Ripple is Communism.

[poly]

In communism, the state owns everything.

In Ripple, the company behind it owns or owned every single XRP in existence.

They give it out to people in rations, for them to spend on things. Like an allowance.

While keeping the vast majority of wealth for themselves.

They know that if they want their 50 billion ripples to be worth anything, they need to give it out to people to bait them in supporting ripple.

Meanwhile, as ripple is closed source they can make any change including changing how many coins you have.

Ripple is communism. Mining, while it's not evenly distributed, is provably fair and is capitalism.

[koin]

They give it out to people in rations, for them to spend on things.

and earns fees from each transaction, returning those xrps back to the mother ship.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

They give it out to people in rations, for them to spend on things.

and earns fees from each transaction, returning those xrps back to the mother ship.

I think XRPs are destroyed when spent as fees? Or at least, that's how it worked in the closed beta, so it even got worse?

[Monster Tent]

They give it out to people in rations, for them to spend on things.

and earns fees from each transaction, returning those xrps back to the mother ship.

I think XRPs are destroyed when spent as fees? Or at least, that's how it worked in the closed beta, so it even got worse?

Yes they get destroyed.

[JordanL]

Nope.

[JoelKatz]

In communism, the state owns everything.

In Ripple, the company behind it owns or owned every single XRP in existence.

Communism is when private property is abolished in favor of property ownership by the community as a whole.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

[JoelKatz]

Yes they get destroyed.

We tried to find a way to transfer XRP to validators as an incentive to validate but couldn't come up with any scheme that didn't either require a central authority or that could easily be gamed by someone putting themselves on both sides. So we opted to destroy transaction fees.

[Monster Tent]

Yes they get destroyed.

We tried to find a way to transfer XRP to validators as an incentive to validate but couldn't come up with any scheme that didn't either require a central authority or that could easily be gamed by someone putting themselves on both sides. So we opted to destroy transaction fees.

Is it possible that eventually all the xrp could be destroyed ?

[galambo]

Everyone please contact The House Committee on Un-American Activities to inform on these communist activities.

I have been unable to locate the website tip form for The House Committee on Un-American Activities. This report may have to be done by spiritual medium or seance to Joseph McCarthy, former Senator from Wisconsin.

[galambo]

According to The Internal Security Act of 1950, 64 Stat. 993, also known as the Subversive Activities Control Act, this Communist organization (OpenCoin, Inc) must register with the United States Attorney General's Office and the Subversive Activities Control Board.

[JoelKatz]

Is it possible that eventually all the xrp could be destroyed ?

Not really. There's 100 billion XRP and the transaction fee is currently 100,000 transactions to the XRP. In some far, far future, should XRP become so scarce it limits the ability of people to perform transaction, the system could be modified by consensus to keep transaction prices in transactions per drip rather than drips per transaction. Alternatively, the divisibility could be increased or all balances multiplied by 100. It's about as likely as running out of Bitcoins.

According to The Internal Security Act of 1950, 64 Stat. 993, also known as the Subversive Activities Control Act, this Communist organization (OpenCoin, Inc) must register with the United States Attorney General's Office and the Subversive Activities Control Board.

I had the form for that on my wall for several years. Lots of people refused to believe that it was real.

[montreomega]

yes, Ripple has nothing to do with communism, but premining is not good

[poly]

Communism implies force. Ripple doesn't.

Every government type implies force however, including representative democracy.

[interlagos]

I prefer to view XRP as shares in the company that helps develop Bitcoin payment stack by providing the first implementation of a much needed clearing system on top of Bitcoin's settlement system. Would you buy shares in something like BitPay if they held 50% of them and were selling or giving away the rest?

In the same way as CC companies like VISA and MasterCard provide clearing for wire transfer settlement, Ripple helps Bitcoin handle much larger volumes of low-value transactions which can be settled for BTC in batches. Think of selling pizzas the whole day for BTC IOUs of your trusted gateway and then settle with that gateway for actual BTC at the end of the day. Also think of RIpple as an automated system to trade all those various MtGox codes, BTC-E codes and have exchange rates between them. That's what those BTC IOUs are in essence - redeemable codes.

So in that regard, it is fair that the founders of the company hold 50% of shares of their business. The fact that they promised to opensource the server is a bonus and an act of good will, they could have opted to keep it closed. They probably won't be the only clearing system for Bitcoin and that's ok, but from the looks of it they have a pretty good chance of grabbing a large portion of that market.

PS:

I must admit that I really like the Ripple UI - very sleek, clean and simple, hope it stays that way!
Also consensus system seems interesting, but I need to look a bit closer at it before jumping to any conclusions.

[kokojie]

Yes they get destroyed.

We tried to find a way to transfer XRP to validators as an incentive to validate but couldn't come up with any scheme that didn't either require a central authority or that could easily be gamed by someone putting themselves on both sides. So we opted to destroy transaction fees.

Is it possible that eventually all the xrp could be destroyed ?

After about 100k years with 100B transactions per year.