropayments or macropayments efficiently, cutting out the middleman and saving people money even if they keep using plastic. Wanna buy an animated gif (hey! it's PUSSY! WooHoo!) for ten cents worth of e-gold? It has been possible for over a year... Try it.

Step back and think about gold logically, even though it's the most emotional element on the periodic table. The stuff makes damn good money, and this e-gold bunch (me included) are NOT going away. We'll keep doing, keeping promises made about the internet and its possibilities instead of hyping the theoretical. Journalists interested in fundamentals (if that's not an oxymoron anymore...) should contact me. Thanks.
JMR

Because most people don't yet have a bit of e-gold to give, yet. :) I know Fairtunes has an account (and I could even make the balance publicly-viewable if any owner wants).

I have repeatedly tried to get Courtney Love (or any musician) to notice that we've been able to do micropayments or macropayments efficiently, cutting out the middleman and saving people money even if they keep using plastic. Wanna buy an animated gif (hey! it's PUSSY! WooHoo!) for ten cents worth of e-gold? It has been possible for over a year... Try it.

Step back and think about gold logically, even though it's the most emotional element on the periodic table. The stuff makes damn good money, and this e-gold bunch (me included) are NOT going away. We'll keep doing, keeping promises made about the internet and its possibilities instead of hyping the theoretical. Journalists interested in fundamentals (if that's not an oxymoron anymore...) should contact me. Thanks.
JMR

...Once artists become well known, it may be that they can bypass the major media outlets and go to their audiences directly. If so, the marketplace will sort all of this out without the need for government involvement. That would be the more desireable path ...

Of course, Stephen King practically defines well-known, yet he is using Amazon (my personal boycott precludes any link to them until they get a clue about how to get themselves out of the red) and Mr. King probably isn't even AWARE of the fact that -- thanks to my customers in the Netherlands -- he's going to his audience directly. Unwittingly, he's allowing the marketplace to sort all of this out without the need for government involvement, which I agree is a far more desireable path.

Nobody using the e-gold system even has dollar-one. e-gold is GRAMS, not dollars, and if you want to get rid of e-gold and buy coins, you can go to a coin dealer, like the one at the top of our news section, (or me). I repeatedly offer 1/10th oz gold Eagles, silver dimes, etc. to those who rant about this (anonymously, or otherwise) for e-metal, to 0 effect.
JMR
(Who wonders why he even responded, it's not like I *want* ignorant customers, even from /.)

Nobody using the e-gold system even has dollar-one. e-gold is GRAMS, not dollars, and if you want to get rid of e-gold and buy coins, you can go to a coin dealer, like the one at the top of our news section, (or me). I repeatedly offer 1/10th oz gold Eagles, silver dimes, etc. to those who rant about this (anonymously, or otherwise) for e-metal, to 0 effect.
JMR
(Who wonders why he even responded, it's not like I *want* ignorant customers, even from /.)

Nobody using the e-gold system even has dollar-one. e-gold is GRAMS, not dollars, and if you want to get rid of e-gold and buy coins, you can go to a coin dealer, like the one at the top of our news section, (or me). I repeatedly offer 1/10th oz gold Eagles, silver dimes, etc. to those who rant about this (anonymously, or otherwise) for e-metal, to 0 effect.
JMR
(Who wonders why he even responded, it's not like I *want* ignorant customers, even from /.)

Easy. If the middleman is costing too much, cut the middleman out of the picture and take 100% of the compensation for your work yourself, instead of less than 10%. Think you're too small? Accounts are FREE.

She has already done the math, so I wish that Courtney Love would contact me. *sigh* We could help eachother a lot, IMO, and I liked her recent rant. Oh well.
JMR

Easy. If the middleman is costing too much, cut the middleman out of the picture and take 100% of the compensation for your work yourself, instead of less than 10%. Think you're too small? Accounts are FREE.

She has already done the math, so I wish that Courtney Love would contact me. *sigh* We could help eachother a lot, IMO, and I liked her recent rant. Oh well.
JMR

Who?

Central Group of Ontario is their 3rd-party escrow agent. They know exactly how much gold there is, and they can't touch it without their say-so.

Also how would we integrate the e-gold system into our site? We'd have to have a person manully verifiying everything. Or write some pretty crazy scripts to interface with their website as it currently stands. There is no nice server to integrate into like I can with visa cards.

Absolutely wrong. Didn't you even look into this? It's a payment service! Of course it's designed for automatic verification!

If I wanted to steal money I think there would be a lot better ways of defrauding the public than through our looney scheme of depending on YOUR goodwill.

Hmm, people send you money, without expecting you to do anything that they can check. Sounds like an awfully good scam to me!

Anyway, there's no reason that someone has to be using the best of all possible scams to be running a scam. There's a reason the phrase "criminal mastermind" exists - most criminals aren't.

If you really think we are scamming everyone, we now prominently display how much has been scammed (i mean sent), on our homepage.

...and, of course, you'd record it accurately if you were scamming everybody.

Your whole argument comes down to, "You should trust us because we're telling you to trust us." It doesn't fly.

---
Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.

The question remains, what are the solutions to this? We've looked at online auditing by someone like PriceWaterhouseCoopers. The answer was $15,000us. Or we could use CPA Webtrust but that is $65,000CA for the first year. We don't have that kind of cash. If we did we'd use it.

