Re: From W3C's eCommerce Interest Group of the 1990s to Today's Web Payments Discussion

One of the biggest things that ever happened to banking was the introduction of eftpos / automated tellers.  

One gigantic walled garden.

The web certainly hasn't caught up yet, and the benefits of standards far outweigh other market based mechanisms around owning specified technologies / ontologies, in a manner that does not support accessibility, security and related capabilities.

Wallets have been build and included in various forms on operating systems for years.  I can't remember the date of first "wallet" app that became available on windows,  but it was a long time ago.  Then look at the success of PayPal.  Not like the banks or merchants have done well out of that outcome.  Even with tv, with the emergence of VOD, video store operators, gambling networks, adult entertainment, cable tv companies and telcos all battled to get the first working "eftpos" (shopping capability) into the lounge room TV set.  FreeTV, and the new standards for HybridTV are a good example of how standards support democracies. TV, still available free (or with license, etc.  I'm Aussie...)

Webscale solutions are needed.  Bitcoin, as a marketing product kinda proves that.  Yet people most-often don't understand what can be done with block-chains; commonplace thinking seems to be as the "mind position" bitcoin = a new currency, applied to the likes of silk-road, or mt.gox. 

The underlying technology is still not very well understood by many.  In fact this week, I got my head around triple private keys, which certainly solved some problems - but took a while to figure out...

Computers have always been extremely effective photocopiers, since the days of the first floppies as far as I remember.   There's a nexus of technology development coming together in the present, which I think gives enormous merit to the effort of defining / deploying standards for web-payments, now; required "provenience tech" simply didn't exist, or wasn't ready to consider.  I also think that post gfc, and the adoption of rdf by major search providers the platform is changing in a way that stimulates an opportunity that simply exists, and is relevant.  More and more people feed their families by working on computing devices, outside of offices, often on creations that are delivered, digitally, or if not rely upon a digital, internet connected device to forfil agreements relating to an act of commerce. . 

No payment system is neutral, I'm Aussie and I'm giving one example, I'm also an earthling and perhaps that only really matters when considering things like world banks, human rights and good will towards others; reality probably states that most mfg's in Asia (and elsewhere) are slowly developing improved means for drop-shipping products, which is a force of change throughout retail markets (and knowledge sectors more broadly).  Overall, The main thing is binding payments to the laws of the people, which has a direct link and subset of relevance in an array of tangential concepts.   I still do not think the bitcoin brand ("bitcoin currency") has managed that very well, nor has PayPal.  I think the biggest issue with bitcoin is the used of it as a currency rather than leveraging the blockchain.  Could be a 1mBTC transaction, and still support banks better than alternative technologies, with a bit of rdf, or whatever.  

I also believe using crypto proof of work / proof of stake tech. As currency, risks an energy race, which haunts back to those 51% attack issues.  

Philosophically, it gets down to this in my mind.

If it were a choice between money and knowledge which is preferred.  One might consider that without the knowledge of money, knowledge of the transaction, knowledge of how to use that money purposefully, the money is far less of a token than a token with a principle based upon knowledge over money / currency.

Secondary benefits of knowledge one would hope has a relationship to money / currency, often this is not the case, often people simply need the knowledge of how to cut / copy / paste, but that doesn't work so well with a block-chain...

Remove all the money, people with knowledge are still useful.  Remove all the knowledge, money doesn't matter anymore.

In terms of markets, I'd look at the areas where knowledge associates to transactions poorly.  Receipt technologies is one example, which of course can link directly to loyalty program's and other uri's.  Using graphs, these systems can become extremely valuable to all participants.

The most simplistic examples could be a like button for an email, or a digital postmark / stamp.  They're still struggling with secure email systems, even the pony express only took-off once the person sending the message paid for the stamp.  

The biggest area of innovation i believe, that should be intrinsically considered is the IPR area.  

Priority dates are not very accessible, especially to some inventor working in a shed or under a lamp for so many months they finally "get it working" as they deplete their funds.  Lawyers are most often expensive, and simply putting a set of data across a system that gives a digital alternative to sending registered mail has merit.  

A more sophisticated usecase is all those small shops, who would love to have their customers tap their NFC tags at checkout and create a digital relationship with that store, selecting the way in which they want to,interact with the store.

If it cost 1mBTC (or 1mRWW-coin) to send an email to someone, in a way that helps it get prioritised.  Even if w3 ran a coin not for the value of it, but to reduce spam, might not help tomorrow but over the course of a decade, we'd know when / how things got issued.

Another question does come around the energy saving. The concept of keeping the web energy efficient.  Each piece of unwanted material pushed at an IP address, burns more energy. 

If there's a ASIC sha256 "arms race", that'll also have an energy cost.

However I think their just small elements of a broader lifecycle.

Web, payment & linked data standards are needed.  Rww is needed.  Webid's are needed.  

Working on technology (that is patented, etc.) that provides verified EoI, KYC (etc);  It's not simply the tech, but also the operation of that tech, which requires an array of "licenses" (or agreements), with an array of different parties.  Some of that stuff that integrates with banking systems has high-level requirements, including anti-money laundering, and a raft of purposeful requirements that makes the world (broadly speaking) a safer place.  I do not see that piece of it specifically, being the core objectives of web-commerce standards.  Once funds leave a "banking institution" or are transmitted between "banking institutions" on the basis of a digital promise / agreement, one better hope that agreement is water tight.  Beyond the commerce aspect to it, are an array of digital systems that support relationships and other facets. Relating to trade.

