

Show HN: Earn Bitcoins with your t-shirt - verybadge
http://badgerhunt.com

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drcode
This idea is not viable as far as I can tell... Besides the obvious flaw of
this service (it is a centralized business, which compromises most of the
benefits a decentralized currency like Bitcoin has to offer) there HAS to be
an objective way to determine whether a person is fulfilling their obligation
to wear the tshirt. The only way I can think of to do that is to have "eyes on
the ground", a second group of people who are "verifiers" who monitor the
"badgers", and who are independent contractors willing to accept a very fluid
employment arrangement... at this point you are sort of hamstrung with bitcoin
because it has no significant smart contract system to encode the
responsibilities of the various parties (the verifiers, badgers, and
badgerhunt.com)

Until a cryptocurrency-based smart contract system becomes established (such
as ethereum or codius) I just don't see how this type of business idea is
going to be feasible (but certainly the roads of silicon valley are paved with
the bodies of people arguing this or that business model is never going to
work :-)

~~~
verybadge
We are actively working on a multisig scheme where advertisers won't need to
trust us with the money and we will only act as a pure middleman, signing
transactions when the campaign is completed. The scheme is relatively well
know at the present stage of Bitcoin development, but it still takes some time
to implement right. We ourselves are not interested in holding other people's
funds, it's dangerous.

~~~
drcode
Well, I guess I'm not too worried about the question "can badgerhunt run away
to Cuba with everyone's money", which is of course always a concern and is the
problem multisig solves... I just see that the incentives of a "badger" are
not aligned with the incentives of an advertiser- The incentives of a badger
are to PRETEND to advertise a product, in a way that requires the least
effort. Unless you can find a way to penalize "badgers" who cheat (through a
sophisticated independent verification and enforcement mechanism) I'm thinking
the compliance among "badgers" would be low.

On the other hand, if you DO have a way of providing such penalties in a cost-
effective way, this concept would have more potential... and the only
solutions I can think of still need more technology infrastructure to be
developed.

~~~
verybadge
That is a good question. But think about it, why would compliance be low? It's
not like you have to wear a giant rubber dick on your head to advertise
something. You only wear a t-shirt or put a bumper sticker on your car.
Possibly, of a brand that you might actually like. Where exactly is the
incentive to cheat? Sure, some people might cheat and there are ways in which
you can minimize this number of people which we've been discussing. But for
the majority, there's really no incentive whatsoever to not wear that t-shirt
and not fulfill their obligations.

~~~
drcode
Certainly, lots of people said airbnb customers & hosts would cheat like crazy
and were proven wrong. Best of luck to you.

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syswarren
Services like getchute.com use image recognition to make pictures with logos
available to brands. They mostly use the pics for online advertising. In a
sense, they broadcast the brand to a bigger audience than what you could make
with one person in the street and offer a way to track how many people have
seen / will see the ad.

How would you compete with those kind of services? What would be the
advantage(s) for a brand to offer free tshirts/stickers/caps to people so they
can become "living ads"?

This kind of sponsor/ad thing has been working with celebrities, do you think
everyone can be visible enough to be interesting for big brands?

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eli5
One thing I found a bit alarming is that the FAQ page says advertising funds
are held by the site. It's good they realize the threat though and say a
multisig solution will be rolled out. I hope this multisig solution will be
rolled out quickly, otherwise I don't see big advertisers trusting the site
with a lot of money.

~~~
chrisBob
This especially worries me for a site where the contact page doesn't list any
names or addresses. A site with no address that only wants BitCoin screams
scam to me.

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final_approach
So this looks like a dating site for advertisers and those who are willing to
provide some advertising space on their t-shirts. Seems to me, not a very new
concept. But somehow, I find it less humiliating then when people are dressed
as mascots for some real-estate agency. Decency preserved.

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prot
Slightly offtopic, but it's nice that the default option when signing up is
"Never send me news emails". Says a lot, in my opinion.

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uptown
Why involve Bitcoin into the whole thing? Couldn't you just use cash?

~~~
smoochy
I think it'd be impossible to do such a thing on a large scale with cash or
credit cards/paypal, especially if it perates worldwide. High fees, many
people unbanked, subject to lots of regulations depending on the jurisdiction.
That would be a major pain in the ass. Projects like these is where Bitcoin
shines.

------
Geee
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-tRPhxm41I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-tRPhxm41I)