We're looking into trust accounts but again there are a lot of hurdles involved.

In terms of e-gold. We looked into it, sure it's cheaper, but how many people have e-gold accounts? Currently there are 58,885 accounts (I have one). How many web users have credit cards? A lot more than 50,000. It just isn't worth our time to implement e-gold. Maybe once it takes off, but till then it just isn't worth it.

We are working on verification and authentification protocols but it won't be something we can implement over night. But hopefully will be available shortly.

Matt
co-founder
Fairtunes.com

The question remains, what are the solutions to this? We've looked at online auditing by someone like PriceWaterhouseCoopers. The answer was $15,000us. Or we could use CPA Webtrust but that is $65,000CA for the first year. We don't have that kind of cash. If we did we'd use it.

We're looking into trust accounts but again there are a lot of hurdles involved.

In terms of e-gold. We looked into it, sure it's cheaper, but how many people have e-gold accounts? Currently there are 58,885 accounts (I have one). How many web users have credit cards? A lot more than 50,000. It just isn't worth our time to implement e-gold. Maybe once it takes off, but till then it just isn't worth it.

We are working on verification and authentification protocols but it won't be something we can implement over night. But hopefully will be available shortly.

Matt
co-founder
Fairtunes.com

Thanks. It's rumored that if /. readers ask the right guy, they'll get a tiny smidge
of the filthy yellow metal for NOTHING. ;^)

In fact (careful, self, there is math ahead here) I'm told that accepting e-gold
can be cheaper than plastic for MACROpayments -- even if you don't do the
smart thing and sell it in direct competition with OmniPay, the major
wholesaler of e-metal.

I do not have a bank account because I don't need one, if I want cash checks
I sell e-metal & buy one or the other. I prefer using it over my wireless-web phone,
a story that was (finally) recently broken by a West-African(!) dead-trees paper.
JMR
(Disclaimer: I work for OmniPay, which pays me in e-gold and ok! I'll stop posting
on this thread now!)

Thanks. It's rumored that if /. readers ask the right guy, they'll get a tiny smidge
of the filthy yellow metal for NOTHING. ;^)

In fact (careful, self, there is math ahead here) I'm told that accepting e-gold
can be cheaper than plastic for MACROpayments -- even if you don't do the
smart thing and sell it in direct competition with OmniPay, the major
wholesaler of e-metal.

I do not have a bank account because I don't need one, if I want cash checks
I sell e-metal & buy one or the other. I prefer using it over my wireless-web phone,
a story that was (finally) recently broken by a West-African(!) dead-trees paper.
JMR
(Disclaimer: I work for OmniPay, which pays me in e-gold and ok! I'll stop posting
on this thread now!)

Thanks. It's rumored that if /. readers ask the right guy, they'll get a tiny smidge
of the filthy yellow metal for NOTHING. ;^)

In fact (careful, self, there is math ahead here) I'm told that accepting e-gold
can be cheaper than plastic for MACROpayments -- even if you don't do the
smart thing and sell it in direct competition with OmniPay, the major
wholesaler of e-metal.

I do not have a bank account because I don't need one, if I want cash checks
I sell e-metal & buy one or the other. I prefer using it over my wireless-web phone,
a story that was (finally) recently broken by a West-African(!) dead-trees paper.
JMR
(Disclaimer: I work for OmniPay, which pays me in e-gold and ok! I'll stop posting
on this thread now!)

Thanks. It's rumored that if /. readers ask the right guy, they'll get a tiny smidge
of the filthy yellow metal for NOTHING. ;^)

In fact (careful, self, there is math ahead here) I'm told that accepting e-gold
can be cheaper than plastic for MACROpayments -- even if you don't do the
smart thing and sell it in direct competition with OmniPay, the major
wholesaler of e-metal.

I do not have a bank account because I don't need one, if I want cash checks
I sell e-metal & buy one or the other. I prefer using it over my wireless-web phone,
a story that was (finally) recently broken by a West-African(!) dead-trees paper.
JMR
(Disclaimer: I work for OmniPay, which pays me in e-gold and ok! I'll stop posting
on this thread now!)

Digital cash is data representing and redeeemable a certain amount of money, which is very hard to forge and, once created, can be passed from person to person without contacting the service which creates and manages it. Digital cash can be stolen if you send the data over insecure channels, or store it on an insecure machine as the provider will pay the real money to anyone who presents the digital cash.

Your apparent idea of "digital cash" which doesn't represent a fixed amount of a real-life commodity is absurd. It is to my description above as monopoly money is to bank notes: an amusing toy, possibly mistaken for money by small children, but of no real value.

Internet-available account transfer services (meaning, you contact the service every time you want to send money to someone, and you can contact them to confirm that you've received it) are sufficient, and they are available. E-gold is an example (it is also a peer-to-peer system which allows micropayments and works with any SSL-supporting web browser). There are still security risks, but you only need one secure line, instead of establishing a secure line with every person you want to send money to.

What do you mean by "open source" anyway? Neither of these systems necessarily requires special software on the client side, so there's nothing that needs open-sourcing.

---
Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.

If you establish an account with E-Gold, you can give or receive nearly infinitesimal sums of money electronically. Of course, they take a cut of it, but someone has to manage it. And, the nice thing is that you can PAY into it using your currency, and then give gold, and then the PAYEE can turn it from gold into THEIR currency, at will.

