Anyone else think this Ripple stuff is just too complicated to ever catch on?

[mr_random]

I don't know about you guys but I've been having a hard time getting my head around this whole Ripple system stuff. I know it's the latest fad of this board but I personally think it's too complicated.

What's worse is hardly anyone on the forum seems to be certain how it all works (at least that's my experience when I see someone asks for help and no-one knows the answer until someone comes along with a 400 word essay of gobbledegook).

But my ignorance aside what sealed the deal for me is the amount of money the founders are set to make from it. You can almost feel the greed surrounded by this Ripple stuff.

[JoelKatz]

The only really complicated part is community/personal credit. We're not promoting Ripple for that purpose yet precisely because it is complicated. As a payment platform, it's actually pretty simple, at least conceptually. (Though I personally think that over the longer term, this could grow into Ripple's killer app and change the way people think about money, we're not relying on it happening. And it will take tools that don't exist yet.)

But my ignorance aside what sealed the deal for me is the amount of money the founders are set to make from it. You can almost feel the greed surrounded by this Ripple stuff.

I'm really sorry you feel that way. I hope at least that you're not getting that from what we're saying but from what other people are saying about us. We've worked tirelessly for more than a year now to build a system that we hope will drive the cost of payments, particularly cross-currency payments, down dramatically.

[nwbitcoin]

I like the idea of Ripple, but like the OP, I don't see a way to explain its advantages in a simple statement that doesn't create a whole bunch of complex questions!

Does it work if I don't know anyone on the network?

That is the main question that needs answering in a way that gives my mum confidence enough to use it!

Then you have your killer app!

[smoothie]

The fact that ripple is a central entity/business/organization makes it flawed.

What happens if internally the people who run ripple become corrupt?

If I have to trust someone or some business, that is not for me.

No thanks.

[kangasbros]

But my ignorance aside what sealed the deal for me is the amount of money the founders are set to make from it. You can almost feel the greed surrounded by this Ripple stuff.

I see no problem with this. However the project is closed source which doesn't promote trust in the system otherwise.

[TTBit]

Not that I understand it 100%, but I think it will be very simple, in fact it is old school. Ripple is similar to writing checks, but who does that in this day and age? Anyone can write you a check for $100,000, but the value of that check depends on how much you trust the person. You can write a check for $100,000, but same rules apply. The advantage of ripple is that trust lines are pre-defined, not judged on the fly.

[molecular]

But my ignorance aside what sealed the deal for me is the amount of money the founders are set to make from it. You can almost feel the greed surrounded by this Ripple stuff.

I see no problem with this. However the project is closed source which doesn't promote trust in the system otherwise.

If it remains closed-source and noone but the "elite" can run server the project is indeed fail.

There's no indication however that they wont release it at some point and I'm sure the devs/founders are aware they shouldn't drag this out for too long.

Before we don't see the sources and can run our own nodes, there's little we can do to further evaluate wether we can trust the system (evaluate exactly how the XRP stuff will develop for one thing).

I suggest to keep an open mind and not judge too early. It's voluntary and anyone can make a competing system once the code is out. You don't have to trust anybody and you can still use your BTC, you don't end up owning random peoples debt. I'm not afraid.

Quite frankly I think people are overreacting.

[molecular]

The fact that ripple is a central entity/business/organization makes it flawed.

What happens if internally the people who run ripple become corrupt?

If I have to trust someone or some business, that is not for me.

No thanks.

smoothie, don't you already trust some exchange with your coins at times?

do you trust yourself?

[molecular]

Does it work if I don't know anyone on the network?

That is the main question that needs answering in a way that gives my mum confidence enough to use it!

Then you have your killer app!

You have to trust at least some "gateway" (like bitinstant, weexchange and many others that will likely pop up). Otherwise you can't own any IOUs (which is the substance of ripple transactions). You don't however have to trust random people and ripple guarantees you will only ever own debt of people you specifically extended trust to.

[moocowpong1]

I like the idea of Ripple, but like the OP, I don't see a way to explain its advantages in a simple statement that doesn't create a whole bunch of complex questions!

Does it work if I don't know anyone on the network?

That is the main question that needs answering in a way that gives my mum confidence enough to use it!

Then you have your killer app!

Once Ripple gets off the ground and the network is healthy, it will look like this:

1. Sign up for a gateway: they'll give you a handful of XRP and you'll probably never need any more.
2. "Trust" the gateway. The amount of "trust" is the largest balance you'll be able to hold in Ripple.
3. Send the gateway some money; it will appear in your Ripple account.
4. You may now send money to or receive money from any other Ripple user in the world. If you receive money, it will be in your native currency, and you can withdraw it through your gateway at your convenience.

