Re: Web payments design philosophy

On 10/14/13 9:22 PM, Manu Sporny wrote:
> At the prompting of Pindar, we're going to start writing some of this
> design philosophy down, if for no other reason than to provide new
> participants in this list a web payments design primer.
>
> The very first rough draft is now available here:
>
> https://payswarm.com/specs/source/design-principles/

Good idea, and IMO well laid out and written, and I agree fully with 
sections 1,3,4, and 5.

But section 2, "Maximize Competition", puzzled me, and I'm not sure I 
agree with its assertions, or whether it's a necessary goal -- or, to 
put it another way, whether achieving the goal of your example about 
banks requires the stated beliefs about competition. In section one 
you've already made it clear that individual empowerment is the first 
priority: "The Web Payments technologies should focus on empowering 
the individual, local groups, and large organizations, in that order."

I did a thought experiment, and replaced the word "Competition" with 
"Cooperation" in the whole of section 2. I found it just as plausible 
as a goal for this group:

+++++++

2. Maximize Cooperation

Cooperation simultaneously drives innovation and commoditization of 
technology. If the goal of the Web Payments group is to empower the 
individual and get the technology to as many people as possible, then 
the standards must attempt to maximize cooperation. Keep in mind that 
this is different from merely promoting cooperation. For example, the 
standards could be written in such a way as to only push banks to 
cooperate with each other. However, maximizing the cooperation would 
enable a larger group than just banks to cooperate in order to provide 
financial services to customers. Ultimately, the ideal scenario is 
that the financial service is designed so that the individual doesn't 
need a 3rd party to gain the benefit of the particular service.

++++++++

So why not have that version as well? Or instead? Or is either one a 
necessary philosophy, given what the other sections say?  Competition 
versus cooperation seems like a form of the capitalism versus 
socialism debate, which, I'll venture to suggest, isn't appropriate or 
necessary for the web-payments mechanism to be completed. Can't we 
just leave them both out?  :-)

Steven Rowat

Received on Tuesday, 15 October 2013 17:32:41 UTC