4% plus 25 cents is way too expensive. It makes microdonations infeasible.

If you use something like e-gold, you end up losing about a total of 4% in the put-money-in, transfer, get-money-out sequence, regardless of the size and number of transactions. So you easily put $20 in, dole it out to hundreds of musicians in pennies, and over $19 would come through. All the musician needs is to create a free e-gold account and list it on their home page.

If you can use PayPal (i.e. if you're American and the music group is American), you can send money for no transfer cost.

If they were really serious about providing a service, they'd also list other means by which you can pay the artists directly, instead of insisting that all the money go through their own hands. Also, read the FAQ, they aren't audited by any third party, and their reasoning for why they wouldn't just pocket the money is very unconvincing (hmm, thousands of dollars going through your service every day to already-rich musicians, many of which you don't listen to and some of the most profitable you actively dislike, but even given the free choice, you'd rather send it to them than pocket it or redirect it to your own favorite musicians. Yeah, right).

Besides, the musicians have not said that they are willing to be paid this way. I would much rather give money to musicians who give permission for their music to be freely distributed.

---
Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.

That *might* be possible, when something like Robert Hettinga's IBUC is out (supposed to be 01/01/01, but I know how these things usually go, so I'd add "at the earliest" to that date). I don't think the PayPal interface (which is pretty good, don't get me wrong) or even my favorite, e-gold, can do that kind of thing at present without driving readers insane with constant passphrase/account# requests. (I could be wrong, as I have yet to see the latest PayPal shopping cart, and they're smart guys.) I look forward to IBUC and possibly others making this kind of thing possible soon, though.

e-metal is cheaper to use than plastic, even if you don't make a market in it, and I wonder what kind of fee he's paying, or if he's getting many "charge backs." As always, /. readers can create a free e-gold account and nick me for a bit of gold, if you like. Thanks.
JMR

That *might* be possible, when something like Robert Hettinga's IBUC is out (supposed to be 01/01/01, but I know how these things usually go, so I'd add "at the earliest" to that date). I don't think the PayPal interface (which is pretty good, don't get me wrong) or even my favorite, e-gold, can do that kind of thing at present without driving readers insane with constant passphrase/account# requests. (I could be wrong, as I have yet to see the latest PayPal shopping cart, and they're smart guys.) I look forward to IBUC and possibly others making this kind of thing possible soon, though.

e-metal is cheaper to use than plastic, even if you don't make a market in it, and I wonder what kind of fee he's paying, or if he's getting many "charge backs." As always, /. readers can create a free e-gold account and nick me for a bit of gold, if you like. Thanks.
JMR

That *might* be possible, when something like Robert Hettinga's IBUC is out (supposed to be 01/01/01, but I know how these things usually go, so I'd add "at the earliest" to that date). I don't think the PayPal interface (which is pretty good, don't get me wrong) or even my favorite, e-gold, can do that kind of thing at present without driving readers insane with constant passphrase/account# requests. (I could be wrong, as I have yet to see the latest PayPal shopping cart, and they're smart guys.) I look forward to IBUC and possibly others making this kind of thing possible soon, though.

e-metal is cheaper to use than plastic, even if you don't make a market in it, and I wonder what kind of fee he's paying, or if he's getting many "charge backs." As always, /. readers can create a free e-gold account and nick me for a bit of gold, if you like. Thanks.
JMR

I will be at IA2000 again this in September, in New Orleans, once-again telling Adult providers about a payment system that will allow them to get paid and STAY paid, with NO CHARGEBACKS (my mantra for Miami's IA2000 last year).

Still, this article brings up an important reason why I haven't been too successful with the adult industry so far, IMO (it's certainly not for lack of trying!!!). They want to automagically charge people who didn't even visit their (stale, in many cases) sites this month, and with e-gold they'd have to work harder, and not all of them want to work very hard, since they've been used to this mint (er...goldmine?) of automatic-charging. Using a medium where their customers see what they'll pay every month might cause those customers to want them to do something every month. IMO, this rant probably doesn't apply to all pron-sites, YMMV, etc.

As usual, any /. reader who sends me an account number will get a spot of e-gold to try, it's useful for more than just adult stuff or really-cool gambling sites, especially if you folks'd take advantage of it.
JMR

I will be at IA2000 again this in September, in New Orleans, once-again telling Adult providers about a payment system that will allow them to get paid and STAY paid, with NO CHARGEBACKS (my mantra for Miami's IA2000 last year).

Still, this article brings up an important reason why I haven't been too successful with the adult industry so far, IMO (it's certainly not for lack of trying!!!). They want to automagically charge people who didn't even visit their (stale, in many cases) sites this month, and with e-gold they'd have to work harder, and not all of them want to work very hard, since they've been used to this mint (er...goldmine?) of automatic-charging. Using a medium where their customers see what they'll pay every month might cause those customers to want them to do something every month. IMO, this rant probably doesn't apply to all pron-sites, YMMV, etc.

As usual, any /. reader who sends me an account number will get a spot of e-gold to try, it's useful for more than just adult stuff or really-cool gambling sites, especially if you folks'd take advantage of it.
JMR

If a corporation has your Visa number, than several persons do as well.
...

