camosoul
Well-known member
As I accidentally began to realize while posting in the v12 announce thread...
We're looking at adoption all wrong.
DASH is too fancy and complicated to educate up front. Due to trolling and scamming, nobody wants to hear that their clonecoin doesn't do what they think it does due to guv propaganda used to catch dark markets. You can't reach them that way.
But, DASH doesn't have to. I'm going to take you on my wandering mental journey, because there are ideas in it that aren't used in the final conclusion, which might be useful for other stuff.
The general idea is to get DASH into retail establishments FIRST, then let people find out about how great it is afterwards. Most people jump into things without even looking, then get burned until they learn, or they cry about how they got burned and run away asking for guv to hold their hand and make it better... This has been the story of crypto. Those who stay, realize it's pretty much useless as a currency, and sit around the pump/dump scamming/trolling exchanges. This is what got DASH delisted... It's stable, like a currency, not a BS speculative scam investment of people trying to pass their empty bags around... DASH has become the odd-one-out because it's useful and stable! It's not another hit on the exchange crack pipe, and the addicts aren't interested in food...
Let them jump into DASH because they saw a sign, and then be pleasantly surprised as they learn, instead of burned and regretting it... Lets not approach the crypto community with this. Lets approach the people who aren't addicted to the not-currency-at-all exchange crack pipe.
I used to work in POS Support (Point of Sale). It's an ungodly mess of band-aided horseshit that never gets built into a real solution. Ever. It's part of why I swore off IT years ago. As long as it just barely works, nobody cares about fixing glaring security problems. If you had any idea how your credit and debit card data was being (mis)handled, you'd never use one again.It's basically being handed out... Most so-called "security" relies on nothing more than general public ignorance of how things work... Cash is much safer.
I was thinking of how the hell would you reliably integrate into the mess that POS is. Most people in IT will tell you that they dread doing any POS work because it's a house of cards, at best. The only real way any retail establishment is going to let you in the door is if you can prove you won't mess up their POS house of cards. There are contracts with processors, too... Petty stuff like a logo...
I was looking at 3 major things... Gas Stations, Fast Food, and Department Stores.
Initially, I wrote off Gas Stations as being the hardest, because there's no way the Card Processors, which generally own the pay-at-the-pump hardware, are ever going to intentionally let a competitor in.
Then, just as I started to think about my experience with Federated Systems Group (Macy's etc, IT division), it hit me.
Solve the problem by ignoring the problem.
Most gas pumps have a central controller that is either networked or RS232ed to the cash registers. Some old-school stations still have the separate machine they punch in "Pump 4, $20."
A Raspberry Pi plugged into that machine and the Internet (or just the network adapter as the networked machines would be) could facilitate the transaction completely outside of all the rest of the POS bullshit. It could control the pump directly, just like the cashier you hand the $20 bill to, but without handling any money. InstantX -> Pump turn on. Done. We obviously need an instant conversion system, like bitpay, because retailers are still of the mindset that fiat is "the real money" and they want "real money." Bitpay does it, we could facilitate it, too. Meh, complaince... Bitpay does it, so there's a way...
So, I came to this trying to come up with a way to make an android device interface with a cash register, but ended up bypassing it altogether. I think this is a good move because it puts a piece of hardware on the network that we can then work with to allow purchase of other items in the convenience store later on. We get into retail by bypassing the clusterfuck that POS is, and then can grow into it on a client-by-client basis. By then, we've got what we need to go after the systems where we have no choice but to integrate with the existing POS hardware. Makes the process into smaller bites instead of biting off more than we can chew.
