Where is My Digital Cash?

LinuxTek asks: "Using the IBM commercial as a starting point (the one with the guy from DS9 asking about flying cars), I ask you, where is my digital cash? I remember a couple of years ago all the hype about digital money and several companies that were supposed to make a revolution in micropayment and 'secure' online purchase (i.e. anonymous). I remember Digicash as being one of the most promising companies, and I even remember downloading their digital wallet test app. It seems they went out of business and sold their patents to eCash, but now I can't even acces the eCash site. Does anyone know if there are other projects like this (still alive), and/or Open Source alternatives? Digital money should be a reality by now."

Comments

Who wants it?

[duffbeer703]

I have paper cash in my wallet. It is lightweight, accepted everywhere and there are no fees or auditing associated with it.

With eCash, I'll invariably be paying fees for using my money and whomever is running the system & the government will be able to track or audit my activity.

If you don't want to carry cash, call American Express and get a credit or charge card.

Re:Who wants it?

[Hythlodaeus]

Easy, hassle-free micropayments ( $.05) would be an incredible boon to web publishers by providing a viable business plan to supplement/replace advertisements. Anyone creating any sort of content (games, stories, news, music) to be distributed online could benefit, but not many consumers could be bothered (or really willing/trusting enough) to keep CC numbers on file with scores of different content providers. A central, trusted source is needed for this to take off - a "content escrow" that takes the money and content, then passes them both along when they're both received. It seems like PayPal, AOL, or Microsoft Passport could roll out something like this with very little trouble. AOL already has scores of CC#'s on file as well as content, but can't really afford to antagonzie their users with micropayments, when they're starting to wise up that there are much better ISPs around.

Re:Who wants it?

[kurowski]

I have paper cash in my wallet. It is lightweight, accepted everywhere and there are no fees or auditing associated with it.

Accepted everywhere? Ever tried using it online?

With eCash, I'll invariably be paying fees for using my money

You don't pay fees for regular cash because the government runs it- you pay taxes in order to use regular cash. You could theoretically use privately issued cold cash and pay fees to use it. You could likewise theoretically use government issued digital cash and pay taxes instead.

and whomever is running the system & the government will be able to track or audit my activity.

there is such a thing as anonymous digital cash. that's why it's called "digital cash" and not "digital credit".

If you don't want to carry cash, call American Express and get a credit or charge card.

I like carrying cash, and use it for as many offline transactions as possible. It just doesn't work so well online.

I promise...

[QuietRiot]

We could all just email IOU's to eachother...

Oh! Ooh!

Please send royalty payments via check or money order to...

Wow, with morons like this I wish I had mod points

[QuantumG]

Where were you and you when I had mod points two days ago? Folks, if you don't even know what digital money is, don't bother posting your ill-informed opinions!

The problem to date, dear Ask Slashdotter, is that no digital money company has been able to get their heads out of their technology centered asses and talk to their customers. They would rather put together a presentation that talks about public key cryptography and e-wallets, than actually talk about the benefits to the consumer. PayPal is leading the way because they 1) didn't create a new currency and 2) worked with a paradigm that everyone understands: bank accounts.

What should happen now is that digital money companies should create a product that uses cryptography and all those groovy things and links into systems like PayPal. When digital money companies start talking about what the customer gets out of it, then we'll get somewhere.

On a similar note, what does the customer get out of a flying car? :)

Re:Oh really?

[kurowski]

What does this digital money do that my regular money doesn't?

If you're comparing digital cash to online credit card transactions, then the difference is that digital cash is anonymous and irrepudiable.

If you're comparing digital cash to cold cash, then the difference is that cold cash requires you to be in the same meatspace as the other transactee. Whereas digital cash can be spent online over the net, or offline face to face.

Re:Oh really?

[kurowski]

I have a couple of cards in my wallet, and with them I can buy just about any product or service in real life, over the phone, or on the Internet. ... As far as I'm concerned, "digital cash" is here.

Can you use them to buy something that costs $0.05? How about something that costs $500,000?
Can you use them anonymously?

Credit cards are great if you're buying medium priced stuff from large businesses and you don't mind the world knowing about it. They suck for micropayments, for macropayments, for purchases from small businesses, and for purchases that are "outside the norm".

Some problems with e-cash

[soegoe]

Some problems with e-cash:

• It should be anonymous. PayPal isn't. Credit cards aren't. So they can create a customer profile of you. Goodbye privacy.
• It should be secure. Credit card numbers can be stolen or faked. An "ideal" system would guarantee security.
• It should be flexible. Most existing anonymous and secure e-cash systems use "tokens" of a fixed value. A good system should be able to handle arbitrary cash values in a flexible way.

Systems that work under these premises do exist. Anonymity and security can be reached by using blind electronic signatures. Flexibility can be reached by using "divisible" e-cash systems. Unfortenately, such schemes are very expensive in terms of computing power (which means, of course, that they are also expensive in terms of transaction costs).

And then, of course, there's one important question: Who wants anonymous e-cash? Banks and credit companies probably don't (because they like to have your customer profile). Shops probably don't either (for the same reason). Customers? Well, face the facts: Most customers just don't appreciate the value of privacy. So, there's a simple conclusion: No market, so e-cash. It's as easy as that.

Re:Oh really?

[Mr. Slippery]

except for stuff that has inherent physical value, like gold coins or diamonds or cash

"One of these things is not like the others..."

Really. Cash has no (significant) physical value. It's a counter for the "full faith and credit" of the government.