From: "R. Jason Cronk" <listmanager@orange.redmans.com>
Date: Fri, 7 Nov 1997 03:59:03 +0800
To: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Subject: Re: Hughes Markets? (Was Re: Copyright commerce and the street musician protocol)
In-Reply-To: <34611C3B.60ACCF02@systemics.com>
Message-ID: <v03102803b087c75e4aa6@[199.227.220.35]>
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 >Since it seems -- for the time being -- Eric was the first person to figure
>this stuff out and talk about it publically (so, what else is new? :-)), we
>should give him credit for it.


While we do need a shorter name and I don't really care what name is used
to describe it, I do think somebody needs to figure out exactly what "it"
is.  Since I don't know what Eric Hughes was talking about at DEFCON IV, I
can't know whether his "it" is the same thing I'm talking about.
Especially since everybody else I've seen talking about "it" seems to leave
out what I think is the most important part -- value added.

So far I have yet to see anyone write a clear and concise article
describing the economic system we've been discussing.  I've tried, but to
date I haven't had the time.  I'm too busy trying to steer my business in
that directon to write about it.

I leave as an exercise for everyone, describe the difference between a
recursive geodesic auction market and a chain letter or a multi-level
marketing scheme (which I might add are rampant on the net).  What prevents
the latter from being a subset of the former?


Jason Cronk









>
>A whole bunch of people are now talking about these cash-settled recursive
>auction processes, and they're a direct, and now obvious, consequence of
>bearer (or at least instant) settlement markets for information on geodesic
>networks. When you add anonymity to the transaction, you pretty much have
>the final straw for "rights" tracking. Watermarks just tell you who the
>information was stolen from, for instance. So, one more industrial
>information process bites the dust.
>
>And, since a lot of people, like myself :-), claim that anonymous bearer
>settlement will be the cheapest way to effect a transaction in an
>internetworked environment, then this kind of market process should
>approach ubiquity sooner or later, and we should have a nice short name for
>it. :-).
>
>So, I propose that we call these things "Hughes markets" or "Hughes
>auctions" or something. At least until we find the apocryphal 1940's
>Atlantic Monthly article, like they did with hypertext. :-).
>
>If it *does* turn out that Eric was the first person to see this, he might
>end up with a trip to Stockholm someday...
>
>Cheers,
>Bob Hettinga
>
>
>
>
>
>
>-----------------
>Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox
>e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
>"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
>[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
>experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
>The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/
>Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>
>
>
>
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