Quote from: brush242 on March 04, 2014, 08:22:14 PM

briefly: You set up a non-profit association whose only purpose is to validate that people are who they say they are. 100% voluntary.
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I gave you a real-world example.

The connection of OMIVA to the proposal you sketched previously was not at all clear.

I'll go into a lot of detail below to explain why what you have proposed is not simple, and far more expensive and susceptible to corruption than what I just proposed.

But in essence, it sounds like you propose a "traditional" non-profit business version of the network organization I previously proposed trying to implement via network-distributed tasks. I set that aside as possible but more complex than I would like.

OMIVA would find the identification task just as complex, but would also be slower to get started, more expensive to operate, and less likely to provide sufficient internal cross-checking to prevent corruption, than the network organization I previously suggested.

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So your proposed OMIVA model is analogous to Underwriters Laboratory.

UL is voluntary only in the sense that their customers voluntarily seek their inspection and stamp of approval - it does not provide free services. It is a trusted brand/mark only because consumers understand that UL's future income rests on maintaining their reputation as a trusted inspector.

UL has relatively few customers compared to the potential global 'market' for TheCoin distributions - so the size of organization you are proposing is necessarily much larger. Creating such a global organization from scratch would not be quick or easy, which would be a major limiting factor on spread of TheCoin distributions.

It would also cost a lot to create and operate. Who would pay for OMIVA? That is - what future business might they lose if they became corrupt and started validating false identities in return for a 50% cut?

If it is the identity-verified coin recipient, and OMIVA is corrupted anyhow, what happens to all the people who had honestly gotten verified by them? Do we discard their identities and make them to pay for new ID verification? Even if TheCoin recipients somehow don't have to pay for the service, they might be cut out of the distribution until a replacement validation organization gets around to re-validate them.

What happens if OMIVA is subverted from inside by a short-sighted crook - not necessarily the whole company, just someone with the right access controls - who doesn't care about OMIVA's reputation, but just wants to grab a quick personal fortune and disappear? What keeps its field agents honest? High pay perhaps?

Does OMIVA have a monopoly, or would there be multiple ID agencies? If it is only OMIVA, the disruption of any corruption would be universal and massive. If there are multiple competitors, the likelihood/frequency of corruption increases even if they are all somehow qualified. If anyone can start a validation company with no qualification process, you are pretty much guaranteed that crooks will jump into the business. And if there are multiple agencies, what prevents someone from creating a different fake ID with each?

Which brings us to the question of how OMIVA agents verify personal and unique identity.

- By residence? What if someone moves and doesn't tell OMIVA, but goes to a new OMIVA agent in their new town to create a second identity for a double distribution? What if a group of 4 friends share two addresses under 8 different names to get double identities through two different OMIVA agents? (Lying to landlords and other potential witnesses and spending time in both places to create a convincing facade)? Does OMIVA check up on people at frequent random intervals (increasing its expenses)? How can it tell if those 4 friends have other names and another address, if they spend time at both addresses?

- By Government issued ID? What about places that have none? There are also those who will produce good fake IDs for a fee. Also, a big part of TheCoin system is an attempt to end-run around dependence on and limitations of governments.

Etc.

Quote from: brush242 on March 04, 2014, 08:22:14 PM

It increases costs because people a) have to do something, and b) that something seems like a pain. Plus opportunity costs.

Effort is not cost. As for whether TheCoin is worth the opportunity cost - that would be for each potential TheCoin recipient to decide. For someone unemployed with zero income, I think I know the answer.