Quote from: sharpshot on October 26, 2017, 08:21

Quote from: niktol on October 26, 2017, 07:23

The way I see it, bitcoin is just as fiat as government backed currencies. The only difference is decentralization. Right now it it still rather exotic, but the moment bitcoin (or any other similar product) becomes sufficiently trusted, stable and as popular as any local currency, the respective government isn't gonna just say, ah, the hel* with monetary policies, we give up. It's gonna be either criminalized or something similarly drastic is going to happen. So just make sure you sell it 1 hour before that happens.

China banned bitcoin exchanges and a few weeks later, its gone up another $1,000.  I think the only way to ban bitcoin is to turn off the internet, do you think governments can afford to do that?  Monetary policy has been used to delay inevitable problems and is making them worse.  Does anyone really think that governments continuously spending much more than they bring in, printing more and more currency and raising debt ceilings to levels that are astronomical is sustainable in the long term?

Doesn't matter what one thinks, if it's declared illegal, it's illegal. There's gonna be fines and sentences. And police forces to make sure you are where you are supposed to be. Try mess with IRS (I presume you are from the US), and face the consequences sooner or later, doesn't matter what you think about exorbitant income taxes.

You don't have to wait to do something what's considered illegal in your country if you take that Pablo Escobarish stance. There are many opportunities out there, a lot more profitable than stock photography.

I think it would be unenforceable without turning off the entire internet.  Do you think everyone using bitcoin is a tax dodger?  It's easier to track than cash-in-hand, the IRS are probably more keen to see bitcoin succeed, if it reduces people using cash-in-hand.  I'm from the UK and if I make any money from cryptocurrency, it will go on my tax form.

The way I see it, bitcoin is just as fiat as government backed currencies. The only difference is decentralization. Right now it it still rather exotic, but the moment bitcoin (or any other similar product) becomes sufficiently trusted, stable and as popular as any local currency, the respective government isn't gonna just say, ah, the hel* with monetary policies, we give up. It's gonna be either criminalized or something similarly drastic is going to happen. So just make sure you sell it 1 hour before that happens.

China banned bitcoin exchanges and a few weeks later, its gone up another $1,000.  I think the only way to ban bitcoin is to turn off the internet, do you think governments can afford to do that?  Monetary policy has been used to delay inevitable problems and is making them worse.  Does anyone really think that governments continuously spending much more than they bring in, printing more and more currency and raising debt ceilings to levels that are astronomical is sustainable in the long term?

Perhaps a percentage of the coins could be used to pay for reviewers, lawyers, marketing and anything else that's required?  All the good altcoins can be exchanged for bitcoin and that can be exchanged for dollars.  It's not much different to someone in the US being paid in euros and exchanging it for dollars.

The main problem I see is that this is all so new and the decentralised versions of eBay, Spotify, YouTube etc. aren't that impressive right now.  I think they will be in time but this is very early days.  The concept is revolutionary, not having the internet run by a few big corporations.  Having a way to compensate content providers without the huge fees to pay shareholders, investors, hedge funds etc. I think it will gather momentum, when most people can see the advantages. 

The alternative is to do nothing and watch a few big corporations take over everything and keep finding ways to make more money from us.  Was that really the way the internet was supposed to function?

Quote from: sharpshot on October 24, 2017, 16:18

Quote from: Pauws99 on October 13, 2017, 16:36

"That is unless an underlying and unforeseeable flaw in the tech is found, in which case bye bye bitcoin." You can bet there's some very clever people looking for just that.....

I think it was probably a group of people that invented bitcoin and they were almost certainly much smarter than the people that are currently keeping most of the fiat currencies going.  Even I can see the underlying flaw that might well cause most of the big fiat currencies to fail.  This might be scaremongering but it's an interesting read https://dailyreckoning.com/fiat-currency/

How do you know the creators don't know the flaw?

There were flaws but they are constantly being fixed.  It isn't a bit of code that has to be perfect forever, it can be changed.  Here's an example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SegWit

I did bring up ptop, blockchain and cryptocurrency not long ago.  I do think there could be a solution that works for contributors and buyers.  I don't think marketing would be a problem if there was a way to buy and sell image licenses that was much superior to the options we have now. 

I think it will take a few years for cryptocurrency to become more mainstream and it's going to be difficult to get people interested right now, as it's currently such an alien concept to the majority of people.  Perhaps if the rumours are true and Amazon start accepting Bitcoin, it will become more mainstream?

The vast majority of people that I talk to about cryptocurrency think I'm crazy buying into it but I think they're crazy keeping all their money in fiat currencies that are dwindling in value.  It feels like when I first started using the internet and most people thought it was a fad.  I suggest everyone here should stop thinking that the sites we currently use are our only option.  I never liked Symbiostock but that doesn't mean that some smart people wont come up with something much better.

Yes, now I just wish I had bought some more.  The real money now might be in altcoins that nobody has heard of.  I'm mining one called BiblePay that's worth almost nothing now but is very easy to get.  If that rockets, I'll be buying a Hasselblad

We talk about "virtual" money vs "real" money, when, in fact, most of our "real" money is in fact virtual, today. Banks are allowed to credit 10 times more than the physical money in circulation. So ~90% of what we consider "real", is already nothing else than bits and bytes in a server.

Even more: all money is nothing else than a product of our collective imagination, a fiction meant to facilitate trade between strangers. We often don't trust strangers as humans, but we trust their money. This is why crypto-currencies or, in other words, imaginary, virtual money can work as well, or as bad as "real" currencies. All are the same, in the end.

The only problem with the crypto-currencies is trust, the abstraction that makes "real" money work. Good (i.e. trustworthy) money has always chased away bad money, even when endorsed by local untrustworthy governments.

