Beenz vs Bitcoin

[the founder]

BEENZ:

The marketing and brand concept positioned Beenz as ‘the web's currency,’ global money that would challenge the world’s major currencies. The Beenz management team raised almost $100 million from venture capitalists including Apax/Patrickof, Larry Ellison of Oracle, Francois Pinault of PPR, Vivendi Universal, Italian financier Carlo de Benedetti and Hikari Tsushin of Japan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beenz.com

BITCOIN:

Building upon the notion that money is any object, or any sort of record, accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context, Bitcoin is designed around the idea of using cryptography to control the creation and transfer of money, rather than relying on central authorities.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page


Other than the open source nature of bitcoin,  in general terms what is the difference and why will bitcoin succeed where Beenz failed with $100,000,000 in VC backing?

Understand I am asking this in hypothetical terms and not because I believe Bitcoin is going down the same path as Beenz.. but I want your opinions.

[1715231891]

1715231891

[iamzill]

Beenz was centralized and not anonymous. 

[DeathAndTaxes]

I think Beenz lacks any similarity to bitcoin.

Beenz was a centrally planned economy.

The Beenz corp was the only entity which could "sell Beenz" (give Beenz, collect dollars), and "buy beenz" (give dollars, take beenz).  The buy & sell rate were artificially fixed and a 3% spread was impossed.  The business model was that the company would make 3% on beenz -> dollar conversion.

Beenz served no purpose, had no advantage over credit cards or paypal.  It existed solely to allow the owner to profit.  It gave neither the merchant nor the consumer any advantages.    Worse it locked them into a propreitary monopolistic system.  While the vig was only 3% if beenz ever caught on the company could increase that any % and there would be absolutely nothing any entity could do (except stop using beenz). 

The company made it that they were the only entity who could exchange beenz for USD.  Imagine if the founder of bitcoin decided to design the system such that he and only he could exchange bitcoins for dollars.  Would you even be on this forum today?

The only similarility was that both bitcoin & beenz are  harder to use than CC/paypal as very few merchants accept them.  However w/ bitcoins one has the ability to trade to/from fiat currencies from any entity you wish.  

At least w/ bitcoin that "difficulty" is offset by advantages (p2p network, low fees, anonymous transactions, no central authority, self healing nodes, etc).  Beenz simply impossed additional cost & restrictions and offered absolutely no advantages.

Simply put beenz served no purpose and had no advantages and thus it failed.

Imagine tomorrow I started DeathPal.  It works just like Paypal except the fee is 300% of what Paypal charges.  It offers no advantages over paypal and keeps all the existing limitations.  Say I get $100M venture capital money. Do you think I am going to replace Paypal?

[BkkCoins]

My guess, from the wikipedia article:

"a professional economist was employed to model the behaviour of prices and flows of money in this micro-economy, and keep it healthy."

[the founder]

How about from a regulatory standpoint what's the difference?

[wareen]

How about from a regulatory standpoint what's the difference?

I'd say the major difference is that there's a (central) issuer/redeemer of the "currency". At least in a current German AML draft-law this is one of the defining properties of an e-currency which Bitcoin clearly does not possess.

From the Wikipedia-article:

However, at the time, this was fraught with difficulty as some countries (such as France) expressed a view that such alternative currency schemes were undesirable and that they would seek to prevent them from operating.

Interesting - especially in light of the current Mt. Gox trial in France. Does anybody know details about the statement above?

[Gabi]

why will bitcoin succeed where Beenz failed with $100,000,000 in VC backing?

Very easy, beenz was created in 1998. How many people had a connection to internet back then? Or better, how many people had a computer?? Or better, how many people knew what a computer is in 1998? (like oh it's the thing they have in universities and in nasa)

So you had no computer so you used beenz...mhh... no you couldn't.

And let's go buy something, i take my smartphone and i pay...no wait, smartphone in 1998? No.


I had a computer back then but no internet connection.

