Topic: BTC Utilty "The Hooker Point" - page 2. (Read 8805 times)

yeah you'r right, that is so.

lol

While this is funny, your analysis has some merit.

However you should take into account that cash is easier to accept and more established than Bitcoin for the non-technical person. So even if there is a general willingness of hookers to accept Bitcoin they may shy away because of a lack of easy-to-use Bitcoin payment services which fit the demands of their profession.

There are often two or more buyers per seller and vice versa.

For every buyer there is a seller.

With other anonymous uses of Bitcoin nobody has to meet up. Since prostitution requires a meet-up I think it'd be very hard to make it work. Sting operations would simply be far too easy.

I accidentally unknowingly clicked girls going Bitcoin, a while ago, (the content was explicit) my conclusion you can use said virtual currency for said virtual services. Conclusion XBT has evolved further than you think.

In addition on the other extreme, the oldest profusion may be due for an upgrade in order to be compatible with the new money meme, the third oldest Banking is dealing with a challenge.   

I'm not sure if the average hooker will accept physical gold / platinum.

Just FYI the Big Mac Index is an alternative measure for purchasing power parity, it has nothing to do with the size of cities or reaching any tipping points. It's used to help determine relative cost of living (and hence currency over/under-valuation).

For what it's worth, I don't think you can beat good old fashioned market research. Note the Survey from the other week that found only 0.6% of Americans had ever used bitcoin: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/2013-06-25-huffington-post-bitcoin-huge-hype-belies-low-awareness-243025

Interesting topic, thank you.

Hookers/strippers also have a lot more incentive to accept BTC than fiat, especially credit cards, which many escort services accept.

Also think of the customer: Eliot Spitzer never would have gotten caught if he had paid using BTC, and would now be Governor of NY State, instead of being a disgraced consultant.

Fair point - except McDonalds have a global policy, hookers don't.

McDonalds could be refusing BTC even when it is widely adopted, so I still think the Hooker Point is more universal.

K

Maybe we should stick to the more accepted and widely popular "McDonald Big Mac Index?"

I just posted this on a topic elsewhere, but I wanted to give it a thread of its own as it is about BTC price and utility which are fundamental concerns to us all:


This is one of the most insightful comments I have seen on this forum for some time.

As someone interested in economics, I think the establishment of a measure for the adoption level of a digital currency would be useful, and I think 'The Hooker Point' is perfect for it.

If we take an average city of (say) 100,000 inhabitants we can deem it to have reached this point when it is possible within the city's limits to find a locally available defined sexual service directly from a provider (without a 3rd party exchange involved) with a given currency in a (controlled) 24 hour period.

So a country can be defined by how many Hooker Point cities it has, or what proportion of its qualifying cities have reached the Hooker Point (for BTC).

Comparisons can be made over time and against other countries.

Since currencies go back to pre-literate times and prostitution is the oldest profession, it is a measure likely to remain current for the foreseeable future.


Further comment on price and utilty:
1. Market prices fall when more people want to sell than buy, and prices rise for the opposite reason.

2. People's choice as to whether they wish to be a buyer or seller is affected by their needs (entering or leaving a market due to the need to buy or sell what the market trades) or for reasons of sentiment (optimism or pessimism about the market price).

3. Although economics supposedly deals in rational situations in the market place, it is a fact that markets and sentiments are not necessarily rational.  A herd instinct, or copying instinct means that people often buy because people are buying - or sell because people are selling.

4. At present BTC has little practical utility (see 'Hooker Point' above).   Therefore, the market for it is much more heavily influenced by sentiment than other markets.  Since most people do not need to pay their rent or buy food with it, its value is almost entirely based on sentiment.

The only conclusion a rational person can reach in the light of the above is that any price predictions for BTC are very likely to be completely and utterly useless.