I thought about having devices, kiosks, etc where you go to pay, but then I realized, duh, people can just buy gas directly on their phone with a dashpay app. No hardware at the retailer's site other than the raspberry pi! Nothing to worry about breaking, vandalizing, maintenance. No real expense at all... Pis are freakin' cheap. Just stick a custom-printed sign in the front, kinda like those annoying election signs. "DASH ACCEPTED HERE - dashpay.io" and plug the Pi into their network/gas pump controller. Done. Have a google maps interface to the "DASH GAS" app... Pick the gas station, pick your pump number, pick a dollar amount, InstantX at the current conversion rate, you've paid for the gas and the pump is turned on before you even get out of the drivers' seat. The Gas Station owners are happy because they don't have to worry about being robbed, an employee handling the cash, drive-off, card fraud, counterfeit bills... Doesn't interfere with any of their current POS stuff so no worry about upsetting their POS house of cards mess... They get paid not merely instantly, but in advance! They have the "deposit" before you even open the car door. No logos or other hardware on the pumps, so no contract concerns... It's exactly what it says it is, Cash, but better. For both the payor and the payee.
These places often have mock stores in their IT offices where they demo rollouts of new hardware and firmware updates, etc.
We get already-deployed platforms that let us grow into the bring-it-to-the-cash-register-and-pay retail world.
Once we're good at that, then we can go after Wal Mart, Home Depot, McDonald's...
It would be so easy for us to cover the deployment costs, it's just a Raspberry Pi and a couple wires. I think the budget proposal system can handle that...
The only way any of this works is with an inside sales approach. Someone with boot on the ground where they need it, who sees it their way, and gets paid by the outside source. This is probably not a job for one person, and is unlikely to be cheap... Fortunately, it's the only real expense...
We need to avoid multiple conversions. DASH -> BTC -> FIAT is going to be too suck. It's gotta be DASH -> FIAT.
I was looking forward to buying a sailboat and living out the rest of my life floating between sandy dots in the Caribbean living off of my masternode payments... But, I would totally do this. There are some aspects of this for which I am a shoe-in, others not so much. But I have a passion for this beyond money. If I knew for a fact that after doing this for 2 years, I would get cancer and die, I'd still do it...
Brainstorming isn't FIFO, especially with a multi-core brain... I'm sure there's a better way to outline this. I have an 8 core 8088 for a brain, so don't think I'm bragging about it...
We're looking at adoption all wrong.
DASH is too fancy and complicated to educate up front. Due to trolling and scamming, nobody wants to hear that their clonecoin doesn't do what they think it does due to guv propaganda used to catch dark markets. You can't reach them that way.
But, DASH doesn't have to. I'm going to take you on my wandering mental journey, because there are ideas in it that aren't used in the final conclusion, which might be useful for other stuff.
The general idea is to get DASH into retail establishments FIRST, then let people find out about how great it is afterwards. Most people jump into things without even looking, then get burned until they learn, or they cry about how they got burned and run away asking for guv to hold their hand and make it better... This has been the story of crypto. Those who stay, realize it's pretty much useless as a currency, and sit around the pump/dump scamming/trolling exchanges. This is what got DASH delisted... It's stable, like a currency, not a BS speculative scam investment of people trying to pass their empty bags around... DASH has become the odd-one-out because it's useful and stable! It's not another hit on the exchange crack pipe, and the addicts aren't interested in food...
Let them jump into DASH because they saw a sign, and then be pleasantly surprised as they learn, instead of burned and regretting it... Lets not approach the crypto community with this. Lets approach the people who aren't addicted to the not-currency-at-all exchange crack pipe.
I used to work in POS Support (Point of Sale). It's an ungodly mess of band-aided horseshit that never gets built into a real solution. Ever. It's part of why I swore off IT years ago. As long as it just barely works, nobody cares about fixing glaring security problems. If you had any idea how your credit and debit card data was being (mis)handled, you'd never use one again.It's basically being handed out... Most so-called "security" relies on nothing more than general public ignorance of how things work... Cash is much safer.
I was thinking of how the hell would you reliably integrate into the mess that POS is. Most people in IT will tell you that they dread doing any POS work because it's a house of cards, at best. The only real way any retail establishment is going to let you in the door is if you can prove you won't mess up their POS house of cards. There are contracts with processors, too... Petty stuff like a logo...
