Let's brainstorm happ and current-sees ideas

jamesray1 · December 11, 2019, 11:38am

Here are some ideas and tweet threads:

TODO: I need to read through Commons Engine materials and compare with this model for funding public goods:

zack-bitcoin/amoveo/blob/master/docs/use-cases-and-ideas/insured_crowdfund.md

It was originally called a "dominant assurance contract".
This is a contract made for raising money for public goods. It is not like an ICO, no new subcurrency is created.

There are 2 popular ways to raise money for public goods today:
1) donation
2) taxation

The problem with donation is called a "free rider problem".
Some people who benefit from the public good's existence will refuse to donate.

The problem with taxation is that it involves the threat of violence.
Since violence is involved, some people will end up paying more for the good than how much it benefits them.

With insured crowdfunding each person ends up paying slightly less for the public good than how much it benefits them, this is the ideal we want.

There are 3 participants in insured crowdfunding:
1) Entreprenuers
2) Investors
3) Builders

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TODO: post each happ idea with associated current-see in separate topics.

jamesray1 · December 12, 2019, 2:40am

If I had to pick one happ to work on, the ones that are already planned by Redgrid are promising. While I’m not exactly sure what all the happs they plan to build are, I think they include for demand response, electricity trading, and virtual power plants and energy storage plants. I don’t know if crowdfunded renewable energy assets would be included, and same for electric vehicle charging networks. @mikeg? So I could pick one of these to work on. At any rate I would like to work on an energy-related happ, as that would be a better fit with my background in renewable energy (engineering).

Cross-linking to

erlend_sh · December 12, 2019, 10:44am

Quick aside: What are your thoughts on Basic Chat? https://github.com/holochain/basic-chat

These grander visions for Holochain are great and necessary, but right now the tech is in its infancy and just being able to mimic current-gen web applications is a big win.

In the current state of the internet, if 5 friends want to set up a chat room for themselves there is no easy and low-cost way for them to do that. Mattermost and RocketChat are great options, but setup is not trivial and someone needs to shell out $5/month for hosting. Not a lot, but far from a trivial amount for anyone without an income or living in a developing nation.

The empowerment of self-hosted users has not changed much in the last 30 years since IRC came out.

So personally I’m just very excited to see the likes of Basic Chat mature to the point where the cost and complexity of setup & hosting of such an application has far surpassed the status quo.

jamesray1 · December 12, 2019, 11:06pm

I’ll have another look at basic chat soon.

On further reflection, I think it may be best to just get a job. Building a happ should be a long-term commitment, and as I’d rather work on building an energy happ, it would be better to work with Redgrid on building an internet of energy protocol, then energy happs on top that.

As I only have like $5-6 K in cash, it’s risky to get involved in building a happ or business, although if there was a way to get sustainably funded within a short time while working on the internet of energy protocol with Redgrid, then energy happs, then I would do that.

Ideally there were would be ways or more support for people who have limited savings to start up businesses, while that doesn’t seem to be the case right now.

Perhaps if there was another technical contributor who was willing to be able to lead a project if I decided to leave, or scale back work on the project to part-time, to go work on Internet of Energy and IoE apps, and I could get an adequate income from that work (or work in another part-time job) then I may consider being involved with such a project.

erlend_sh · December 13, 2019, 12:22am

That’s the unfortunate truth. Building any sort of app from scratch, web3 or otherwise, should only be done if you can afford to fail.

Definitely prioritize making a steady living before getting into riskier ventures!