DAC's vs. Firms. DACs win! They can have nearly all the advantages with none of the disadvantages -
You have it backwards. Any entrepreneur can copy any DAC. DACs are expensive to create, debug, run, and maintain. DACs are impersonal and inflexible.
Privacy, accounting trust, tax, freedom from confiscation/seizure are the advantages DAC's provide to shareholders as well as some customers who store value via DACs. I don't see how I have those advantages backwards.
Any entrepreneur can copy any DAC
An entrepeneur can easily copy the template for any online business, pirate content or even make copies of real world products. This is a revenue stealer and potential significant threat for DAC's or firms. Network effect + re-investment of profits in marketing & development, make it just as difficult for a DAC copy to usurp the orignal/market leader as it is to displace an online business created by a firm. (Not that Bitcoin is a true DAC, but it takes no effort to fork Bitcoin and even improve on it. But all the POW forks added together don't even equal 7% of Bitcoin's CAP.)
DACs are expensive to create, debug, run, and maintain.
The underlying Bitcoin software has been debugged, run and maintained for over 5 years without specifically setting aside any funds for that. I know of very few firms that have been maintained so cheaply and achieved $8 Billion valuations.
DACs are impersonal and inflexible.
With our slow equity release via delegates that BM is proposing for future DAC's. DAC's will be very personal, flexible and responsive. Shareholders will be deciding on who best to represent them and how to best spend funds in real time.
I concede that the best DAC's will via delegates choose to outsource some areas to 'firms'. (Such as customer service or perhaps via delegates hiring an ad agency. But this is what I mean by having the best of both worlds.)
Price - DAC's have the potential to undercut the market considerably in many areas. Lotteries - twice the odds of winning vs. conventional, Finance - 1/10th the price?
Once they exist, yes. Consumer demand is volatile, however. Building a DAC is too expensive.
Bitcoin, which can be viewed as an early form of a DAC, found a significant market and while volatile, as mentioned the POW forks don't even equal 7% of Bitcoin CAP.
Building a DAC is too expensive
BitShares is developing the foundation for DAC's in a range of groundbreaking areas such as banking, gaming, DNS & music. All of this from scratch, including building a toolkit for the entire industry and a market beating base blockchain. This will have been done in under a year from when they first started receiving donations and for under
$5 million. (The market is already valuing just their one BitShares X DAC which hasn't been released at
$20 Million. https://bter.com/trade/btsx_btc)
Also the legal requirements & approval often required with firms, that wish to operate for any length of time, means they often have the additional burden of legal costs and the disadvantage of time delays, often with an uncertain outcome that they'll even be allowed to trade at all.
Trust - Does Fort Knox have the gold? Is Lehman Brothers really solvent? Are Madoff investment securities accounting statements correct? Are those Cdft stock certificates real? (The main benefit of decentralised ledger technology for me is Accounting Trust.)
Matters for a bank (value-storage). Doesn't matter for a DAC (no "storage", sale is nearly-instantaneous).
No. Accounting trust matters to the shareholders of every single business in the world today. Even with independent auditors - misreporting, fraud/embezzlement/theft is a major concern.
Also many customers will be storing value in some form too -
Lottery DAC- they will need accounting trust that the funds will be there to pay out the winners.
Insurance DAC - Will obviously require accounting trust that the funds are there
Music DAC - Investing in songs and their future revenue requires accounting trust for period of investment.
DACs also provide tax, confiscation & privacy benefits & have the advantage of being border/'jurisdiction-less'
Wrong again. SilkRoad was a firm, not a DAC.
I never said SilkRoad was a DAC? If you're under the illusion firms offer the same advantages, maybe you missed the part where SilkRoad was shut down and the owner arrested?
You missed the part where dozens of replacement firms appeared near-instantly. There is still no SilkRoad DAC. If DACs are so good, where are they?
I will try reply to the rest of your comments when I come back but at first glance they look pretty weak.
Your comments actually are weak, unlike mine, and I actually have responded to them, unlike you. You didn't even read where I posted them the first time.
So what if dozens of firms replaced them near-instantly? The owner of the original is in jail.
That is what proves the point that firms don't offer owners & shareholders the same advantages DAC's do.
If DACs are so good, where are they?
That's like popping up in 1993 and saying - 'If impersonal 'online stores' are so good. Where are they?'