[GiftEconomy] Contact from top 500 website

[fran k]

Hi. Forget the porn use. As Thats a debatable contentious issue. But as an application for enhancing and promoting community resource sharing of goods and services. As a model. Are there any other examples of this mechanism out there or is this a new mechanism?. (Just thought, maybe more popular churches get more funding-tips, donations. So, maybe this is a smooth easy method of rewarding people) Also, are the people viewing socially excluded? Ie, does it make any difference to what they can now view? Ie. Can they still view free as much as they could before, if they choose not to tip? As this is what the exchange economy does. It socially excludes the buyers. Is this a skills status economy? Rewarding a hierarchy of skills. 

Sounds like you have pointed out a split, a divergence  between the concepts of  freeconomy and gift economy, which Ive taken to be the same. Needs thinking about.   

Am I right in thinking the business makes its money by selling the tokens for a set amount, and when theyre tipped, less of their value goes to the performers. Thereby the business pockets for itself, the bit they havent given to the performers. 

And. Arent you mixing up money as debt which is a theft a usury a rent a forced exchange, with what is really wrong with money, which is exchange, which is competitive setting prices which are socially excluding, as they do not provide for the total demand. And, what is really crucially important about the use of money actually creating a shortage, where there isnt any is when it is used for basic needs. As there needs to be a split in economics between things that are sold short from which, if they are, a number of us die of needs starvation. And the other goods from which if we go short are paltry in comparison, because lack of those things just creates lack, just lack! Mental lack. Jealousy, and dissatisfaction. Not physical death. 

Unless Ive missed something crucial, How important is money as debt in the scheme of things anyway? Money is a common commodity on one side of an exchange. Exchange being a process where the less competitive and more sharing people lose! And lose life, because basic needs are exchanged. The wealth the total world resource all comes from the land. If you have the land, you have the source of the wealth. And what keeps the people away from their life source? The primary usury or rent, land tax. Make land accessible free, and youll see people organising a new system of resource sharing, where money as debt, wont matter or affect peoples lives and livelihood. Isnt Money as debt  a smokescreen hiding the really serious issue of   exchange, and of the origin of why we have to do it, which we are ultimately forced to do to pay the land tax, selling the surplus we can produce from it, or get off the land!. And where are we then expected to live- outer space!
 What lies behind money is this forcing! A permanent ongoing forcing. (Forcing us to behave against our better natures. Not all of us, though, as for some, who like to do this forcing, it obviously makes them happy!)
The shareholders like all of us need to realise we all only have basic fundamental needs. The 4 needs. We take for granted our healthy bodies. But a one legged millionaire would give it all away  just to get back his leg. But if your at the bottom trying to feed a family on nothing, youd sell it. Its needs thats important. Its needs that we need. Its needs which are our ingrediants is what we ought to treasure and honour. Us, our bodies, our people, our tribe.

On Sat, 02 Oct 2010 19:17 BST Robin Upton wrote:

>I just got contacted by an investor in a cam4.com, a site which streams
>(adult) video between users. It used to be completely free, but they
>have just moved to a gift economy model. i.e. The site sell tokens to
>the audience who can use these to tip the performers. The best
>performers are getting something like $70/hour, he said. He contacted me
>for strategies to increase the amount of tipping.
>
>I see two areas of interest here:-
>
>1) Moving from just porn to other services which could be provided over
>a webcam, c.f. performance art, consulting, teaching, etc. This could be
>a way of preparing people for a gift economy mindset, as well as
>undercutting commercial provision of these services. I pointed him to
>Money as Debt, with the hope that he would get a bigger picture angle on
>this.
>
>2) They have so much traffic, (>3 billion pageviews/month!) so that
>there is a potential for designed experiments on factors influencing
>gifting. I pointed him to http://www.altruists.org/f885 and
>http://www.altruists.org/ae605 off the top of my head. They are already
>thinking along these lines. Could be a good chance to research GUI aspects.
>
>Any thoughts?
>
>Robin
>
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