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I feel like this is the equivalent argument of "the internet will never support streaming video" from so many years ago. That is not to say that I agree or disa

I feel like this is the equivalent argument of "the internet will never support streaming video" from so many years ago. That is not to say that I agree or disagree with the result, but rather that you are trying to fit a new technology into way too broad a category. In twenty or some odd years, we might have the capability for computers to understand "if you mow my lawn I'll pay you $20." But lets leave that aside for now. The question really is: are there problems for which this technology can work? What immediately comes to mind is automated billing. Bills can easily be automatically paid with something like bitcoin. Now, if we extend that to performance based billing, we have something similar to what the OP was talking about: the contract can verify the performance and conduct the payments accordingly. Other areas where this might apply: loans, paying your share of the rent, or auction sites. In short, it has potential. That is not to say that it will replace written contracts any time soon, but rather that I think that it has the potential to do so sometime in the future.

verbify 13y ago
Did someone actually say that? I know people said all sorts of things that are now considered daft about the future capabilities of the internet, I wasn't aware streaming video was one of them and a Google search yielded no results.
rhythmvs 13y ago
Seconded. People are talking about a complete port of all the many messy pedestrian contracts of all day life, while missing out on the more practical opportunities programmable wealth has on offer in the networked digital ecosystem. Bounty hunts. Say, I am an activist, a revolutionary, or simply someone who wants the competition to go out of business. I want this website down, set up a cryptocontract that implements my bounty. People can join in and assign some more wealth to the contract’s escrow. The bounty will be transferred to whomever publishes his identifying key on the domain I want to see go down. Maybe I’ll include a clause that specifies an expiry date. Or I set a clause that such and such content should be published on the target domain. And so forth. Crowdfunded hacking attacks can become very soon very cheaply accessible, and consequently disrupt some very real-life existing social contracts…

verbify 13y ago

Did someone actually say that? I know people said all sorts of things that are now considered daft about the future capabilities of the internet, I wasn't aware streaming video was one of them and a Google search yielded no results.

rhythmvs 13y ago

Seconded. People are talking about a complete port of all the many messy pedestrian contracts of all day life, while missing out on the more practical opportunities programmable wealth has on offer in the networked digital ecosystem. Bounty hunts. Say, I am an activist, a revolutionary, or simply someone who wants the competition to go out of business. I want this website down, set up a cryptocontract that implements my bounty. People can join in and assign some more wealth to the contract’s escrow. The bounty will be transferred to whomever publishes his identifying key on the domain I want to see go down. Maybe I’ll include a clause that specifies an expiry date. Or I set a clause that such and such content should be published on the target domain. And so forth. Crowdfunded hacking attacks can become very soon very cheaply accessible, and consequently disrupt some very real-life existing social contracts…