But if we don't think about money all of these FOOS tools will remain toys for middle class people who don't mind spending a few of their own dimes on keeping them running. It's a barrier to entry. Can it be lowered or knocked down?
I have thought GNU Taler could be interesting for payment handling.
https://www.taler.net/en/index.html
It's a system designed to provide a digital cash like protocol, in use it might actually be kind of like poker chips. It using a form of cryptography to implement it, but it's not a proof of work system like the right wing cryptocurrencies.
Customers would buy tokens from an issuer with some currency, be able to anonymously purchase items from vendors using those tokens, who then can deposit the tokens with a transaction log, and be able to redeem them for the original currency.
The developers have done some test deployments at an EU university and they've got some prototype django websites and android apps available.
I suspect the next actions are doing security review of the code, find a pool of people interested, and figure out governance and business organization issues.
I think doing modest purchases like the prices for I see for quick art commissions or donations (<$40) to a stream probably could be set up with a small business
But to really roll it out my guess would be to found a credit union, and then that could offer issuing taler tokens to it's community
Here's the NCUA documentation on founding a credit union, and they recommended figuring out your community and raising about $500,000 USD to be able to start.
It's effectively just a digital stored value card.
You "deposit money" or "buy tokens", which are of a form where they're easy to exchange electronically without a transaction fee at the point of sale.
The entity that receives the tokens then takes them back to an issuer and deposits the tokens to get the regular money back out out.
What the Taler protocol is providing is some anonymity in the purchase and making it easy to do the the exchange digitally, so it could work well for low value donations or purchasing modest digital goods.
Visa/Mastercard usually takes a minimum transaction fee plus purchase price, and Taler's design means they shouldn't need to charge as much to process transactions.
This is so cool! I've never even considered the concept of a local non-profit credit union ... you know not for old people. The focus should be digital payment independence.
I assume if you try to do this someone from Mastercard comes to your house and beats you up. But I just found my old bike lock and it is very heavy.
I think credit unions often get founded in periods when larger banks are not serving poor to middle class communities.
According to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_credit_unions
some of the initial european credit unions were founded to help provide banking to rural poor.
I think Black American history also features a range of cooperatives and mutual aid 'insurance' organization.
I had a dream of founding a credit union where the community served is: people who can send PGP email and know how to use a security token.
But I'm a sysadmin who's bitter about my banks poor authentication systems.
I think key to making this work would be having many limits on size of accounts and to keep it local so you know who is in it.
And never lend any money.
hmmm
#Wero might become the next best thing?
www.wero-wallet.eu
It's kinda Paypal done by European banks (🇩🇪🇫🇷🇧🇪🇳🇱), without any fees.
Not sure if it will be available internationally.
But the two major German coop banking groups are on board, so that might be as good as it gets from a "power to the people" perspective.
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