Ain't it the truth. Of course, anyone on the planet can know that my e-gold account number is 101574 (well, among others, but that's the main one) and all they can do is spend to it without my passphrase. I guess what I'm saying (ok, while plugging my company's currency) is that 1950s technology stapled onto the world wide web does not make "ecommerce" once you've tried a better system.
JMR
(And, once again, /. readers are encouraged to try e-gold, tell me an account number and I'll click you half a gram or so.)

If a corporation has your Visa number, than several persons do as well.
...

Ain't it the truth. Of course, anyone on the planet can know that my e-gold account number is 101574 (well, among others, but that's the main one) and all they can do is spend to it without my passphrase. I guess what I'm saying (ok, while plugging my company's currency) is that 1950s technology stapled onto the world wide web does not make "ecommerce" once you've tried a better system.
JMR
(And, once again, /. readers are encouraged to try e-gold, tell me an account number and I'll click you half a gram or so.)

Of course, there are few ways (only one, that I know of, but I'm biased as hell) to efficiently pay anyone, anywhere, a dollar's worth of anything (much less ten cents worth) on the internet. The problem, as I've said before, is that in this debate it's a lot more fun to scream "LIAR" and "THIEF" back and forth than to actually do something in the real world of economics about what Courtney Love said, and make yourself ABLE to give her the tip she deserves for her music if she'd just ask me for it. *sigh*
JMR

(Ready to click a million geeks a spot of e-gold, as usual, just send me your account number.)

Of course, there are few ways (only one, that I know of, but I'm biased as hell) to efficiently pay anyone, anywhere, a dollar's worth of anything (much less ten cents worth) on the internet. The problem, as I've said before, is that in this debate it's a lot more fun to scream "LIAR" and "THIEF" back and forth than to actually do something in the real world of economics about what Courtney Love said, and make yourself ABLE to give her the tip she deserves for her music if she'd just ask me for it. *sigh*
JMR

(Ready to click a million geeks a spot of e-gold, as usual, just send me your account number.)

Of course, there are few ways (only one, that I know of, but I'm biased as hell) to efficiently pay anyone, anywhere, a dollar's worth of anything (much less ten cents worth) on the internet. The problem, as I've said before, is that in this debate it's a lot more fun to scream "LIAR" and "THIEF" back and forth than to actually do something in the real world of economics about what Courtney Love said, and make yourself ABLE to give her the tip she deserves for her music if she'd just ask me for it. *sigh*
JMR

(Ready to click a million geeks a spot of e-gold, as usual, just send me your account number.)

Is certainly behind productivity. And an e-gold account is free to set up. (I know, I know. Coming soon: pages in espanol).

Gold has had a long and sordid history in man's exploitation of man (see slavery) so the irony of this is especially fun for folks who know a bit of history. Again my offer to click a bit of e-gold to anyone who wants to try it still stands (and again, probably very few of you will take me up on it. Oh well).

Moderate this down, see if I care.
JMR

E-gold is adequate for micropayments, especially for a busking model (note: I don't use a referrer link when I advocate e-gold, I do this to remain un-biased in case another usable system comes along).

My reasoning is here.

Hell, I'm trying to make a go of it myself, as an entertainment/education software producer (I haven't made any money at it yet, but that's to be expected; I'm still working on the stuff I expect people will like enough to pay for, though I'd appreciate getting a few bucks for the little utilities and learning projects I've been released so far).

I think it's horribly hypocritical of people to complain about how unfair and unusual it is for music to be restricted and controlled, while gleefully taking the results of this control - lots of music in a variety of genres - completely for granted.

Hmm... Funny thing, you don't make any argument to support this premise that the variety of music comes from the oppressive domination of the distributors.

I happen to think that the variety is due to improvements in technology: mostly being able to communicate and travel inexpensively over long distances and increased leisure time due to automated production.

Most musicians can't afford to do this professionally if we don't provide them with a mechanism to make money at it.

Circular logic: they aren't professional if they aren't in it for the money, they won't be in it for the money if there isn't money to be had.

Most music that is produced does not make a net profit. For every song that does become popular and makes a fortune, there are a hundred or a thousand that are ignored.

It isn't because it's "better music" either; do you really think Kenny G, Brittney Spears, and the Backstreet Boys make better music than the typical garage band? How about Milli Vanilli? It's all about promotion and image, about training a captive audience to like something, then telling them to pay for it.

The truth is that most musicians don't have an adequate mechanism to make money. They have a carrot held out of reach by a network of distributors and promoters.

I think a busking model is most appropriate. It removes the necessity of the brainwashing step; people will find what they like and share it with their friends. If it's made easy enough (and between paypal and e-gold it certainly can be easy) and it is explained that this is their primary source of revenue, people will pay, just as they tip when it's expected of them.

The basic idea of mass-market busking is that you give stuff away and just ask for donations (and make it convenient for people to do so).

The theory behind it is that groups which pay more will have more buskers trying to please them and get their money, so there is a direct benefit for paying.

It makes the whole process open and honest. You can tell people "I want your money" because the only way you're going to get it is by making something they like well enough to pay for after having tried it. "I want your money" becomes equivalent to "I want to do something which benefits you", because you can't get their money by tricking them into paying for a bad product sight-unseen or slipping in bugs and making them pay for the fixes later.