That's it. You don't need to have any friends that use Ripple. You don't need to know who or what an "arbitrageur" is, or why they're important to Ripple. You don't need to know what trust means in Ripple. You don't need to know what a cryptocurrency is, or how XRP relates to BTC – you don't even need to think about XRP at all unless you want to. You don't need to know exactly how Ripple calculates what the transaction fees ought to be. Everything else that sounds complicated is either stuff that's going on under the hood, or stuff that's extra and can be ignored.

[JoelKatz]

The fact that ripple is a central entity/business/organization makes it flawed.

What happens if internally the people who run ripple become corrupt?

If I have to trust someone or some business, that is not for me.

No thanks.

It is just not rational to be this risk averse. This is like not taking an airplane because you're afraid of terrorists. Most businesses currently take credit cards, paying 2% or so for payment processing. That's equivalent to one out of 50 customers not paying you a dime. That's like having your day's receipts stolen from you more than 7 times a year.

Right now, nobody has a stronger incentive in seeing Ripple succeed than OpenCoin does. But we do agree with you about the importance of Ripple being decentralized. That's why we designed the system from the ground up not to require any central authorities to operate. Long term we gain nothing from running or controlling the network. It will take time before Ripple actually *is* decentralized though. If you want to wait and see because you're very risk averse, that's fine. Just make sure your avoiding risk is rationally balanced against the cost of lost opportunities.

[nelisky]

I have been somewhat skeptical of ripple as it was taking me a long time to grasp what its basic usefulness was in the first place.

I must say that playing with it with TTBit for a while I've had a proper AHA moment and while it is a great way of dealing with exchanges, and that is a fine thing to do, I believe the real feature behind it is the fact that having trust lines and public ledgers allows for applying the concept of credit outside the reality of simple currencies. While there are still some kinks to iron off we already have a bunch of ideas to leverage what appears to be an amazing system to operate services well outside the simple exchange reality. Took a lot of time, sure, but while developing these new ways of using ripple implies a deep understanding of the going-ons, using services based upon it should not.

I am in no way affiliated to ripple but since yesterday I really wish I was

[nwbitcoin]

The fact that ripple is a central entity/business/organization makes it flawed.

What happens if internally the people who run ripple become corrupt?

If I have to trust someone or some business, that is not for me.

No thanks.

It is just not rational to be this risk averse. This is like not taking an airplane because you're afraid of terrorists. Most businesses currently take credit cards, paying 2% or so for payment processing. That's equivalent to one out of 50 customers not paying you a dime. That's like having your day's receipts stolen from you more than 7 times a year.

Right now, nobody has a stronger incentive in seeing Ripple succeed than OpenCoin does. But we do agree with you about the importance of Ripple being decentralized. That's why we designed the system from the ground up not to require any central authorities to operate. Long term we gain nothing from running or controlling the network. It will take time before Ripple actually *is* decentralized though. If you want to wait and see because you're very risk averse, that's fine. Just make sure your avoiding risk is rationally balanced against the cost of lost opportunities.

These two highlighted lines, ring alarm bells for me!

Firstly, the mainstream public, the people who need to use this to make it work are very risk averse.  That is why they will spend far too much money on an mp3 player because it has an Apple logo and a tv advert associated with it!

Secondly, when a third party is worried that I am going to lose out on an opportunity, its generally because they too will lose out on that same opportunity! That observation is based on 25 years of buying and selling in every vertical market known to man!

This thread has helped me understand the concept a little clearer, and in essence, I truly like the idea, but I don't understand why it needs another currency to make it work. Why can't this be done using bitcoins?

Why add an extra layer of complexity?  Or is it about creating a float of currency to make sure there is enough money in the system?

[sinner]

is there a video explaining how ripple works?

[JoelKatz]

This thread has helped me understand the concept a little clearer, and in essence, I truly like the idea, but I don't understand why it needs another currency to make it work. Why can't this be done using bitcoins?

Why add an extra layer of complexity?  Or is it about creating a float of currency to make sure there is enough money in the system?

I don't understand what you're asking. You don't need Ripple for Bitcoins, just send them with a transaction. The point of Ripple is when you need to send things like dollars or Euros or send dollars to someone who needs to receive Euros.

(If you mean Ripples/XRP, see the many other threads were I've tried to explain why this is the best solution to transaction spam that we could come up with and it adds value to the network in other ways.)

[Liquid]

to op title yes