[GiftEconomy] Contact from top 500 website

[Robin Upton]

On 03/10/10 10:43, fran k wrote:
> 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?.
They were the first to do person to person video streaming, which was
formerly pretty limited due to lack of bandwidth/video cameras, but is
not getting big. Currently they're just doing exhibitionism/voyeurism,
but they want to get into other areas.
> (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. 
Currently, I think if you choose not to tip, then no doors are closed to
you. But before everything was free, so by offering tipping, they are
heading in that direction. So in the longer term, it may demotivate
people to offer videos of themselves for free - but I don't think they
have foreseen this. (Wolfenshiessen)
> 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.
>   
I think so. I think until very recently, they were just selling adverts,
but they wanted to 'capitalize' on their traffic.
> ... about Money As Debt ...
I just use that as an easy access example so that they may start to
notice that there are broader goals in life than notching up imaginary
credits in a govt backed Ponzi scheme. There are good people everywhere,
and what with all this stuff about the financial crisis lately, who
knows, they might turn rogue and become real humans again :-) I chose
M.A.D. because it is a good "something is really wrong here" video.

Robin