The Problem with Money…Online

Money was never coded into the web.

I’ll break it all down in a bit.

A long time ago in Internet land, before you could send your enemy a bag of candy dicks to eat, it was a communication and knowledge sharing tool. That’s what it was designed for, nothing more, nothing less.

Credit: firstwefeast.com

I won’t bore you with the History of the web, you can Google it and I’m not a Historian anyway. But this is important to know; The first legitimate transaction on the web happened around 1994 (unless you count weed deals or British granny’s buying eggs and milk as legit).

E-Commerce was nothing in the beginning. A tiny blip of retail sales with a measly 3.4% of total U.S. retail sales in 2007 — The same year the iPhone was released and Justin Bieber was busking on the streets.

Compare that with today: 10% of all retail sales are made online and it’s predicted that online sales will grow to 14% of all retail sales by 2020.

So whats the problem then?

Two problems: Data and Code

Money was never coded into the web.

To pay for things and make transactions we kind of had to fumble our way through it. And when there isn’t a solid solution you begin to have all these quasi-solutions. And where you have quasi-money solutions, there are money problems.

The only reason it works today is that it’s being held together by very expensive pieces of duct tape (those “solutions”). Namely, credit and banking institutions. And trust me…EVERYONE takes their cut out of your piggy bank.

Let me show you.

When you buy a pizza online you go to a site, select the pizza, they may or may not ask you to sign up or sign in, if they do, then you sign up, sign in, enter credit card details or PayPal info and pay for it. The transaction is processed and your pizza arrives hopefully still warm.

Seems OK at first, bit annoying, but no big deal right?

Wrong.

When you start to pull apart all of the unnecessary apps, programs, third-party involvement, transactions, money, and energy that is spent in that entire process notwithstanding all of the other privacy and security concerns its clear that the entire thing is completely and utterly inadequate. It is flawed.

We tried to retrofit money onto the web.

It’s been stitched together hurriedly with parts that don’t match by Internet douche-bags trying to get some of that sweet Internet coinage. Kind of like that stupid car Homer Simpson invented that ruined his brothers business.

Credit: simpsons.wikia.com

If money was coded in, you wouldn’t need umpteen different solutions to pay for things just like you wouldn’t need pots and pans to honk a horn if you had a reliable and working horn!

The Internet has basically attracted money hucksters because it couldn’t offer a real solution.

So where is the Data problem in all of this?

Data is money in the information age.

I’ll ask you a couple questions to illustrate the issue.

Why do these websites need you to sign up? What purpose does that serve? Do you have to sign-up when you walk into a fried chicken restaurant? No. Imagine that; “Hi I’d like your bucket for two” Sure just provide your name, email and phone number right here… That’d go down really well, wouldn’t it?

Why do they need your name, apart from delivery purposes? Why does Amazon or eBay or Dominoes need to know your name? Because your data is worth money. That is why.

There’s a reason some of these services are “FREE”. You think Facebook cares about your newborn baby pictures? Pfft..Facebook monetizes pictures of your newborn baby and then sells the very fact that you just had a baby to companies that sell baby products.

If you have money in your pocket or bank account why do you need to sign up and enter credit card or payment details each and every single time you buy anything? Same thing. Data is valuable and because the website owner has no way of automatically and easily deducting a payment from you, he now has an opportunity to offer you a quasi Homer Simpson-esque solution in return for some more of your data.

It’s all just a big sham.

Why is a third party such as PayPal or MasterCard even required?

Why can’t you just deal directly with the person you’re buying from just like you would at the fried chicken restaurant? You know, with cash? Same answer.

E-commerce has been nothing but a stitch up. And the Internet snobs that stitched it together are laughing their stupid smugly asses off because it wasn’t supposed to work but it did and now they’re stinking rich.

Anyone up for a trip to Mars on some of that PayPal money by the way?

Not only does not having money coded into the web attract obvious problems, but it creates some less obvious ones too.

Currently, the method of choice for content creators to monetize their stuff, aside from ads is Patreon (as well-meaning as they are) it’s just another hurdle in something that should be as simple as clicking a button, the online equivalent of pulling out your wallet and handing someone a buck or two.

Ads will never completely disappear but a big part of the reason ads are all over the web is because content creators don’t have other options to monetize their content and the reason they can’t monetize their content goes back to what I keep rambling about. Taped together payment apps, gateways, “secure” logins, third-party cookies and the like.

I think in the near future people will look back and wonder what on Earth we were doing.

But let’s change the pace here a bit. Lemme ask you something:

How do you spend money online if you have none?

What?

Money does not exist in nature.

Let me explain. It’s easy.

You go to work, chop-chop, dig-dig, you get paid, it enters your bank account and you spend it using cash, a card or by some clunky online medium.

In the natural world, energy and resources are all that is required for an exchange to take place. Seeds + water + sunlight = trees. If I have a tree and you need some wood, I use my energy, chop down a tree, give you the wood and you give me one of your chickens in return. Delicious.