[evoorhees]

The primary Unique Selling Proposition of Bitcoin (as opposed to Beenz, or Paypal, or anything else) is the decentralized control structure. With Bitcoin, there is no "counterparty risk." No corp or organization or individual could be shut down in order to shut down Bitcoin. This advantage cannot be overstated. Consider egold... it had all the safety of gold, but it's weakness was that it was the liability of a company. The company shuts down, the system is gone.

Bitcoin being a decentralized peer-to-peer protocol makes it vastly more powerful, flexible, and perhaps unstoppable. That's why I own it.

[the founder]

evorhees,  that however doesn't answer the question...   in 1998 France came down on Beenz... and now over a decade later.. first bitcoin lawsuits are in France again..  with our luck same judge..  lol

[DonnyCMU]

Can Beenz payment be reverse/ chargeback?

[Gabi]

And a lot of the dot com bubble things went poof for the same reason: nice idea but very few ppl able to use it

The same ideas today, with pc, netbook and smartphones all connected to internet, would work much much better

[greyhawk]

Very easy, beenz was created in 1998. How many people had a connection to internet back then? Or better, how many people had a computer?? Or better, how many people knew what a computer is in 1998? (like oh it's the thing they have in universities and in nasa)

[evoorhees]

evorhees,  that however doesn't answer the question...   in 1998 France came down on Beenz... and now over a decade later.. first bitcoin lawsuits are in France again..  with our luck same judge..  lol

This illustrates the point perfectly. Let's assume France outlaws Bitcoin entirely. What office do they seize? Which servers do they shut down? Who's bank account do they raid?

Certainly this would hurt Bitcoin, and in the specific case you're referencing it would hurt MtGox, but it can't kill Bitcoin.

The Office of Bitcoin cannot be closed. This makes it fundamentally (and that word deserves extra emphasis) different than something like Beenz, Paypal, or egold.

[Anonymous]

Beenz: The value is guaranteed only by one fallible entity. Adoption and use is only as good as the marketing budget and software team. Value is not guaranteed.

Bitcoin: Tool that creates and stores value like precious commodities such as Gold and Silver through decentralized digital adoption. Software is directly regulated and modified by the public at large. It's literally as good as gold. Value is guaranteed.

[the founder]

Value is guaranteed.

I have to admit the "value is guaranteed" is open to debate on 40% swings in price every 12 hours.

[Anonymous]

Value is guaranteed.

I have to admit the "value is guaranteed" is open to debate on 40% swings in price every 12 hours.

Well the value has grown over 1000x since the inception of Bitcoin two years ago. I think it's safe to say it's still ahead albeit going through a growing pain.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Value is guaranteed.

I have to admit the "value is guaranteed" is open to debate on 40% swings in price every 12 hours.

Well the value has grown over 1000x since the inception of Bitcoin two years ago. I think it's safe to say it's still ahead albeit going through a growing pain.

That isn't a guarantee.  Those that bought BTC @ $30+ can they exchange them back for $30 cash ea?  If not then there is NO guarantee of value.

[Anonymous]

Value is guaranteed.

I have to admit the "value is guaranteed" is open to debate on 40% swings in price every 12 hours.

Well the value has grown over 1000x since the inception of Bitcoin two years ago. I think it's safe to say it's still ahead albeit going through a growing pain.

That isn't a guarantee.  Those that bought BTC @ $30+ can they exchange them back for $30 cash ea?  If not then there is NO guarantee of value.

There is enough support for Bitcoin at the moment in terms of computing power and adoption that it can be said that it will reach $30 and beyond eventually. The Bitcoin source code has been examined over and over and there is millions of dollars put into the blockchain. If there is a major flaw that's going to stop this thing dead cold, it would of happened already.

You can say that a return in their value is highly probable.

[evoorhees]

You can say that a return in their value is highly probable.

That is very different than a "guarantee of value"... 

