From: solman@MIT.EDU
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 94 08:38:36 PDT
To: rah@shipwright.com (Robert Hettinga)
Subject: Re: Voice/Fax Checks
In-Reply-To: <199407211118.HAA20691@zork.tiac.net>
Message-ID: <9407211538.AA08530@ua.MIT.EDU>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> At 10:52 PM 7/20/94 -0400, Duncan Frissell wrote:
> 
> >"Don't bother.  Take out the check you were going to send me, read me the
> >routing code and check number on the bottom.  Give me your name and address
> >and the bank's name and address as they appear on the check, the amount you
> >will pay and the date.  I'll collect that check electronically without you
> >having to bother to send it."
> 
> This is exactly the problem we're having with identifying a market for
> digital cash. There's no unique selling proposition besides privacy. There
> are too many real good substitutes, like this one for checks. E-mail with
> the above information in it can be encrypted and signed, and would be
> secure enough to make a real good check in its own right. This is like my
> favorite quote (in InforWorld) about Macs: "It seems that 85% of the market
> will settle for 75% of a Macintosh."

The selling point for digital cash is that it has a low transaction cost
and can easily be used for extremelly small transactions. If agent A and
agent B want to do business without bothering their owners, you had better
have some robust digicash.