
ChangeTip must die - bakli
http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/12/17/changetip-must-die/
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jessedhillon
This article fails on two basic points:

1\. The fees can be collected on transfers which occur between two members of
the network without funds leaving the wallet. That's clearly the long-term
goal of any network -- to grow to the point where everybody is on it.

2\. The stated goal of ChangeTip, as seen in their videos and materials, is to
replace advertising and other indirect ways of monetizing content with a way
to directly express support for creators.

Advertising is a model whereby content creators get vanishingly small amounts
of money for views, while having to place their content next to third-party
claims and pitches which they do not endorse. Historically this has been
because the rates on payment processing have dwarfed the actual value that a
single article or video view delivers to a single consumer, so asking for half
a penny was not feasible. You can express that level of support with BTC
however.

~~~
exelius
> 2\. The stated goal of ChangeTip, as seen in their videos and materials, is
> to replace advertising and other indirect ways of monetizing content with a
> way to directly express support for creators.

Then they will run into the same fundamental problem everyone else who has
tried this did: the current Bitcoin implementation cannot handle the
transaction volumes required to make this viable. This is the elephant in the
room with decentralized currencies, and nobody's come up with a good solution
yet.

Advertising rates for content will eventually stabilize. If the ad rates for
content don't make it worth producing, people would stop producing it.
Consumer content microtransactions simply aren't going to happen at any scale:
it doesn't matter how low the cost is, any time you attach a marginal cost to
an activity, you make them aware of the value proposition and the fact that
there's a transaction happening. Mere awareness of a transaction is too much
friction when you're talking about fractions of a cent. Counting half-pennies
is just not worth my time (ironically, half a penny is in the same ballpark of
current advertising rates).

~~~
triplenineteen
> Mere awareness of a transaction is too much friction when you're talking
> about fractions of a cent. Counting half-pennies is just not worth my time
> (ironically, half a penny is in the same ballpark of current advertising
> rates).

Couldn't this be solved with some kind of automation? It would take some
standardization but what if clicking the ubiquitous "like" button on a piece
of content sent a configurable amount of btc to the content creator?

~~~
icebraining
It's what Flattr does - they've been around for much longer, and they have an
embeddable button that you can use to tip pages.

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doctorfoo
Oh, it's that guy that hates everything.

ChangeTip is _cool_. It is a Bitcoin killer app. Like it or not, _giving_
tips, even to people who don't need them, is fun. And for every person who is
tipped who may not want or need it, I've seen some kid who is quite happy as
they realise they've just been gifted something worth a few dollars. And then
their journey into Bitcoin begins as they try to figure out how to actually
spend it.

~~~
emin-gun-sirer
It's critical to not conflate Bitcoin with ChangeTip. The two are, in effect,
separate currencies. One is decentralized and backed by the blockchain, the
other is centralized and backed by a company.

A litmus test for centralized currencies is to ask the question "can they
create wealth out of the thin air by manipulating a database entry?" The
answer is affirmative for ChangeTip. To their credit, they maintain proof-of-
reserves online, so while we do not know the amounts held by their users, we
have an idea of how much they can pay out. I applaud the transparency they
have shown.

I won't respond to the drive-by ad hominem.

~~~
doctorfoo
> I won't respond to the drive-by ad hominem.

For the record, I appreciate your technical critiques! But you seem to take a
perverse delight in being the critic.

~~~
emin-gun-sirer
>For the record, I appreciate your technical critiques! But you seem to take a
perverse delight in being the critic.

Ok, so you enjoy the technical content but disagree with the tone [1]? I can
understand that. I genuinely feel sorry I don't have the time to build
rapport. Many other bloggers regurgitate things we all agree on and make
everyone feel warm and fuzzy inside. I figure that enough people already do
this that I only need to chime in when the group-think is headed south.

[1]
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Graham's_Hierarchy_o...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Graham's_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.svg)

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mcintyre1994
It's hard to argue against tip bots if you look at Dogecoin. Everything
charitable, everything unique, everything that got them in the news was
because they nailed tipping.

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freework
Most tips I see are not "fractions of a penny" but rather the standard seems
to be 1000 bits which is like 32 cents. I often see people tip a dollar or
more.

Secondly, I can never understand why some people get so offended by someone
giving them a small amount of money. When you go to the coffee shop to buy a
$2.40 coffee and are given $0.60 in change are you insulted by the cashier for
thinking you needed that 60 cents?

~~~
astrodust
If you just got a $200 haircut would you tip $0.60?

Throwing $0.0001 at someone for their commit on a project is insulting. I'd
rather have a unicode thumb or a +1.

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Buge
> last month's craze in the Bitcoin world, a new service for tipping people
> online, called ChangeTip.

It's not new. I's been around for a while.

~~~
mhluongo
They've suddenly grown a ton, and they recently raised a round.

EDIT: My point being, most people are just now hearing about them :)

