

Ask HN: Facebook Credits Alternative? - zackmorris

Hi All, I want to make a collaborative website that uses credits (purchased with cash) that can be redeemed at any time for a small fee (perhaps 10%).  So far all I can find is Facebook Credits, but they charge an exorbitant 30%, probably following Apple's lead.  I would have to charge something like 40% just to stay in business and I just don't see users wanting that.<p>I could easily implement something like this myself but would have trouble sleeping at night with hacking so prevalent.  I think that what we are really paying for is security, at least the sense of it, because facebook can provide a privatized form of FDIC insurance with its billions and billions of dollars.  We are basically paying them protection money.<p>So my question is, that since there is a nonzero probability of any website being hacked, perhaps we have been looking at this the wrong way.  Is the main thing preventing websites from using their own credits - a lack of insurance?
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Keverw
Second Life does something like this using the Linden Dollar. Also the rate
changes based on factors, kinda like how the Euro value will change over time.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Second_Life> might be a good read to
see how a real company is doing this. Also in the
TOS(<http://secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php?lang=en-US#tos5>) basically says
the own all the money. So depending on the legal wording maybe the lack of
insurance isn't that big of a deal but it might cause trust issues. I'm not a
lawyer so i'm not really sure, just think the Linden Dollar might be a good
example to research before creating your own type of money.