Paying is effectively saying "I appreciate your work, and I want you to continue with it, but I'm also willing to make similar payments to others who do useful work for me". Instead of hearing about a great company going out of business and thinking "too bad, I wish they could have found some way to force us to pay them the money they needed, I guess they just had a bad revenue model" you can think "hmm, I value their services, how much am I willing to spend to keep them going?".

I think a lot more people will pay if it's okay for them to pay $20 or $5 or $0.50, instead of paying $50 or nothing. I think this article from the mushroom makes my point fairly well. And, of course, it makes sense to pay more than once, depending on how long you use the product.

It is efficient, because there are no middle-men involved. Product goes directly to customers, payment goes directly to producers. Forget advertising costs, the customers seek out worthwhile free stuff and tell their friends about it. No distributors, no salesmen, just programmers, artists, writers, and other creative people. It will probably only cost about a third, and in many cases less, to make and release products of the same quality.

And, of course, it allows you to open-source your product. The users will make it their business to pay only those people who are really responsible for the development, so anyone who puts a stupid little wrapper around your product might get a small amount of payment appropriate to his own effort, but generally won't manage to usurp the rewards for the bulk of the work.

Right now, there are two good services for buskware payments: e-gold and paypal. Paypal is extremely easy to use but only available to Americans; e-gold is less efficient, but internationally available (and, being a gold exchange rather than a dollar exchange, is more suitable for international trade). Both allow all accounts to both give and receive. They are compatible, because you can buy e-gold with paypal, and then send it out of the country, very simply.

Yes, it will probably take some time for everyone to come around, and get used to paying for some future benefit, rather than to access things they would otherwise be cut off from, but somebody's got to start it.

They have to pay credit card fees to make those charges, and they give away about $45,000/day to new users (about 9,000 new users per day, getting $5 each for joining).

Don't get me wrong, I think the idea can work. I just don't think they're making money yet. I also wonder if they will ever be truly international, being based on credit cards and such. Unlike e-gold, they have to be able to chase down cases of credit-card fraud and suchlike.

I think e-gold is the best currently available system.

E-Gold:
-is up and running (unlike almost everything else)
-is internationally available (unlike PayPal), and supports conversion to and from several currencies
-needs no special software to either send or receive
-charges small transaction fees (1%, to a maximum of 50 cents)
-can be used for micropayments
-supports a form system, so you can put a page on your site where people can both pay and leave a comment
-is easy to fund (for example, this place, lets you fund your e-gold account with your credit card; slower methods are cheaper)
-is free to sign up for

However, it works in precious metals (gold, silver, platinum, palladium), not cash. Personally, I prefer this (though I trust silver to retain its value more than the others). If you don't trust precious metals, you can always just buy it as you need it, and OutExchange (have them send you a cheque for the current market value) whenever you have more than you intend to immediately spend.

I'm not sure I trust it for pay-for-view pages, but it certainly seems adequately secure for donations (as long as you pick a good password, and use a web browser with good 128-bit SSL). It also seems to be quite private, though it doesn't support truly anonymous payments.

Go sign up for free.

Feel free to tip me for this valuable info ;-)
I'm account # 134343

I think e-gold is the best currently available system.

E-Gold:
-is up and running (unlike almost everything else)
-is internationally available (unlike PayPal), and supports conversion to and from several currencies
-needs no special software to either send or receive
-charges small transaction fees (1%, to a maximum of 50 cents)
-can be used for micropayments
-supports a form system, so you can put a page on your site where people can both pay and leave a comment
-is easy to fund (for example, this place, lets you fund your e-gold account with your credit card; slower methods are cheaper)
-is free to sign up for

However, it works in precious metals (gold, silver, platinum, palladium), not cash. Personally, I prefer this (though I trust silver to retain its value more than the others). If you don't trust precious metals, you can always just buy it as you need it, and OutExchange (have them send you a cheque for the current market value) whenever you have more than you intend to immediately spend.

I'm not sure I trust it for pay-for-view pages, but it certainly seems adequately secure for donations (as long as you pick a good password, and use a web browser with good 128-bit SSL). It also seems to be quite private, though it doesn't support truly anonymous payments.

Go sign up for free.

Feel free to tip me for this valuable info ;-)
I'm account # 134343

This already exists try out E-Gold at: http://www.e-gold.com.
They have had 4 different independent currencies available on the internet for about 5 years. They are all backed 100% by various precious metals and are quite popular in the Cyberpunk community.
Quite a few new cool apps and Open Source stuff is happening surrounding them. Ryan Lackey was quite into E-Gold last I talked to him. He's a good guy and since he's involved, I'm certain that the security aspects are good.
-Pelle

I was largely skeptical of the Sealand datahaven until I read that Ryan Lackey was the CTO.

This fella is one of the Financial Cryptography folks in Anguilla, along with Vince Cate. Some of the folks who sponsor the FC symposia include Zero Knowledge, E-Gold, and Hushmail.

I don't know about you guys, but when one of that trust-web is involved in something to do with liberty/cypherpunk/finance, I lend it more credence.

Because e-gold is a different currency (actually, four currencies) denominated in grams, the expensive part of the whole process (and the part that feeds me!) is the exchange transaction from other currencies (here's a calculator). e-gold is still cheaper than credit cards, especially for large companies with clue-resistant management.

e-gold Ltd. is a bailee, and not a bank (in fact, e-gold Ltd. has never even had a bank account). A bailee merely stores things on behalf of customers (imagine those mini-storage warehouses springing up all over in the USA for a similar legal relationship example) and cannot make loans, etc. e-gold Ltd. concentrates on storing allocated, good-delivery bars of bullion metal.

