How do you think the Mahalo "economy" will evolve? Will people add a substantial amount of new dollars to the
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M$11 Answers
1. Many mahalo dollars in circulation will be passed around.
2. Some people will make it to M$40 and make a withdrawal, taking money out of the system.
3. The system will quickly get bled of the mahalo dollars currently in circulation, and also get spread thin as new members come in without mahalo dollars
4. There will be a shortage of questions asked for tips for a long while, with almost all questions being asked without tips.
5. If the site grows to an order similar to Yahoo Answers, we will see an increase in questions asked for tips. However, the number of questions asked for tips will not be reached until and unless the traffic grows at least 200 fold compared to today.
6. If the site never grows to that order, then almost all questions will be asked without tips permanently. Occasionally some adventurous people will invest money into Mahalo questions, dislike the responses, and then stop asking questions for money.
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M$The real challenges are:
1. After asking a question with a dollar attached does the person feel like they got MORE value than the money they spent. If they feel over-serviced--like they got an amazing deal--they will start asking question after question.
2. After asking a question without a dollar amount will the person be so DELIGHTED with the answers that they think "gee, I wonder if these answers will get even better with a dollar amount?" or "gosh, I gotta give these folks at least a buck for such a great answer!"
Our fate is in our own hands. If we answer questions in a serious, intelligent and professional manner folks are going to get addicted to asking questions. I've solved a number of personal information tasks on Answers in week one.
If I can solve 2-3 problems a week I'm going to post 150 questions a year for at least $1. That means I'll contribute $150 to the economy. I think there are 10,000 folks out there who will do the exact same thing *this* year. That's $1.5m injected into the economy.
Also, I think that out of the 150m American's online 20% of them would love to use a service like this a couple of times a year. So, there is a population of 30m folks out there who would participate in the US alone.
It will take us three years to reach them I think... but when we do we're looking at having millions of folks paying for answers to their questions--a month.
If I was a journalist I would ask three questions out of my own pocket for every story I did. Think about it, you could save 20% of your time for a fraction of the price.
Anyway, I'm getting crazy excited... I'm really impressed with week one and I know week two is going to be *insane* when we launch the three new features.
My insights as the creator of Mahalo.com :)
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M$However, as soon as people start realizing the potential of Mahalo Answers (by getting a service or answer that actually saves them money in the long run), things will really start to pick up.
Example: Imagine someone who needs to have a long text translated into another language, and the going rate for that service totals a couple of hundred bucks. They post it on MA and offer $100 for the task and someone gets the job done. Even if 25% of the money is taken by Mahalo, the asker has already saved a substantial amount of the money and the person who translated makes money too.
This is how all economies develop: supply and demand. It will be very interesting to see how the MA Economy develops as people start using it in different ways.
My 2 cents
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M$
I certainly hope that this will NOT happen! It's one thing to tip a few dollars for a quick answer. But for services that people make a living from? What translator (to use your example) who is any good will accept such a low-paying job? Who would trust the results from someone who undercuts fair wages by 60%? (I wouldn't hire anyone on Craigslist to do something like this either.)
My thought is - Will I need to pay taxes on my $30 of paypal money?
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M$
Seems like a question you or your staff might have asked already Jason????????? I mean, seriously. $20 million in reported funding, and you can't ask an accountant or lawyer a question like that to save your uber users from some serious tax related issues?
Well, other sites like CafePress and Adsense make you give them your Tax info before you get the money out.
Actually, the IRS does monitor things like PayPal so I highly advise paying your taxes. I'm fairly certain that folks who take out over $600 from the system will need to fill-out a 10-99 in fact (still researching that).
We live in such a great country that paying your taxes is, in my opinion, an honor.... but that's another question thread I guess. :-)
The law requires you to report that as income. I don't think they'd find out very easily though.
my hunch
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M$
Most high achievers are self-sufficient and produce an excess of knowledge and will tend to accumulate more Mahalo dollars than they need to spend on similar services (e.g. answers to questions). If you are unable to give them an opportunity to exchange their $M for something they value instead (be it product, service, or some other type of exchange value), they will tend to view $M has scrip or fiat currency that's not terribly portable.
One option Jason might have is to pull a Bernanke and print arbitrary new $M and "loan" it to Bank of Mahalo, causing an inflationary effect on the money supply and a deflationary effect on the value of a single $M, accelerating the situation by which people are allowed to ask more questions but removing the incentive for respondents who will see no place to spend their $M outside of a system that has been tilted to its edge.
Backing the $M such that a $M = 1/35th of a troy ounce of gold might be interesting, though. ;o) (see: Bretton-Woods)
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M$Econ 101
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M$
The trouble is, it's hard to make enough money to cash out (40 bucks is a lot of tips) Since they won't see the money for a few months most likely, the dollar has less value to them. Someone's much more likely to spend a Mahalo dollar that they earned than putting one in themself (It's also cheaper to do this).
A lot of questions are not merely questions you can research, they're opinion and ethic questions, so some still choose to spend. If every question could be googled, there would be no need for this site.
That makes no sense. I'm less inclined to spend my money because I _do_ want to cash out.
I know how to Google. Which is why I'm a good answerer. And which is why I don't need to spend $'s.
So, it's always going to be a bit of a gamble. But we know that.
I would like to make a prediction... that by May 1, 2009, Jason changes the payout from 75% to a higher number. (And I'll further predict that the payouts will be made at close to parity by January 1, 2010.)
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$Having said that, I'll definitely be watching closely to see what happens.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
The tipper doesn't experience any "devaluing," the person who gets the tip does. However, I'd look at the 25% as the cost of maintaining a system like this--which trust me as the CEO I can tell you is not cheap! There are 30 f/t folks at Mahalo, and another 40 or so f/t or close to f/t freelancers in the system.
25% is, in fact, a fairly reasonable charge in my mind. Other services on the web split at 50/50 or 60/40 typically (i.e. advertising networks like Google AdSense).
People would insert money into the system in order to ask questions for a tip. There are many reasons why you might want to offer a tip: More answerers, better quality answers, even offering thanks, etc.
Hi Jason--nice to hear from you.
It sounds like you are envisioning a system where some people--spend money and others receive it. I am new to the site, but I believe that most successful online communities do not differentiate between "askers" and "answerers"--the idea is that we're all experts in something, right?
In a system where everyone is an asker and everyone is an answerer, the money does indeed depreciate. Assume I ask a question and tip $1. Now I'm a buck "in the hole" assuming I got a decent answer. I'm going to want to earn that money back by answering questions. So, I answer a question and get M$1. Now I only have 75 cents. So, why would I tip a buck in the first place?
Once you've put money in the system, you've devalued it 100% to yourself, and can only hope the answer you get makes up for the 100% devaluation.