The accountability issues are enormous. From checking the right part is shipped or produced through to warrantee. In australia, they use thermal receipts.  It's quite difficult to keep a receipt for a product with a 2 year warrantee, where that receipt is required for warrantee purposes, and the thing, by virtue of the system is designed to fade; that's just one example.

Another might be how these systems could be used to look at the total energy value of a product.  If it's cheap, but lasts 6 months, the effective cost might be higher than something that's slightly more expensive and lasts 6 years.  Or from a factory that doesn't dump it's untreated waste down local rivers, even solar panels become less environmentally friendly in those types of circumstances, but accountants surely need the data in-order to take it into account.

So, the way I look at it, is that once commerce data is on a www point of presence, authorised to a person / legal entity, then the fun starts and the game is to make it useful.

That in my mind includes integration support for all the existing POS software / system vendors. Each industry, in each territory has different aspects they all do differently.  A "shop" in future (if not now) will need presence beyond their doors.  Many today have trouble setting up a Facebook page, or getting their shop / business, listed in google.

Another facet is that they'll likely be an array of proprietary systems in-place to do part of the job, for the specified systems vendor.  Services that assist them in remapping their systems also seems to make some sense too...

Something I'm still thinking about is whether the identity is also the wallet.  I am still fixed on the notion of persona, but regardless of how many accounts and Chinese walls people have to manage their affairs, is it one in the same thing.  

Is kudos, a currency.  Is breathing.  Certainly difficult to survive without commerce.

Timh.

Sent from my iPad

> On 22 Apr 2014, at 9:26 pm, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On 22 April 2014 13:16, Anders Rundgren <anders.rundgren.net@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 2014-04-22 11:58, Hannes Tschofenig wrote:
>> > Hi Joseph,
>> >
>> > those are indeed very good questions and I hope someone can share their
>> > views.
>> >
>> > After the workshop I was also wondering what exactly makes the payment
>> > topic difficult. My impression is that the technology is the easy part.
>> > Everyone can come up with a new data model, new protocol extension, and
>> > crypto protocol. The tough part seems to be about finding the right mix
>> > of incentives for various parties to deploy the technology.
>> >
>> > It would have been useful to learn more from those who had been involved
>> > in some of those efforts to get a better understanding of why things
>> > failed.
>> 
>> Hi Hannes,
>> 
>> You don't have to walk particularly far to see why there are problems:
>> Although Android is open source the Google Wallet code and architecture
>> has AFAICT not been released to the public.
>> 
>> That is, a payment protocol, code etc. is usually tied to a business.
>> 
>> Getting existing players supporting an open and neutral payment system
>> is a daunting task.
>> 
>> Right now we are awaiting 100+ mobile payment start-ups to fail.  Most of
>> them claim the have unique patents as well.  In fact, if you ask a VC
>> for funding and say you want to create an open non-licensed payment
>> protocol they will probably think you are insane :-)
>> 
>> Regarding the tech-part I disagree.  To date *nobody* have succeeded
>> connecting the web and payment cards except through proprietary and/or
>> secret methods.  There are efforts in W3C to do that but IMO they probably
>> won't succeed because payment cards weren't designed for the web and
>> "the big three" have chosen another path (although they keep mum about it).
> 
> +1
> 
> The web is a great match for payments.  This is the first effort that I've seen that promises to be truly scalable.  And payment systems tend to become more valuable as they start to scale.
>  
>> 
>> This is BTW the biggest fail of all since this is the sole reason to
>> why we still toil with authenticated card numbers and ridiculous
>> clear-text passwords like CCV.
>> 
>> Anders
>> 
>> >
>> > Ciao
>> > Hannes
>> >
>> > PS: The IETF has also done work in this area and it also failed:
>> > http://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/trade/charter/
>> >
>> > On 04/07/2014 01:15 PM, Joseph Potvin wrote:
>> >> Further to the wrap-up discussion about the creating on an Interest Group
>> >> http://www.w3.org/2013/10/payments/minutes/2014-03-25-wrapup/
>> >>
>> >> Does anyone on these lists have the "two-decades view" of W3C
>> >> involvement with this topic?
>> >> http://www.w3.org/ECommerce/
>> >> http://www.w3.org/TR/EC-related-activities
>> >> http://www.w3.org/ECommerce/Micropayments/
>> >> http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-jepi
>> >>
>> >> Three questions:
>> >>
>> >> 1. What happened to those original efforts towards a W3C Specification
>> >> on eCommerce that would have included specifications on web payments?
>> >>
>> >> 2. What should we learn from substance and fate of those earlier efforts?
>> >>
>> >> 3. Is there a need to "start" a new IG?  Or might the W3C eCommerce IG
>> >> just re-convene, update its charter, and carry on?
>> >>
>> >> Joseph Potvin
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Stephane Boyera <boyera@w3.org> wrote:
>> >>> Dear All,
>> >>>
>> >>> Thanks to the great help from the Web Payments Community Group and Manu
>> >>> Sporny, we just published a new cleaned version of the minutes of the
>> >>> workshop at
>> >>> http://www.w3.org/2013/10/payments/minutes/
>> >>> The agenda with links to slides and presentations is available at
>> >>> http://www.w3.org/2013/10/payments/agenda
>> >>>
>> >>> We are planning to circulate a draft report for your comments in the next 10
>> >>> days.
>> >>>
>> >>> Best
>> >>> Stephane
>> >>> --
>> >>> Stephane Boyera        stephane@w3.org
>> >>> W3C                +33 (0) 6 73 84 87 27
>> >>> BP 93
>> >>> F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex,
>> >>> France
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >
>