OmniPay, which currently shares the e-gold.com site with e-gold Ltd., has plenty of bank accounts all over the planet in a variety of currencies, and is the principal market maker in the e-metal family of currencies. It's important to keep in mind that e-gold & OmniPay are 2 separate companies (soon to have two separate websites). OmniPay can send wires on your behalf, or send checks to any snailmail address, in exchange for your e-metal grams.

Anyway, getting grams of e-gold is getting easier all the time, and you can definitely use a credit card either with Western Union or other options, so go ahead and buy some ounces from us or buy a few grams from an Australian or buy some e-gold from a US citizen and there are others springing up all the time.

I predict with the new system(s)* both you and I will be very happy, e-gold stats on the present system have been great ever since The Gold Casino arrived on the scene, and now the casino just put up a "bet on the closing price of gold today" pool with no house take.
JMR

* "Real soon now." -- and it will definitely be more Tom, Dick, & Harry friendly.

Because e-gold is a different currency (actually, four currencies) denominated in grams, the expensive part of the whole process (and the part that feeds me!) is the exchange transaction from other currencies (here's a calculator). e-gold is still cheaper than credit cards, especially for large companies with clue-resistant management.

e-gold Ltd. is a bailee, and not a bank (in fact, e-gold Ltd. has never even had a bank account). A bailee merely stores things on behalf of customers (imagine those mini-storage warehouses springing up all over in the USA for a similar legal relationship example) and cannot make loans, etc. e-gold Ltd. concentrates on storing allocated, good-delivery bars of bullion metal.

OmniPay, which currently shares the e-gold.com site with e-gold Ltd., has plenty of bank accounts all over the planet in a variety of currencies, and is the principal market maker in the e-metal family of currencies. It's important to keep in mind that e-gold & OmniPay are 2 separate companies (soon to have two separate websites). OmniPay can send wires on your behalf, or send checks to any snailmail address, in exchange for your e-metal grams.

Anyway, getting grams of e-gold is getting easier all the time, and you can definitely use a credit card either with Western Union or other options, so go ahead and buy some ounces from us or buy a few grams from an Australian or buy some e-gold from a US citizen and there are others springing up all the time.

I predict with the new system(s)* both you and I will be very happy, e-gold stats on the present system have been great ever since The Gold Casino arrived on the scene, and now the casino just put up a "bet on the closing price of gold today" pool with no house take.
JMR

* "Real soon now." -- and it will definitely be more Tom, Dick, & Harry friendly.

Because e-gold is a different currency (actually, four currencies) denominated in grams, the expensive part of the whole process (and the part that feeds me!) is the exchange transaction from other currencies (here's a calculator). e-gold is still cheaper than credit cards, especially for large companies with clue-resistant management.

e-gold Ltd. is a bailee, and not a bank (in fact, e-gold Ltd. has never even had a bank account). A bailee merely stores things on behalf of customers (imagine those mini-storage warehouses springing up all over in the USA for a similar legal relationship example) and cannot make loans, etc. e-gold Ltd. concentrates on storing allocated, good-delivery bars of bullion metal.

OmniPay, which currently shares the e-gold.com site with e-gold Ltd., has plenty of bank accounts all over the planet in a variety of currencies, and is the principal market maker in the e-metal family of currencies. It's important to keep in mind that e-gold & OmniPay are 2 separate companies (soon to have two separate websites). OmniPay can send wires on your behalf, or send checks to any snailmail address, in exchange for your e-metal grams.

Anyway, getting grams of e-gold is getting easier all the time, and you can definitely use a credit card either with Western Union or other options, so go ahead and buy some ounces from us or buy a few grams from an Australian or buy some e-gold from a US citizen and there are others springing up all the time.

I predict with the new system(s)* both you and I will be very happy, e-gold stats on the present system have been great ever since The Gold Casino arrived on the scene, and now the casino just put up a "bet on the closing price of gold today" pool with no house take.
JMR

* "Real soon now." -- and it will definitely be more Tom, Dick, & Harry friendly.

Because e-gold is a different currency (actually, four currencies) denominated in grams, the expensive part of the whole process (and the part that feeds me!) is the exchange transaction from other currencies (here's a calculator). e-gold is still cheaper than credit cards, especially for large companies with clue-resistant management.

e-gold Ltd. is a bailee, and not a bank (in fact, e-gold Ltd. has never even had a bank account). A bailee merely stores things on behalf of customers (imagine those mini-storage warehouses springing up all over in the USA for a similar legal relationship example) and cannot make loans, etc. e-gold Ltd. concentrates on storing allocated, good-delivery bars of bullion metal.

OmniPay, which currently shares the e-gold.com site with e-gold Ltd., has plenty of bank accounts all over the planet in a variety of currencies, and is the principal market maker in the e-metal family of currencies. It's important to keep in mind that e-gold & OmniPay are 2 separate companies (soon to have two separate websites). OmniPay can send wires on your behalf, or send checks to any snailmail address, in exchange for your e-metal grams.

