1. Online Gambling
Most jurisdictions allow gambling at designated brick and mortar locations. The primary reason not too allow citizens to exercise the same right to gamble online is to protect tax income and the brick and mortar monopolies who are often the ones lobbying to maintain the status quo and protect their monopoly.
Augur also serves the less high-minded—though no less noble—purpose of providing cost savings and convenience to gamblers. Restrictions on gambling serve to protect government revenue at the betting man's expense. State-sanctioned casino operators pay high taxes, and state-run lotteries fleece their customers. But there's no logical or moral case for government restrictions on gambling, since no third party is harmed when consenting adults wager money on the future. Augur actually has the potential to make the world safer by taking away market share in the gambling industry from criminals.
https://reason.com/blog/2015/08/11/augur-gambling-prediction-ethereumSome of the world's most richest cities, Macau, Monaco, Las Vegas etc. were built on the back of gambling.
The gambling center of Macau has become the world’s fourth richest territory per person, leapfrogging Switzerland, according to World Bank report. The ranking does not include Monaco which based on the latest available figures, would almost certainly top the rankings, says the Financial Times.
https://www.rt.com/business/169924-macau-overtakes-switzerland-wealth/Bitcoin itself was arguably bootstrapped in this way with some saying over 50% of its transactions for the first few years came from gambling.
Given that blockchains can undercut centralised options, offer privacy, provable fairness and funds are safer and can't be seized -
It stands to reason that the richest blockchain in the world will be built on the back of gambling imo.Other areas I've not looked at much...
- Marijuana
I don't really follow it but the global trend seems to be towards legalization. So while a decentralized market allowing all drugs might be perceived as negative outside crypto. A hemp/marijuana marketplace would probably be widely perceived as cool.
- Pirated media downloads
Even though there is copyright infringement, I think most people think of Sean Parker and Napster and other pirated sites as cool.
A blockchain with a witness system could put together virus free content of the latest media and charge for it possibly directing some of the proceeds to the copyright holder, even if it's lower than the amount they would like. While the site may change, the blockchain can't be easily shut down, so consumers will know to reference the blockchain and be directed to the site the 17 witnesses recommend.