And there's no justification for greed... except for human nature, so is that a design flaw? Could people be bidding XRP up because Ripple itself is difficult to understand?

Anyway, I believe I understand it, and I am unmoved by the anti Ripple arguments based on ideology or pre-mining, but I think it is even harder to explain to consumers than Bitcoin.

Coinseeker, can you summarize why you believe Ripple is iTunes in your analogy? IMO, iTunes was successful because it made it dead SIMPLE to purchase digital music at fair prices, not to mention it was tied to an incredibly well designed piece of hardware, and backed by a monstrous ad campaign. If you agree, how exactly does Ripple change the game like iTunes did?

I'm genuinely curious as I have no dog in the fight (never mined anything), and while I believe in Bitcoin, I'm certainly no fundamentalist.