Ripple is a closed source scam startup. Anyone who buys into that crap needs their head checked out.
The distribution of the XRP is the main problem. There are no clear rules set, Opencoin Inc. has billions over billions
of them and chooses how to give them away. At least with bitcoin the rules are set in the software.
The first giveaways were receiving up to 50000 XRP, now you get a few thousand if you are lucky.
This is very bad imho and makes the XRP exchange rates artificial high. Why not give out more XRP
to keep that somewhat stable. This also causes other problems, for example people buy XRP now
at super inflated rates thinking it will be Bitcoin 2.0, what if Opencoin starts to give away a few billions
on Facebook or so. XRP would probably drop pretty good in value and burn some people.
Also I don't like how it is advertised as open, while it is not (yes I know it is in beta blabla, bitcoin is too, so what, I can still look at the code)
Maybe the system should be reset with a fair XRP distribution system and the server opensource from the start, then I would like it :/
I understand that we are on a cryptocurrency subforum and so cryptocurrency is the main thing on people's brains, but is it really that hard for you folks to wrap your head around the fact that Ripple is a PAYMENT SYSTEM FIRST?
If it succeeds as a payment system then it its currency will take off and its founders will make a lot of money. So what?
Its strength is that it that its a distributed payment processing system for existing currencies. People that want to get into the money moving business can do so without investing millions of dollars in software development and overhead. This is its strength - moving existing currencies through a distributed payment system that doesn't cost much to implement.
As to not using mining and distribution...
While the scheme of creating "virtual mining" to mimic the difficulty of real mining was not only useful but brilliant, it is not the only way to "skin this cat" as they say, and it really depends on what you want to accomplish. In this case, as I've mentioned in my original post, they are using xrp as a sort of stock IPO (IMO). If the payment system takes off, they and all the early people involved in the "IPO" will be rich. If not, they won't.
This is not a "currency" launch, it's a payment system launch that has a currency attached to it. (maybe repeating myself will get this point through) Getting people to adopt this payment system will involve lots of work that involves a lot more than programming.