Do you remember Makerfox? The moneyless marketplace that we invented, and that let a group of Edgeryders volunteer worktime in exchange for a 800 USD ticket for LOTE3?
Well, the project was never dead, it just evolved. My brother has been working tirelessly on it, while I have assisted with ideas and concept finding. So there was Makerfox, then it evolved into something called Task Exchange, and now finally into PayCoupons. It’s public, you are welcome to use it. I’ll be available in the comments section for answering all questions about functionality and uses.
But in short, this is what I imagine that PayCoupons can become for the Edgeryders community: a tool that lets us realize many more of the ideas and projects we have in mind. Because it allows a very flexible collaboration: a bit like crowdfunding on steroids. Just like crowdfunding it allows P2P support, it allows everyone of us to pitch in with small amounts of resources and even when they don’t have the time or skills to volunteer directly. But unlike crowdfunding, it does not rely on money but on “coupons” (rights to a specific person’s products and services). While money is scarce, coupons are abundant since everyone can create their own coupons “out of thin air”. Feels like being your own central bank Actually I’m really excited about this tool: I think it’s finally one that can realistically break the power of “always scarce” money, which so far has been our only main tool for economic collaboration. (And sorry that I have to break it to you, but Bitcoin is also of this “always scarce money” type.)
For more details, I have written this blog post today that explains five use cases in more detail: trading DIY products and favours, donations, collecting funding and investments.
For those interested in the technology: yes, it’s still our original network barter invention that is powering this new iteration. Since coupons are “fluid” (able to be split into arbitrarily small parts), network barter performs exceptionally well here, unlike in the Makerforx platform where we also had products and product-like packaged services that could not be partitioned. Now, with 20 people and 4 orders per person, a simulated network barter event will fulfill 70% of all open orders. (“Order” means here somebody entering a higher target balance for a specific type of coupons in their PayCoupons wallet.)
Anyway. For now, you may register, look around and explore the PayCoupons platform, and post your open questions here. I’ll share instructions (and a real-world example) for how to use PayCoupons to make your own project happen in the next few days. Stay tuned