Gold doesn't have a guarantee of value either. Guarantees are actually only possible with an attached liability of a counter-party. The fact that Bitcoin has no guarantor is, like gold, one of its strengths. The claim of a guarantee is both factually incorrect and wholly unnecessary.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I now agree. It is a poor choice of wording. However, it can be said commodities hold their value historically well. Bitcoin is likely to show the same trait.

[Gabi]

Very easy, beenz was created in 1998. How many people had a connection to internet back then? Or better, how many people had a computer?? Or better, how many people knew what a computer is in 1998? (like oh it's the thing they have in universities and in nasa)

Do you realize that the image technically prove my point?  

Sure, i too had a computer with windows 95 (and before 3.1) but no internet connection.

[evolve]

How many people had a connection to internet back then? Or better, how many people had a computer?? Or better, how many people knew what a computer is in 1998? (like oh it's the thing they have in universities and in nasa)

what the fuck are you talking about? almost everyone i knew had internet back then....sure it was aol, and on a 28.8 or 52k modem, but it was internet nonetheless....

lol, i almost miss getting aol disks in the mail every other week.



i had a computer over a decade before that:



here it is in all its glory; a tandy 1000.....


oh the '80s....you were awesome

[Gabi]

I got it like in 2000

and it was 56k so i used it only like 1 hour a day and not everyday

[the founder]

could you imagine downloading the blockchain on your first startup of the client on 28.8 or 14.4 ...  or 9600... or gulp 2400 baud... or with the first modem I had .. 300 baud..

It would take on a 300 baud modem about 6 months to 1.5 years .. maybe longer...  as if a modem would stay connected that long...  


regardless it was unfeasible then...  bitcoin even if invented then wouldn't stand a chance because the technology was too immature...  technically it would have worked (IE: the internet was available) but it would be so freaking slow it wouldn't be useable.

regardless however,  the same problem that was with Beenz is with bitcoin.. because it's not a technical problem.. the problem most likely resides in Washington DC,  Paris,  London, Moscow, Beijing, Warsaw, Tokyo and any of the other capitals,   lawmakers don't like it.

They might not really care AS MUCH if there was some IRS (in the US) guideline on how taxes should be used.    Internally we treat it as if it was a Precious Metal like Gold or Silver.. and account for it that way and pay taxes as if it was.

Not sure however if we are doing the right thing.. we are however trying our best to comply with non-existent guidelines. 

[the founder]

this was mine:



10 print "I am so cool with a computer"
20 goto 10

[BitVapes]

This thread is now a "post your first computer" thread


Here's mine, cartridge BASIC and wireless chiclet keyboards ftw

IBM PCjr

[greyhawk]

Mine. Not kidding. Yeah, I'm old as fuck.

[Boussac]

That tilted space bar is drawing tears of nostalgia from some of us  

About beenz vs bitcoin : I believe the cash burn rate is much in favor of bitcoin.

Beenz was like a proprietary version of micromint, no ? Or a failed combination of today's Paypal and Flattr.

Bitcoin will live because it's a transaction processing network on top of being a currency.
It can fail as a currency and succeed as a tx proc network: I have posted this humble opinion ever since I am trolling around this forum and yet I keep seeing the topic of an imminent demise of Bitcoin.
Can anyone of the many Paypal-sponsored trolls explain to me HOW bitcoin would fail ?
I have read many bogus reasoning like contention of "shrinking" activity (just not even factual).

[rampone]

Mine. Not kidding. Yeah, I'm old as fuck.

shit, am I old, becuz my dad let me play some real hardcore 3d reality games (....) on that machine when i was about 3 years old..?

with 4k Ram you would need a huge cluster of PETs for the blockchain

[bosschair]

This thread is now a "post your first computer" thread


Here's mine, cartridge BASIC and wireless chiclet keyboards ftw

IBM PCjr

Motherfucker, is that a 128k upgrade I see on the side?  You rich bitch!

(PC Jr: me too)

[cbeast]

Not my first computer, but my first marital problem.

