So why aren't Devcoins getting more valuable? More people are using Devcoins than ever.
Well, I was talking about demand for Devcoins. I.e. money entering the Devcoin economy.
For example, if Devtome was a successful project, it would generate income from ads displayed on its pages. This money would enter Devcoin economy as Devtome will buy Devcoins to pay writers, and it will increase demand for Devcoin.
Another example would be a game which uses Devcoin as a game currency. People will buy Devcoins to play this game.
Also it can be a project like prediction market...
In any case, to make a dent you need some sizeable revenue in Devcoins... At least $10,000/month, I think.
If people just get Devcoins for writing, it doesn't add any demand... Worse than that, it probably increases supply (because previously Devcoins were earned by hardcore enthusiasts, but now people just earn them and cash out), which makes them less valuable.
Which is what we see, right?
One problem which I mention is that all words cannot be sold for the same price.
Let's start with the fact that it doesn't make sense to buy words. They are all in dictionary.
It makes sense to pay for results, not for words.
Writing in english costs more to produce than other languages due to the high cost of living in these countries.
It doesn't matter much... English ads pay more too... Also there is a plenty of people who know English all around the world.
FYI I'm from Ukraine. Do you find my English incomprehensible?
I think you don't understand what Devtome is trying to do.
Here's all I need to know:
http://devtome.com/doku.php?id=devcoin#historySince pure charity didn't work, devcoin was changed to a beneficial organization, similar in concept to a benefit corporation. Devcoin would primarily fund open source projects whose revenue would be converted to devcoins, and secondarily fund open source developers with no expectation of future revenue. This has been successful, and at the time of this writing in August 18, 2012, the devcoin market capitalization is about 0.00000140 BTC/DVC * 2,720,400,000 DVC = 3,809 BTC, of which 90% * 3,809 BTC = 3,428 BTC went to developers. The first open source revenue project is devtome, whose potential advertising revenue is small but growing.
In other document it says that Devtome is supposed to get 90% of total bounties. Which means that Devtome is supposed to be a cash cow.
There are more writers available than just about any other kind of worker so monetizing writing is an excellent way to grow market cap.
This is bullshit, we shouldn't measure availability of workers, we should measure prospects of revenue.
Content farming is a very competitive business and it's very hard to get any profit off it.
An excellent way to grow market cap would be a killer app. A service which will be in high demand.
As far as I know, we don't have any proper cryptocurrency-based prediction market yet, so if somebody would launch a prediction market which works only with Devcoins, a lot of people will buy considerable amounts of Devcoin to play on it.
The problem isn't that Devtome is offering nothing in return, go read some of the articles and you see it does offer something. The problem is the math is unsustainable,
Well, "math is unsustainable" because it isn't working according to the original intent. The point was not to grow number of
writers, it was to grow number of
readers. And it is not easy because there are insane amounts of content on the web, so chances that somebody will go to devtome for content are low.
It can only work if you offer some unique content in some niche, so you'll get plenty of returning users and viral marketing...
So again, you need to understand that number of writers is irrelevant. Just one talented writer can make unique content which would attract millions of readers. So number of writers
does not help devtome/devcoin.
if the growth of Devtome actually somehow is making Devcoin and the shares less valuable then it's going exactly backwards.
Yes, if you target growth of number of writers. But if you read the original intent, it was actually about the growth of
revenue.
The only way it would be able to improve the value for Devcoins is to literally charge people per article per view.
There are better ways to do it.
But that approach would be undesirable on a philosophical level
Please re-read the article about Devcoin and come back. Where does it say that it will pay to everyone? What kind of shitty philosophy?
Particularly, you should read how it works for developers:
http://devtome.com/doku.php?id=devcoin#developer As you see, is rather hard to get your project financed by Devcoin, even if you write code.
Devcoins are granted only for good accomplishments. ... They are not deserved or given for lines of code or hours of work.
That was the original philosophy... Pay-per-word you see on devtome exists just because it was easier to manage.
and unsustainable as well because once again there are infinitely many Devcoins and the inflation rate is just too high.
As a mathematician (M. Sc. in applied math) I can tell you that it is NOT a problem. Asymptotically, we're going to have zero (monetary base) inflation in the long term. If you take into account that some coins are lost, inflation will be negative.
In the short term... Let's say Devcoin exists for two years. It will take two years to double the monetary base. Don't you think we can double demand for Devcoin in two years?
When Devcoin will be 10 years old, per-year inflation will be ~10%. Let's assume that there is no extra demand... 10% inflation is bad if you want to keep savings in this currency. But if you wage goes from $50/hour to $45/hour in a year, it is tolerable.
But do you seriously think that demand cannot grow at 10% per year rate in 10 years?
Do you think that, say, 1% per year growth is better? That doesn't make much sense because at start growth is high, but it slows down...
