So, I've been trying my best to learn about bitcoin and ripple lately as I have essentially no experience with either, but the concept intrigues me. I must say it is very difficult to find non-biased commentary and objective analyses in these forums.

I have a few comments and questions about ripple that I would like to add after reading this thread. I'll point out that I still feel I have a pretty poor grasp of how all of this works, so if anyone would like to jump in to correct anything I've said, please feel free.

One thing I'd like to point out is that I don't think we currently have anything like ripple in our economy. There has been a lot of mention of credit cards and debit cards and paypal and centralized currencies, but those are all different from what ripple proposes to be. On the topic of credit cards and debit cards, these are not free forms of payment. Everybody seems to be forgetting that a fee is charged with every transaction. That is how banks and credit card companies make money. And they make A LOT of money (more on that later). And sure you can get cash back or airline miles from using a credit card because the card companies are making so much more money than they are giving back to you in the form of miles. Somebody is paying for those rewards because AMEX isn't in the giving away free flights business last time I checked... The same goes for paypal; it's not free. Sure when I use my debit card or if I pay with my credit card through paypal it doesn't cost me anything, assuming I don't carry a credit card balance. But that is ignoring the bigger picture of how these payment methods are used in our economy. Somebody is paying a fee and the banks are making money.

Here is the part where I may be way off base, so please correct me if I am wrong. There aren't any fees with ripple. There is the small transaction fee that is destroyed, but it is supposed to be a fraction of a percent so as to have no real monetary value. If that is the case then ripple is absolutely different from paying with a credit card, a debit card, or paypal. Merchants would be flocking to this new payment system, meaning OpenCoin doesn't have to do any of the hard work that Discover or AMEX have had to do in order to force merchants to accept their cards as payment. It will happen on its own. The only "hard" part will be getting the general public to adopt it. But as people tend to flock to new technology it seems reasonable to think that there will be many people eager to try it out. Once adoption is widespread, why would anybody use paypal ever again? Why would you want to use a credit card for every day transactions or online transactions (exception noted for rewards, if that is your thing)?

The way I see it, ripple is just electronic cash. But the advantage is has over cash is that it doesn't have borders. Why pay a bank to exchange money when it can be done instantly with no fees? How else can this be accomplished other than with a system like ripple? Sure I can and do buy things from overseas with my credit or debit cards. The exchange rates are "competitive", but I'd rather not have to go through a bank to exchange money. Not to mention there are other fees that are typically associated with overseas purchases on top of what the bank makes from changing money. And I will admit that I have been caught in a situation where I needed cash and had to pay a fee at an ATM from another bank. Again, ripple would alleviate such a problem. In a way, it makes getting or paying with cash easier if you happen to run out.

As for the whole scam thing, I haven't really seen a convincing argument as to how exactly it is a scam. Simply saying that the founders aim to enrich themselves by hoarding XRP doesn't definitively settle the issue. Since there are no fees, why is it unreasonable that the founders of the system have a way to generate revenue? Visa earns billions of dollars a year from its business of skimming money from every transaction and charging ridiculous interest rates for lending money. The mere fact that the developers will be wealthy if the system takes off does not strike me as suspicious or scandalous in any way.

Please note that I am not taking sides here, I'm just trying to understand. Ripple seems like a good idea to me, and I'm having trouble understanding most of the proposed downfalls of the system. Again, I'm still trying to make sense of these types of currencies or payment systems, so if I am mistaken in my assumptions please feel free to add constructive criticism.