[payb.tc]

i got one of these as a starting point:



couldn't afford a monitor and at the time my parents only had a small black & white tv to use it with.

i was a bit late to the internet compared to my friends because i had to get dragged kicking and screaming away from my favourite bbs's.

[Rassah]

I don't think centralized v.s. decentralized matters much. My first thought:

Beenz - Small group of guys at the top REALLY hyped about it, trying to get a larger group of "common" people out here hyped about it as well.
Bitcoin - HUGE group of random common people REALLY hyped about it, trying to get a smaller group of guys at the top hyped about it too.
Basically, one was an idea trying to spread from a few at the top to the many below, while the other is an idea built from the bottom up. Beenz can fail if the small group of people doesn't convince the larger group of people. Bitcoin succeeded simply because it's already a larger group to begin with.

[julz]

I don't think centralized v.s. decentralized matters much.

I think that aspect is absolutely critical.  It's why I don't care to get into facebook credits, ven, or whatever wallet system/currency google starts peddling.

Even companies as massive as google and facebook will have trouble getting a really broad base of support across all countries - as just because you use them for one service, doesn't mean you want to use their 'banking' services.
Bitcoin stands a much better chance of growing a large and genuinely diverse base.

[Rassah]

I don't think centralized v.s. decentralized matters much.

I think that aspect is absolutely critical.  It's why I don't care to get into facebook credits, ven, or whatever wallet system/currency google starts peddling.

Even companies as massive as google and facebook will have trouble getting a really broad base of support across all countries - as just because you use them for one service, doesn't mean you want to use their 'banking' services.
Bitcoin stands a much better chance of growing a large and genuinely diverse base.

I'll boldly make the assumptive claim that most of the people out there don't actually understand money, or banking, or inflation, and thus don't actually care if it's centralized or not. To them, all their banking is already usually done from one single bank, so they are used to the centralized aspect of their finances. What they care about is convenience, marketing, and cool factor. Beenz failed with that. Bitcoin doesn't depend on that any more than Linux does (I use Windows btw).

[indicasteve]

I started with this: 



and a tape drive for serial storage.

I blew it up by trying to connect a remote control car up to the i/o port.    But it was cool cuz I got the Commodore 64 after that with a floppy drive.

We had a few computer clubs in town back then where some real enthusiasts came up with some pretty cool stuff.  Once the 386 was popular, many of us set op our own BBS and did the fidonet backbone mail thing.

Soon after that phase we got the windows 3.1 + winsock + internet thing it it all went to hell from there.

I said it before, and I'll say it again, "GOSUB FTW!"

[Cussmob_CUE]

the last page of this thread seems to have gotten wayyyyy off topic  a lot of people thinking they're normal when in fact they're merely exceptions to the rule.

look, bottom line is that computers weren't mainstream at all, i'd personally argue that computers weren't really a common thing in America until the first-person-shooter genre was really established when Half Life came out in 2000. Before then, there really was no need for a computer in most (note: MOST! just because your weird Uncle Richard had one does not make you "most people") households. For games, people mostly turned to gaming consoles (if it weren't for first-person-shooters coming out, game consoles would still be the exclusive place to find games, just like it was in the 1980s and the 1990s if you don't include CDI). For other stuff, they could use typewriters or good old-fashioned pen and paper.

Seriously, the fact that for most of this thread people have been claiming that computers were popular and "mainstream" just because they personally owned one or knew people who owned one is exactly why people often-jokingly say that this forum is full of trolls. I don't really think they're being serious about that, but threads like this make you wonder... 

[payb.tc]

Seriously, the fact that for most of this thread people have been claiming that computers were popular and "mainstream" just because they personally owned one or knew people who owned one is exactly why people often-jokingly say that this forum is full of trolls. I don't really think they're being serious about that, but threads like this make you wonder...  

if you had said 1995 i may have thought you were serious, but 2000? i'm sorry you had to grow up in that neighborhood where most households had no computer.

computers in sydney/brisbane households were most definitely mainstream by 1995.