Anyway, getting grams of e-gold is getting easier all the time, and you can definitely use a credit card either with Western Union or other options, so go ahead and buy some ounces from us or buy a few grams from an Australian or buy some e-gold from a US citizen and there are others springing up all the time.

I predict with the new system(s)* both you and I will be very happy, e-gold stats on the present system have been great ever since The Gold Casino arrived on the scene, and now the casino just put up a "bet on the closing price of gold today" pool with no house take.
JMR

* "Real soon now." -- and it will definitely be more Tom, Dick, & Harry friendly.

Because e-gold is a different currency (actually, four currencies) denominated in grams, the expensive part of the whole process (and the part that feeds me!) is the exchange transaction from other currencies (here's a calculator). e-gold is still cheaper than credit cards, especially for large companies with clue-resistant management.

e-gold Ltd. is a bailee, and not a bank (in fact, e-gold Ltd. has never even had a bank account). A bailee merely stores things on behalf of customers (imagine those mini-storage warehouses springing up all over in the USA for a similar legal relationship example) and cannot make loans, etc. e-gold Ltd. concentrates on storing allocated, good-delivery bars of bullion metal.

OmniPay, which currently shares the e-gold.com site with e-gold Ltd., has plenty of bank accounts all over the planet in a variety of currencies, and is the principal market maker in the e-metal family of currencies. It's important to keep in mind that e-gold & OmniPay are 2 separate companies (soon to have two separate websites). OmniPay can send wires on your behalf, or send checks to any snailmail address, in exchange for your e-metal grams.

Anyway, getting grams of e-gold is getting easier all the time, and you can definitely use a credit card either with Western Union or other options, so go ahead and buy some ounces from us or buy a few grams from an Australian or buy some e-gold from a US citizen and there are others springing up all the time.

I predict with the new system(s)* both you and I will be very happy, e-gold stats on the present system have been great ever since The Gold Casino arrived on the scene, and now the casino just put up a "bet on the closing price of gold today" pool with no house take.
JMR

* "Real soon now." -- and it will definitely be more Tom, Dick, & Harry friendly.

Thanks for the kind words (again, my obligatory offer to click a bit of e-gold to /. readers applies here). I would not want you to get the wrong impression, while e-gold Ltd and OmniPay will NOT share, sell, give, trade, etc. customer data like the good contact information we need, e-gold can't sell privacy like Zer0Knowledge or actual digital cash forms, of which very few exist.

So, we can protect consumer privacy and provide merchants certainty of payment at low costs, but for maximum consumer protection use a credit card which extends warranties and provides product guarantees (which e-gold Ltd. & OmniPay cannot, at present). It's good to have a wide variety of payment methods, for example, I confess to being a big fan of PayPal (though I would not store very much value in their system).

I hope that folks also get interested in our phone spends of e-metal -- if it involved anything else but the filthy yellow metal, it would probably be a news story. :^/ Oh well...
JMR

I always use E-gold or something similar when possible because it protects me as a consumer. I did work for a large catalog/online company that sells computers and related products. While employeed there I showed them several methods their system could be penetrated, including grabbing a list of credit cards (several thousand) which I dropped on mgmt's desk w/ a detailed step-by-step list of how I did it and how to fix it. They never have fixed it (it's been over a year) and it's been enough to cure me from most online shopping. If I use a credit card I use a debit card with a hard limit and only a small amount of $ in the account. It should be noted that this company is using the same software that many other companies use and that I had no special access to the system. Just by knowing the software they used and how those bits work together I was able to access the system at a very high level.

When people take payment with credit cards, they need a signature, or they don't have a leg to stand on if the purchaser later claims someone else made the order.

Credit cards were never designed for e-commerce, and really shouldn't be used for it.

One very interesting system is e-gold. They work by transferring precious metals from one of their accounts to another (in a large range of amounts, down to well under 1 cent). You don't need any special software, and pretty much anyone in the world can use it; also they only take 1% of each transaction, which is capped at $0.50 (yes, that's an upper limit, not a lower one). The only problem is that initial purchase of metals; basically you have to send in a check or money-order.

Actually, I haven't seen any other e-commerce system that supports micropayments and is actually giving worldwide service (though there are plenty in "trial" stages and others that serve one country or region). Can anyone point one out?

Someone above asked for a List of OpenSRS affiliates (i.e. resellers). I have been trying to do the same, but never could get such a list, despite extensive searches.

Note that the Domain Name Buyers Guide does not cover any OpenSRS affiliate yet.

Last week, I decided to ask OpenSRS themselves, and opened a sales ticket and a support ticket. The support guy gave me the usual run around ("Our reseller list is confidential", "we cannot release such info", "try a web search").

The sales person was more helpful and gave me a list of five resellers:

• http://www.nal.qc.ca
• http://www.msnhosting.com
• http://internationalwebhostingservices.c om
• http://www.islelink.com
• http://www.msquaredweb.net

Independantly, I tried searching for such info myself. Here is what I found:

• JumpDomain 14.99$ a year.
• DiscountDomainRegistry 14.99$ a year.
• DomainMonger 17$ a year.
• Processing Innovations 15$ a year. I am not sure if they are OpenSRS or not. Some (see above) have objected to their agreement, since they can terminate the domain, ...etc.
• Domains JH Cloos
• . Again not sure if he is OpenSRS or not. He offers domains for 12.50$. You cannot pay by credit card and need
• e-gold.

