While the boys and girls will play with their proprietary snake oil, the men and women will focus on the real market. The perfectly innocent law abiding citizens falsely accused by the snake oil peddlers.

This can not be emphasized strongly enough: the underground economy employed half the world’s workers as of 2009, and is growing rapidly.

Every time a new startup launches, or a new software project announces, ask one question: “Does this new thing improve the black market?”

If the answer to this question is “no”, then the thing is useless.

So bring on the money laundering, tax evasion, drug marketplace, and unregulated taxi service software. Anyone who isn’t actively working to expand and empower the informal economy is wasting their time.