I was looking at 3 major things... Gas Stations, Fast Food, and Department Stores.
Initially, I wrote off Gas Stations as being the hardest, because there's no way the Card Processors, which generally own the pay-at-the-pump hardware, are ever going to intentionally let a competitor in.
Then, just as I started to think about my experience with Federated Systems Group (Macy's etc, IT division), it hit me.
Solve the problem by ignoring the problem.
Most gas pumps have a central controller that is either networked or RS232ed to the cash registers. Some old-school stations still have the separate machine they punch in "Pump 4, $20."
A Raspberry Pi plugged into that machine and the Internet (or just the network adapter as the networked machines would be) could facilitate the transaction completely outside of all the rest of the POS bullshit. It could control the pump directly, just like the cashier you hand the $20 bill to, but without handling any money. InstantX -> Pump turn on. Done. We obviously need an instant conversion system, like bitpay, because retailers are still of the mindset that fiat is "the real money" and they want "real money." Bitpay does it, we could facilitate it, too. Meh, complaince... Bitpay does it, so there's a way...
So, I came to this trying to come up with a way to make an android device interface with a cash register, but ended up bypassing it altogether. I think this is a good move because it puts a piece of hardware on the network that we can then work with to allow purchase of other items in the convenience store later on. We get into retail by bypassing the clusterfuck that POS is, and then can grow into it on a client-by-client basis. By then, we've got what we need to go after the systems where we have no choice but to integrate with the existing POS hardware. Makes the process into smaller bites instead of biting off more than we can chew.
I thought about having devices, kiosks, etc where you go to pay, but then I realized, duh, people can just buy gas directly on their phone with a dashpay app. No hardware at the retailer's site other than the raspberry pi! Nothing to worry about breaking, vandalizing, maintenance. No real expense at all... Pis are freakin' cheap. Just stick a custom-printed sign in the front, kinda like those annoying election signs. "DASH ACCEPTED HERE - dashpay.io" and plug the Pi into their network/gas pump controller. Done. Have a google maps interface to the "DASH GAS" app... Pick the gas station, pick your pump number, pick a dollar amount, InstantX at the current conversion rate, you've paid for the gas and the pump is turned on before you even get out of the drivers' seat. The Gas Station owners are happy because they don't have to worry about being robbed, an employee handling the cash, drive-off, card fraud, counterfeit bills... Doesn't interfere with any of their current POS stuff so no worry about upsetting their POS house of cards mess... They get paid not merely instantly, but in advance! They have the "deposit" before you even open the car door. No logos or other hardware on the pumps, so no contract concerns... It's exactly what it says it is, Cash, but better. For both the payor and the payee.
These places often have mock stores in their IT offices where they demo rollouts of new hardware and firmware updates, etc.
We get already-deployed platforms that let us grow into the bring-it-to-the-cash-register-and-pay retail world.
Once we're good at that, then we can go after Wal Mart, Home Depot, McDonald's...
It would be so easy for us to cover the deployment costs, it's just a Raspberry Pi and a couple wires. I think the budget proposal system can handle that...
The only way any of this works is with an inside sales approach. Someone with boot on the ground where they need it, who sees it their way, and gets paid by the outside source. This is probably not a job for one person, and is unlikely to be cheap... Fortunately, it's the only real expense...
We need to avoid multiple conversions. DASH -> BTC -> FIAT is going to be too suck. It's gotta be DASH -> FIAT.
I was looking forward to buying a sailboat and living out the rest of my life floating between sandy dots in the Caribbean living off of my masternode payments... But, I would totally do this. There are some aspects of this for which I am a shoe-in, others not so much. But I have a passion for this beyond money. If I knew for a fact that after doing this for 2 years, I would get cancer and die, I'd still do it...
Brainstorming isn't FIFO, especially with a multi-core brain... I'm sure there's a better way to outline this. I have an 8 core 8088 for a brain, so don't think I'm bragging about it...
