While there are real-world uses for online wallets (being able to access coins from a coffee shop computer while on vacation), and it would be nice for Mintcoin to be accessible from some of them, there will CERTAINLY be a fair number of these services starting up this year.
So if there will be more and more online wallets starting up and looking for customers, what will they have to do to attract them?
Answer: Support lots of coins to draw in as many users as possible, so they can grow a user base and become profitable through whatever fee structure they have in place.
The USERS WHO DECIDE TO USE THE SERVICE should be the ones "paying the rent" so to speak through usage fees. Why should the coin community pay for the ability for Joe Shmoe to use an online wallet when the online wallet makers will be making money off of Joe Shmoe himself?
There is ZERO reason to throw money at a service to get your coin on the service, since there will be a fair number of competitve services in the very near future JUMPING at the chance to add Mintcoin, which has a good sized user base.
And I'm sorry to say, if an Online wallet operator/creator has set things up so that he loses money every month, perhaps he should re-structure his fees toward the users end, and just add as many coins as possible so people will actually show up and pay him to use his service. Why even bother with the bribe system?
This is the EXACT same bullshit that made people blow off Coinkite.
Just my opinion, but I think it is an opinion that makes sense.
An online wallet such as mine (anonymous, no fiat integration, no investor backing) has zero chance of being profitable. I'd have to charge multiple dollars per transaction. Exchanges do thousands of trades per day to charge fees on, but wallets will never have that kind of volume. Have you seen the diagram at
https://mywl.lt/security/? It costs a lot to have that amount of infrastructure, which is why most online wallets are insecure because they throw up a single VM with PHP and some wallet daemons.
I don't run the service to make money. In fact, I'd prefer it to break even. Every single penny from donations (which I've never solicited or received until now) goes straight to servers and development costs. Anything more than what it costs to run it just means I can afford to improve the service further by devoting more of my time to it. I have other businesses that make me money and don't need MyWl.lt to be profitable at all. I started it as a courtesy to the Digitalcoin community (since I'm a member of the DGC foundation) and have recently decided to bring in additional coins, specifically ones with strong communities that I respect highly.