Here's a good point someone made last June, which describes one of my main concerns with Ripple better than I can. I've heard similar concerns expressed recently but not heard a good response yet. Is there one? Thanks.
The concept of RipplePay seems to require people accepting significant default risk from many people, for no compensation. The size of the risk accepted and the carrying capacity of the network are proportional, such that making it useful requires making the default risks large. The proponents suggest setting up lines of credit with your friends, but this seems like courting disaster; not only would I be risking both money and friendships, I'd have to pay for expensive due diligence, I'd have to occasionally offend people by signaling mistrust, and I'd be setting things up so that if I did go bankrupt (perhaps because I lent too much money to someone who defaulted), my social network would transform into angry creditors.
In exchange for all this risk, I gain nothing: I'm still using an inflating currency, I can't move large balances quickly or secretly, and I gain a constant chore of settling books with people. And after all that, I still need a traditional bank for value storage (since RipplePay is only attempting to solve the transfer). No thanks. RipplePay will never be anything more than a novelty used for tiny dollar amounts.
