I have a similarly long trust list. I think this is our urge to connect with people driving us to do this...
As said before by more knowledgable people than me, this might not be the best way to go about this. It was suggested we should all trust a handful (currently there only is bitstamp) gateways instead of building a WOT-like net of trust.
I just can't make up my mind (it is that way with many things ripple) wether such community-trust-clustering is a good idea or not.
On the one hand we're distributing risk. Bitinstant runs with our BTC => all gone. Molecular runs with our BTC => only a fraction gone.
On the other hand you'd probably have a hard time collecting your USD 0.1 from me in meatspace somehow. With bitstamp there could at least be joint effort to sue them or whatever.
Thoughts?
The problem I see with trusting too many people is that ripple money will seek the "path of least resistance".
If you grant trust to hundreds of people, all it takes is for one of those accounts to be hacked, and some anonymous hacker ends up owing money to you instead of the person you trust.
These might be concerns for the future, but right now, we need to start
somewhere. In order use/test the full functionality of Ripple I need a minimal web of trust. I don't mind losing a few bitcents just for the entertainment and educational value.
The reason I am only granting BTC is that they are easy to collect both in meatspace and outside.
