Re: Bitcoin could be used to create a silkroad for books
It could work like this:
1. People go to the library, take some books home, and scan them in.
2. People who support the project donate some anonymous bitcoins.
3. The system automatically divides the bitcoins to each person taking part in the project each month. The more pages you upload, the bigger your share of the donations.
4. Continue until every book existing in the world is uploaded, for free, without any restrictions, in one amazing library for every person on the planet to access.
1. People go to the library, take some books home, and scan them in.
2. People who support the project donate some anonymous bitcoins.
3. The system automatically divides the bitcoins to each person taking part in the project each month. The more pages you upload, the bigger your share of the donations.
4. Continue until every book existing in the world is uploaded, for free, without any restrictions, in one amazing library for every person on the planet to access.
That might be doable but with the proliferation of PDF books, torrents and the Kindle reaching critical mass the price of physical books is sliding towards zero. Since I realized this I am selling my books on amazon and it is a losing battle to be the lowest priced seller.
I have over 150 books (mostly old) valued at over $10K (last checked little over year ago). I knew there was a race to the bottom then, but now, after reading your post, Andrew, I guess it's time to unload them. I'm thinking of doing that with either Alibris or another site to sell them for Bitcoin at a price point that would leave some $/
Come to think of it, some are rather rare and limited editions, therefore they'll would be perfect candidates for your SRB idea.
(this is not an image of the books I own--at least I don't think so)
Bitcoin: An Idea Worth Spending