[Cussmob_CUE]

Seriously, the fact that for most of this thread people have been claiming that computers were popular and "mainstream" just because they personally owned one or knew people who owned one is exactly why people often-jokingly say that this forum is full of trolls. I don't really think they're being serious about that, but threads like this make you wonder...  

if you had said 1995 i may have thought you were serious, but 2000? i'm sorry you had to grow up in that neighborhood where most households had no computer.

computers in sydney/brisbane households were most definitely mainstream by 1995.

Can you find a source for this? Sydney is a pretty remote location to begin with, even if it turns out that computers were popular there, I think it's safe to say that this was an isolated outlier, not really indicative of the rest of the world. I mean, the Virtual Boy was ridiculously popular in Japan, but it still bombed pretty much everywhere else, and resulted in the suicide of the guy who created it (incidentally, the lead designer for Legend of Zelda - really sad  ).

[payb.tc]

Seriously, the fact that for most of this thread people have been claiming that computers were popular and "mainstream" just because they personally owned one or knew people who owned one is exactly why people often-jokingly say that this forum is full of trolls. I don't really think they're being serious about that, but threads like this make you wonder...  

if you had said 1995 i may have thought you were serious, but 2000? i'm sorry you had to grow up in that neighborhood where most households had no computer.

computers in sydney/brisbane households were most definitely mainstream by 1995.

Can you...

no, as i just said, i don't believe you're being serious.

a lot of people thinking they're normal when in fact they're merely exceptions to the rule.

yeah actually i can think of one person that fits that description.

[BitVapes]

Motherfucker, is that a 128k upgrade I see on the side?  You rich bitch!

(PC Jr: me too)

stole the pic from wikipedia, mine actually was way more frankenstein - it was a triple(!) stacker, the middle part was a 3.5" floppy drive, the uppermost third was a 40 megabyte hard drive.   The floppy had a switch in the back soldered in so you could only either use the 5.25" or the 3.5" depending on where it was switched to.   On the sidecarts I had a couple memory expansions, a joystick card, and a hard drive controller sidecar with a big ribbon cable connecting it the hard drive on top.

all this stuff was added over several years, and I got the computer when I was like 10 from an uncle and it was already an antique by the time I got it, I think 486dx's were the top of the line at the time.  I wonder how fast a PCjr could mine bitcoins... 1 hash per day? lol

[Cussmob_CUE]

Seriously, the fact that for most of this thread people have been claiming that computers were popular and "mainstream" just because they personally owned one or knew people who owned one is exactly why people often-jokingly say that this forum is full of trolls. I don't really think they're being serious about that, but threads like this make you wonder...  

if you had said 1995 i may have thought you were serious, but 2000? i'm sorry you had to grow up in that neighborhood where most households had no computer.

computers in sydney/brisbane households were most definitely mainstream by 1995.

Can you...

no, as i just said, i don't believe you're being serious.

I really don't appreciate the insinuation here. Maybe I wasn't clear with my comment about "trolls" - I didn't mean I thought you, specifically, were a troll or anything like that, even though you posted in this thread. In fact my point was sorta the opposite - I'm sorry, I probably just wasn't doing a good job explaining myself. Basically what I meant is that - while I, personally, do not believe this - it's understandable that people think lots of people here on Bitcointalk.org are trolling, because a lot of the time people here say things that are sorta wrong, because they grew up in very exclusive communities and forgot that the outside world wasn't as "quick" with technological advances as they and their close relations were.

a lot of people thinking they're normal when in fact they're merely exceptions to the rule.

yeah actually i can think of one person that fits that description.

Are you accusing me of this? If you are, I really think you're being blinded by this weird hostility towards me which you seem to have. The truth is, one of my friends owned an Apple 2C, but - unlike some - I can see that he (and, by extension, my own personal upbringing / experience) was the exception, not the rule.