In case you are wondering, if your reseller goes out of business (many of them are small operations or a one-man-shows), then OpenSRS will be the registrar. The sales person told me they would help me find another registrar should this happen.

I am willing to maintain a list of OpenSRS resllers that offer cheap (20$ or less per year) domain registrations. If you find more, please let me know. You can contact me via the web site above or via 2bits.com (fill a contact form) or you can e-mail me at khalidATbaheyeldinDOTcom.

As a related issue, I have been looking for a PHP port of the OpenSRS library (Yeah, I am a Perl-Hater!), so I can implement it myself, shell out the 250$ minimum needed for being an Open SRS reseller, then I can provide domain registry for friends, family and clients. However, there is no such port planned by OpenSRS.org, and one reseller (forget which one) has a library that is working in every aspect except the encryption stuff.

Um, you don't need a credit card. If you have an E-gold account, you can use JHCloos to register or transfer a domain.

I am not affiliated with JHCloos, other than being a happy customer, but if you click on that E-gold link, I'll get some of the profits that E-gold would otherwise get (but no more outta your pocket). If you really hate that thought, use this: http://www.e-gold.com

(I may bite my tongue a lot, but I can never resist subject-lines like "How else will artists get paid?"!)

Until there's a way that artists can be paid for their work without having to charge a lot of money for their works because they have to pay for all the music/recording label's work, artists will worry about piracy. After all, this is their livelihood too.

I was at CFP99, where there was a shouting match onstage regarding the MP3 issue. Afterward, I walked up to folks involved on all sides, handed them my card, and tried to make the point that a successful music distribution system -- especially one that cut out the corporate monopolist types everyone seems to hate -- would require the ability for potential customers to successfully send micropayments, either as actual payments or as donations.

Let's face it, music is great stuff and can make lots of money for artists who deserve it, but a the best song in the world isn't worth more to me individually than today's lunch at lunchtime. Anyway, I'd hand them my card, tell them "hey, try our system out, it's free to create an account and I'm a sucker for clicking ANYBODY a little bit to see how it works, so there's no risk to you at all" and I'd get this blank "but why aren't you shouting like everybody else?" look from these people. Nobody seemed interested in the issue of how to get paid reliably and irrevocably because it was a lot more fun to scream "you THIEF!!!" at other people. Sheesh.

IF there were a way to pay a reasonable price to download a song on Napster, and know that the payment went mostly to an artist instead of a corporation (especially an offensive one, like Time-Warner) I think that most users -- even the poor college student variety -- would pay. There's no way to be SURE this is true, and survey responses don't always track behavior, and there will always be warez-kiddies who refuse to pay for anything, but I think most folks (even poor students) are honest and would want to pay.

The issue is how to implement it, and how to get folks to understand that payments don't have to be dollars, they just have to be good! Grams have been working better & better for over four years despite minimal media notice or advertising. As usual, any Slashdot reader who asks me in e-mail can have enough e-gold to personally see the difference between our cheap, "push" payment system and credit cards' sometimes costly, "pull" systems, today -- right now. I may be greedy & self-interested in making this offer to give away gold, but at least I admit it -- I'm here to help, whether or not anybody's actually listening this time...
JMR

(I may bite my tongue a lot, but I can never resist subject-lines like "How else will artists get paid?"!)

Until there's a way that artists can be paid for their work without having to charge a lot of money for their works because they have to pay for all the music/recording label's work, artists will worry about piracy. After all, this is their livelihood too.

I was at CFP99, where there was a shouting match onstage regarding the MP3 issue. Afterward, I walked up to folks involved on all sides, handed them my card, and tried to make the point that a successful music distribution system -- especially one that cut out the corporate monopolist types everyone seems to hate -- would require the ability for potential customers to successfully send micropayments, either as actual payments or as donations.

Let's face it, music is great stuff and can make lots of money for artists who deserve it, but a the best song in the world isn't worth more to me individually than today's lunch at lunchtime. Anyway, I'd hand them my card, tell them "hey, try our system out, it's free to create an account and I'm a sucker for clicking ANYBODY a little bit to see how it works, so there's no risk to you at all" and I'd get this blank "but why aren't you shouting like everybody else?" look from these people. Nobody seemed interested in the issue of how to get paid reliably and irrevocably because it was a lot more fun to scream "you THIEF!!!" at other people. Sheesh.

IF there were a way to pay a reasonable price to download a song on Napster, and know that the payment went mostly to an artist instead of a corporation (especially an offensive one, like Time-Warner) I think that most users -- even the poor college student variety -- would pay. There's no way to be SURE this is true, and survey responses don't always track behavior, and there will always be warez-kiddies who refuse to pay for anything, but I think most folks (even poor students) are honest and would want to pay.

The issue is how to implement it, and how to get folks to understand that payments don't have to be dollars, they just have to be good! Grams have been working better & better for over four years despite minimal media notice or advertising. As usual, any Slashdot reader who asks me in e-mail can have enough e-gold to personally see the difference between our cheap, "push" payment system and credit cards' sometimes costly, "pull" systems, today -- right now. I may be greedy & self-interested in making this offer to give away gold, but at least I admit it -- I'm here to help, whether or not anybody's actually listening this time...
JMR