What if we used blockchain for... [Part 2 - funding public goods]?

in #ethereum7 years ago (edited)

capitol bild

I ended my previous post with a big question:

If decentralizing apps will create an ecosystem where such public-good-like platforms [like Twitter or SoundCloud] can thrive, would this also apply to other public goods, in real life (IRL), such as trash pickup or ?

This may be a bit anti-climactic, however, I don't believe that the blockchain will stretch this far. Public goods IRL ought to, simply for moral reasons as human beings, be provided to everyone, regardless of whether an individual has paid for the good or not. In the example of the garbage pickup, I might be a wealthy and successful business man and my neighbor might be someone who is down on luck in life and unemployed. If we both had to pay for garbage pickup, that might mean that I get mine picked up while my neighbor has to live with an ever-growing pile of trash. This would be morally reprehensible.

While certain goods and services might not synergize nicely with blockchain, this thought experiment certainly does inspire a number of use cases.

For example:

  1. Post New Year's street and park cleanups. Have you ever seen the amount of trash strewn about streets and parks after holidays like New Year's? While we do incentivize people to pick up bottles and cans with recycling deposits, it may be feasible to extend this to all types of waste pickup.

  2. Getting someone to install something at your home. Have you ever needed things installed, but didn't have the knowledge or tools to do so? I certainly have. Imagine if you could wire someone appcoins to come over and help you out with that.

In both of these cases, a dApp with similar features to TaskRabbit might do the trick.

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I think that some things, like Uber\AirBnB will do absolutely great on a blockchain but as always public services will follow last and not everything is applicable