It might take a while before the market will trust these alternative currencies, even if free competition will be allowed.
However, this far from being the case. There are very clear signs that very powerful governments are not permiting a free currency market to flourish, in order to protect their money "printing" (or QE) monopoly.
I just read news about the US government accusing of money laundering individuals hosting crypto-currency servers, seeking their extradition and hundreds of millions of "real" money penalties.

In a lot of places around the world right now, there's more trust in bitcoin than the local currency.  Crooks use cryptocurrencies but they also use fiat currencies.  I found this interesting about some governments around the world that are going through the five stages of grief.

1. Deny it (it�s too small to have an impact, they say at this stage)
2. Ban it in anger (this thing is growing, we have to crush it)
3. Realize impossibility of a ban (because of their own corruption mostly, they use it themselves but don�t want the common folk to use it)
4. Try to control it, coopt it, and mold it to their likes. They believe their own illusion for a while and think they have managed to do it but the reality is they have lost control completely. (This is the stage the Cuban government is at right now with �El Paquete�)
5. Capitulation and collapse of the monopoly. The old regime is fundamentally changed or violently toppled.
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@cryptoeagle/why-china-or-governments-can-t-stop-crypto-how-chuck-norris-proves-this-fact-from-communist-history

I'm still unimpressed by the results from the searches I did.  It took too long for the second page to load.  It did seem like there was only one page of results.  Then I had no idea how many pages there would be.  There were still less images than on single sites, like Alamy.  It was a bit quicker when I tried it just now, so maybe the speed varies through the day?

It would help if you put the total number of images found on the first page but then I suppose that makes buyers realise there isn't as much to look at as there are on some sites and your USP for them has gone?

There's a never ending supply of dollars.  There will only ever be 21 million bitcoins and the market cap is currently much less than any of the big banks.  If it reaches only a fraction of its potential, it seems good value now.  If it gets mass adoption and takes over from visa, mastercard, paypal etc, who knows what the price will be?  It could be another bubble but it could also be an S curve.  It's a gamble but the best investors I know diversify and don't have all their eggs in one basket.  I have no problem putting a bit of money I can afford to lose into something that's high risk.  Never understood why people either have too much fear or take too much risk?  There is a sensible way to take advantage of a situation without losing much and having the potential to make a lot.  I would fear leaving my money to gradually rot away in a bank much more.

Quote from: PicturEngine-JustinB on October 06, 2017, 15:43

Quote from: namussi on October 06, 2017, 01:33

It is our goal to connect image buyers as close to the source creator (or agency that pays the creator directly) as possible, thus reducing the unnecessary intermediaries that exist in our industry.

Your search engine is an extra intermediary.

Not sure what you mean.  We are closing the distance gap between buyer and creator. Do you consider other search engines like Google or Bing to be "extra intermediaries"?  Or are they needed to find what you are looking for, in a sea of information on the web?

My focus is on:
1. A better, smarter image search. (we are working on that)
2. Helping image creators make/keep more money.

Yup. You're a more-focussed version of Google image search.

You are another intermediary for photographers who want to sell photos. At the moment, they can choose to sell through iStock, SS, etc. Or they can go it alone and set up their own websites to sell direct, and hope that search engines direct business their way, and that customers return to buy more.

Presumably you'd like more photographers to set up their own sites rather than selling through agencies.

If I remember correctly, the big sites can be included for free while contributors with a smaller collection have to pay?  Please correct me if I'm wrong.  That never seemed like a good idea to me, would be interesting if it was the other way around.  The big sites have big advertising budgets, they need to spend it on something.  Individuals aren't able to compete with their spending power.  Some big sites have decided to not use PicturEngine anyway, making it much less useful than it could potentially be.

"You have a currency that could change its value 50% over one day." or 100% in a few hours.....sure its been a great earner but there is a huge downside risk.

Yes, but you have to consider the risk with the traditional currencies too.  While almost everyone can see the risk with cryptocurrencies, the major fiat currencies aren't doing well.  What used to be called devaluation is now called quantitative easing.  The gold standard has gone, there's nothing backing the currencies up now.  Gold might be a good option but that's not easy to buy goods with on the internet.  People used to exchange shells and stones before coins and paper came along.  Maybe we will look back at this time and think how funny it was that governments printed our money, built up huge debts and never paid them off?

Quote from: sharpshot on October 09, 2017, 12:49

I don't think so, if we have our own site, we all have to pay for our own hosting, like Symbiostock that hasn't really worked.  The alternative is to all pay for one site and that's never worked on a large scale.  Then there's paying for marketing and it's just another site like all the others with no USP that's attractive to buyers.  Having our own currency is a USP.  Using blockchain technology for many things, like protecting copyright, is something other sites don't offer.  It's tearing up the way things have been done so far and coming up with a different solution.

Yes, but you make it seem like the servers and everything related to them are free. They have to physically exist somewhere. The only real difference here is the currency. And for regular people, that is not something positive, unfortunately. You have a currency that could change its value 50% over one day. Since people who buy stock products work regular jobs and get paid in regular currencies, there is an exchange that must happen at some point.

And is marketing free? No, you have to market where people look. Today, that's Google. They do business in USD last time I checked.

Yes, USD that seems to be losing its value all the time.  Printed by governments that have built up a massive debt and still spend more than they collect in taxes.  It's hard to get your head around cryptocurrencies and how they work but I found it impossible to understand how the banking crisis happened and how we all ended up in the mess we're in today.  There might be a time when a cryptocurrency is a positive thing for the majority of people.  I remember how weird people thought the internet was in the 90's and how most people thought it was a fad.  Things often change in time.  It might be a few years off but there's no harm in investigating it now.

It all looks good to me.  I like the new logo.  Just need to see sales picking up again now.  I think that's going to be a much harder task than the site redesign but I wish you the best of luck.