DISCLAIMER I'm in no way associated with OpenCoin as for today.
Imagine I'm boss of this OpenCoin company and hold private key from XRP 100B account, here are my answers:
I think that when they "run out of ripples" the price will start floating and if it just so happens their "friends" bought 50 billion then xrp becomes a manipulable and valuable asset.
I don't really care about what will happen to network after the point when I sold my XRP 100B holdings. Maybe I will start another one.
Creating an enormous amount of virtual currency with the claim that it will last for a very long time is both irresponsible from a security pov, inefficient from a mathematical pov, and unsound from an economic pov.
I created a lot because I hope for mass adoption of this and I don't want to bother about how to name 0.0001 XRP - mini BTC or statoshi... You know what I mean, right?
Throwing money at a problem, or just using very large numbers to solve a problem always leave a glitch in the matrix, and we all know what happens to the matrix.
Irrelevant - no comment here.
XRP can and should be their own currency,
No... who told you that? XRP is not a currency in my eyes... it's tickets to the show called Ripple transactions.. and I'm just selling tickets here... I'm selling "Ripple" to you.. and you buying "Ripple" with XRP.
based on synchronization, proof of work, or any other digital currency model.
With all the respect, let me decide what I need to do... If you think we did not do our homework evaluating all these things you are wrong...
Plus, you must understand that we are not 19 years olds building another start up for photo sharing at the basements of their parents.. We know how Bitcoin works inside out... plus much more ... so be sure - what I offer is the best stuff for today.
but forcing the community to use specifically XRP as a means of transaction capability is wrong.
It's my business model... or you think I'm working for free here? I have my bills to pay... my kids need college, my wife needs bigger house.. I always wanted to buy this Tesla car...
The central distribution model is too flawed despite the creators good intentions. The entirety of XRP reserves needs to be democratized, or the txn mechanism needs to be replaced with a non currency dependent approach.
It's not flawed at all... XRP is mine, of course I'm ready to lose some part of by spending on advertising. Nobody but me can create it... If you want to "mine" it like BTC, no problem "mine" them from me... Let me save you money you spend on ASICs and GPUs... We have wholesale discounts for amounts starting from 1M and more...
Little piece of advice, stop being concerned about how much money I will make on this, concentrate on how much money we can do together as a partners...
Just thinking, why people can't embrace that XRP is not meant to be like BTC, just go trade USD, BTC, EUR... go make/give loans, transfer money etc...