Voluntary economies
Last weekend at the Bar Camp Amsterdam IV there was an interesting presentation by Reinier Zwitserloot of TipIt on “voluntary economies“. Apart from the already canonical example of voluntary economics – namely, Radiohead’s release of In Rainbows as pay what you want – Reinier detailed some fashinating cases of profitable voluntary economics. For example, in the Dutch countryside you can still find unattended fruit stalls where you take the fruit and pay what you feel as the appropriate compensation. However, apparently it is not working as well as it used to be. Happens that folks not connected to the local community come by and “rob” everything the stall’s got.
As an experiment to try whether there is something to voluntary economies we have added buttons to both TipIt and Tipjoy to the right sidebar of this blog. Both of the tipping services are interesting in their own right. Go check them out even if you’re not willing to tip Scred. On the other hand, if you do find Scred useful, why not consider leaving us a small tip?
P.S. While voluntary economies are fascinating we are not entirely convinced. Respects to TipIt for building their product and business model on voluntary economics. Really eating their own dog food. Brave and commendable. However, we here at Scred are a bit more traditional when it comes to business models.
Thanks for the comments. It’s a fun talk to make and to give (I helped Reinier create it) and it has so many interesting tangents associated with it, that we could go on and on.
About the voluntarity: it’s already proven itself. People are giving money, people are receiving money and many of them are tipping Tipit a small share. But you’re right that it may not work for every site.
Yeah, it was a fun and informative talk. The guys here at the office were already giving me hard time with “hey, why are you so sceptical about voluntary economies?”
But scepticism aside I like the concept and am certainly willing to give it a try. Hence, TipIt and Tipjoy buttons on our blog. Should though add them to our site as well.
I agree that the concept has a lot of potential. In fact I’m fascinated by these kinds of alternative economic models so I hope to see it develop and flourish. I reckon you need to keep at it and keep talking about the big visions, as those are the things that spark people’s imaginations. Get the right niche areas first and you could easily find it taking off.
I think part of what Tuomas was saying is that basically, while we now have a TipIt button on the blog, our future calculations are not built on making our millions from that
However, it’s always nice to know that the site is appreciated so tips are most welcome.