[BadBear]

i'd personally argue that computers weren't really a common thing in America until the first-person-shooter genre was really established when Half Life came out in 2000. Before then, there really was no need for a computer in most (note: MOST! just because your weird Uncle Richard had one does not make you "most people") households.

Computers weren't common in America until 2000?  How old are you, I'm guessing too young to really know cause that's most definitely not true.  AOL alone had a million members in 1995, 5 million in 96.  And that's just internet access from one company, a lot more people than that had computers.  

By the way, Half-Life didn't establish the FPS genre, Doom did (1993).  

[BkkCoins]

i'd personally argue that computers weren't really a common thing in America until the first-person-shooter genre was really established when Half Life came out in 2000. Before then, there really was no need for a computer in most (note: MOST! just because your weird Uncle Richard had one does not make you "most people") households.

This is simply an absurd claim. I sold computers retail from 1986 to 1990. They were very well established in a significant percent of homes even at that time.  While it may be true that lower income homes didn't have good ones saying they weren't common is completely false.

And some FPS game had nothing to do with them becoming common except to a very small minority of gamers. You see the world through your own tunnel vision and don't realize there is a far bigger world out there where people do use computers for more than gaming.

[Gabi]

Established? Check how many computers there were in 1995, then 2000 and then check for 2011

Also ok you had a computer but what could you do with it? Much less things than today. And no smartphones at all.

[BadBear]

Established? Check how many computers there were in 1995, then 2000 and then check for 2011

Also ok you had a computer but what could you do with it? Much less things than today. And no smartphones at all.

Nobody is saying there aren't more computers today, or that there were smartphones in 95.  Who are you replying to?  You should use the quote function.

[Cussmob_CUE]

I really don't appreciate the insinuation here. Maybe I wasn't clear with my comment about "trolls" - I didn't mean I thought you, specifically, were a troll or anything like that, even though you posted in this thread. In fact my point was sorta the opposite - I'm sorry, I probably just wasn't doing a good job explaining myself. Basically what I meant is that - while I, personally, do not believe this - it's understandable that people think lots of people here on Bitcointalk.org are trolling, because a lot of the time people here say things that are sorta wrong, because they grew up in very exclusive communities and forgot that the outside world wasn't as "quick" with technological advances as they and their close relations were.

Your an idiot.  You didn't need to be in an exclusive community to have a computer in 2000.  Hell AOL had 20 million subscribers in 2000 and they sure as hell weren't running them on typewriters.  That is when AOL was covering the planet with their 88930482390483904 hours free CD.  Magazines, newspapers, direct mail, etc.

And why do you think so many AOL CDs ended up in garbage cans? Does it even occur to you that there might be a reason people were joking about AOL CDs being worthless?

A computer in 2000 wasn't an ultra exclusive niche.  As others have pointed out your timeframe is wrong.  If you said 1980 or 1990 a personal computer was pretty rare but 2000?  Come on.

You sound like some idiot trust fund baby on his first day in the dorms. "Oh my god, what do you mean there's no jacuzzi? Everybody in my gated community has a jacuzzi these days!  ".

Who is trolling now?

I don't know, my money's on the vitriolic hothead who opens his post with "your [sic] an idiot".

[Rassah]

My grandmother had a computer starting with Win95. My parents had one since Win3.1. (I don't count, cause I'm a PC nerd). Practically all of our acquaintances had one, since they had to use them for word processing and stuff. By the time Win98 came out, I didn't really know anyone who still didn't have one. I do live in a middle class area though.

[bosschair]

And why do you think so many AOL CDs ended up in garbage cans? Does it even occur to you that there might be a reason people were joking about AOL CDs being worthless?

Haha, ok, kid, let's hear your theory about why the CDs were worthless.  It's because computers weren't popular yet, right?

You'd be embarrassed of yourself right now if you had enough sense to know what you don't know.  Computers were wildly popular before CD-ROMs were even invented, you retard.