

One guy tries to live for a year solely on virtual money - dbEsq
http://pavlovskitchen.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/how-long-can-you-live-on-virtual-money/

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Gormo
What is the difference between virtual money and real money?

If he is able to get by using "virtual" currency, isn't he just demonstrating
that it is actually real money?

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aaronbrethorst
I'm the co-founder of the company mentioned. Feel free to let me know if you
have questions, whether they're business-related or technical.

We're treated as a barter exchange by the IRS, and play by the rules set forth
in there. Namely, transactions are treated as taxable, and we're required to
provide 1099B forms to all involved parties at tax time.

Also, we're located at <http://dibspace.com>

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Flankk
I am weary of these alternative currency systems. You are giving away "money"
to people for signing up and posting offers; you are giving new users other
peoples' goods for free and creating fake money as compensation.

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aaronbrethorst
There's no arm twisting or deception. Everyone who signs up is aware of what's
going on.

Lots of the businesses on Dibspace think of it as a marketing expense that
happens to provide very real and tangible side-benefits.

We've had a number of incredible customer success stories with Dibspace, like
this company: <http://ecomoversmoving.com/>

The founder, Grant, started his business with nothing more than a borrowed
moving truck and a couple thousand bucks in his pocket in Spring 2009. He
learned about Dibspace through a Seattle Times article, joined up, offered his
services and had more customers than he knew what to do with within a couple
months. Last fall, he told us that his biggest concern with his business was
how to manage the growth he was seeing.

Grant was able to offset thousands of dollars of capex/opex by trading our
virtual currency for real stuff and services. Sure, if he'd been able to get
US Dollars, he could've used them for the same things, but he was dealing with
the same chicken and egg problem every new business wrestles with: how do you
acquire new customers to pay for things like a website or a logo when you're
just starting out and don't have any customers?

You have no reputation on Yelp.

You have no cash to get your name out there.

You don't have a network of existing customers to lean on for referrals.

Getting those seed customers can be incredibly difficult. Grant totally lucked
out: turns out people are far more willing to spend 'funny money' than real
money, especially during a down economy. He acquired his first batch of
customers, got tons of positive reviews he could point prospective customers
to (<http://dibspace.com/businesses/667-Eco-Movers/reviews>), and got tons of
word of mouth referrals.

When Grant was ready, he just _turned off_ his offers on Dibspace. When his
business gets slow (which happens occasionally), he creates new Dibit offers
and fills his schedule back up.

Whew, that was more long-winded than I intended it to be.

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DanHulton
Oh god, turn off the Snap! previews.

I'm sorry, but I'm distracted from the content so much by those.

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hernan7
A new version of DotComGuy ?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DotComGuy>

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spoiledtechie
Be interesting to see if he could do it. Imagine living in the world where you
don't have to actually pay the IRS. Never use money again.

One could live in his house or on the road and never need to settle down. Just
the fact they have internet can be his way of surviving.

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pbhjpbhj
Bartered transactions are taxable in the UK.

I'm not sure how practically they'd find you out. It would probably cost more
to establish your bill than you'd end up paying, but I'm lead to believe that
if you exchange a cow for goods from a VAT paying business then that business
owes the country 17.5% of a cow, etc. Similarly for income tax.

I guess it works like inheritance tax really - they assign a value to the item
and tax proportionate to that value.