To answer the question, if you are already ON the Internet it means you have some kind of resource that allows you to be ON the Internet.

You have the hardware, the software, you have an Internet connection and an electrical connection. Is there not some kind of value in that just like in the natural world? And if you have a valuable resource and other people have valuable data…hmm

Credit: imgflip.com

A Potential Solution

There is a mechanism, a new network, that is being built as we speak which allows you to put your computer resources to work, kind of like Crypto-Currency mining, but not really, in fact, it’s much simpler and much more widely available.

This mechanism is called Farming.

When you ‘farm’ you allocate a certain amount of your device’s resources and you let a network of people safely and securely use it. In return, you are rewarded tokens or coins by the network that can be spent on the very same network.

The SAFE Network is fixing the money problem by coding money back into the Internet.

Because SAFE is being designed in such a way that cash is part of the network, like oil in a machine, it solves not only the problem of not being able to spend money you don’t have (as crazy as that sounds) but it also addresses the issues I mentioned above like stopping Internet hucksters haggling for your money and it puts the value of data back in the hands of its owners, as well as solving several other issues.

App Developers

If you develop apps or websites and publish them on the SAFE Network you get rewarded in Safecoin when people download or use your app. It is a per use system, far simpler, cleaner and more honest than the current way we use apps and websites. On SAFE, apps and site developers are paid directly by the Network according to how often they get downloaded and used.

The network is not owned by anyone, so you don’t have to submit your App to Google or Apple for approval. The network is smart and operates autonomously. It knows when a user downloads and uses your App and it deducts a small amount from that user. Brilliant!

And because SAFE removes the need for servers, as an app or website developer you no longer need to worry about hosting or servers and neither do your clients.

Content Creators

Imagine if your audience could tip you, live and in proportion to the value you provide.

Let’s say you’re a comedian. You film a funny video and upload it or stream it live, now, you’re audience, you’re fans, can pay you every time you make them laugh just by clicking a button 1c, 10c, $1, or $300 kind of like how medium lets you clap, or Facebook lets you like, only you like with your dollars or in this case with your Safecoin.

This will revolutionize content, journalism, film, music, and TV forever!

It removes the sleazy middlemen and the ad dealers.

Think about a system that does not need tiers upon tiers of money-grubbing labels, marketing companies, ad agencies, managers, lawyers, payment processors, ticketing merchants and so on, you just pay the artist directly!

Like that track? Pay the guy! Simple.

I’m not suggesting this will kill the likes of Sony, no I’m not saying that at all. But it’ll give the little guy trying to get his material out there a chance to compete and be paid fairly and in proportion to the value he or she provides.

Alongside these benefits, it also gives the monetary control back to the content producers. How many YouTube stars have we witnessed having their earnings stripped from them in recent times?

Cash Money

Cash as we know it is king. And on SAFE cash-is-cash, but digital.

There’s no public ledger, no blockchain, no middlemen, no duct taped parts. This mean’s your cash and your transactions are truly anonymous and private just like in the real world with real cash and you can spend or accept them easily without a half dozen apps and processors because they are attached to the network at the foundation level!

Not even Bitcoin does this!

Bitcoin as cool as it is, is also not designed to operate on the web. Bitcoin is just as clunky.

Safecoin because it is being coded in from the beginning will be true digital cash. Wherever you go, whatever your doing, Safecoin is there with you, like cash in your wallet.

Taking back our data

Our data is absolutely valuable. And we’ve just been giving it away up till now.

Business information, plans, documents, family photographs, videos, music, email addresses, phone numbers, essays or just pictures of cats. It is all valuable and therefore it needs to be protected but because it is valuable owners of this data exchange money for the protection of and access to it.

The SAFE network protects data with encryption and spreads it across the network anonymously and autonomously, rewarding those devices that provide secure access to it.

Not only is your data encrypted on the network, but its also completely inaccessible to anyone, ever, because no one owns or controls the SAFE network.

Currently, your web data exists on the servers of private companies. This means it is insecure both from hackers infiltrating those servers but also from internal staff stealing (exfiltrating) your data.

The sum of all this is that data is no longer prostituted around the web, bought, sold, hacked and stolen.

Securing it on SAFE literally creates an authentic incentive economy. This is a very important point.

Incentives — The Third World

When I explained farming earlier I said that you could use your computer’s resources. Well, in essence, you can use any computers resources. Specialized or expensive equipment is not required.

What that means is the poor guy from Vietnam who struggles to feed his small children can connect his phone to the SAFE network to offer resources.

Now he can make a little money. Or a lot of money, for that part we’ll have to wait and see.

This is what we call TRUE democratization.

This word, democratization, is flung around willy-nilly by fake silicon valley elites, all too often with little in the way of real-world results or examples from their work.

SAFE offers a truly democratized technology solution to the world. Not just because anyone can use SAFE, but because it allows people to benefit financially by exchanging their resources for Safecoins.

Learn more

If you are interested to learn more head on over to SAFE Network, ask questions on the forum, watch a few videos or read some of my other SAFE articles right here on Medium.