Our mall was originally just an analogy for Facebook or Twitter, but then in both our minds it became a literal mall. Interesting!

P2P could definitely use some marketing and PR people one of these days. When I can control my contrarian impulses I can hit some pretty good PR licks in print, but I’m not big on face time with people. If you want to start a P2PR company I’ll have to telecommute. 😉

That’s a very worthy idea. And one that doesn’t require the replacement of malls as people already know them (a next to impossible feat) so much as it adds a new kind of mall to those already existing in the community.

The challenge, of course, would lie in convincing the community to embrace that mall as their own. Not necessarily to the exclusion of the malls they already know, but enough to make the cooperative mall a success.

I sometimes wonder if what P2P really needs is a new breed of marketing consultant, who knows how to promote P2P ideas convincingly in every circle of a community, and do so in an ethical and transparent way. Not that P2P doesn’t have articulate and appealing advocates already, but there’s much progress yet to be made in reaching out to the average person in the street.

That requires marketing, but not marketing as we tend to know it today (and yet, a marketing that could provide a worthy challenge to it).

If you want to get in touch with our ‘labor’ lefties, please send me an email to michelsub2004 at gmail,

Michel

Thanks for reminding me of that shopping mall analogy. What a ubiquitous metaphor of our modern cargo-cult societies.

But imagine with me: we drive up to a typical-looking mall, park, and go in. Just inside the door is an organic, local-sourced fruit and veggie stand (perhaps an annex of a larger farmers market in town). Surprised, we ask the attendant how they can afford the rent in this mall, eyeballing a boutique opposite. She explains that the whole mall is a cooperative. She pays two percent of her gross as rent. You say, “But two percent of your gross can’t be that much.” She explains that each year all the co-op members have an opportunity to renegotiate their rents. Some members like her don’t pay nearly as much rent as others but the other co-op members place a value on the customer base the veggie stand attracts to the mall.

There is no good reason that Facebook or Second Life should be the only malls in town. On the contrary–there is every reason that there should be cooperative p2p malls–awesome (sick?) malls that will attract young activists from all over the county.

Any of us reading this blog would be instantly aware of this space’s limitations–before even setting foot there–but that doesn’t mean those limitations are apparent to those actually using it.

Add to that the fact that the platforms are there. For all the talk of alternative platforms, I suspect these activists would point out those alternatives lack both the ease-of-use and the pervasiveness of corporate platforms. And when the demonstration is already assembling and protests have begun, one reaches for the easiest and most available tool to hand.

One probably doesn’t have time to learn to use anything else, much less convince acquaintances and strangers to adopt something they’ve never used before, perhaps even as the momentum of a public demonstration is already getting underway. Yes, there may be issues of corporate control or state censorship, but the advantages of the platform may still make it the least worst available option.

This is not to say we shouldn’t try to promote and encourage the adoption of non-corporate alternatives. But young activists may have very different priorities than those of us on the sidelines.

She summarized my meanderings with this:

“…are you trying to say there needs to be a p2p network controlled by its users and not governments or corporations, and that transactions should be able to be made via this network with no transaction fee?”

And, of course… YES! That’s exactly what I’ve been saying.

Except to add that the pragmatic model for that is already designed… and in preliminary form… BUILT.

Here’s a post written about 3 years ago when building prototype:

Why Chagora … written 5/31/08
http://culturalengineer.blogspot.com/2008/05/why-chagora.html

And a Newer One:
Decision Technologies: Currencies and the Social Contract
http://culturalengineer.blogspot.com/2010/07/decision-technologies-currencies-and.html

(Money, like advertising and torture devices are DECISION technologies… and operate at a very fundamental level to steer human decision. Viewing currencies in this light has utility.)

Demo http://www.Chagora.com
LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/culturalengineer

While my Commons-dedicated Account method… (and it IS a specific method)was originally conceived out of a desire to address issues in political fundraising and for the networking of very small contributions…

THE SAME MECHANISM IS VIABLE FOR ALL TRANSACTIONS!

AND can undercut PayPal and all similar while offering capabilities they cannot.
But there are very important issues involved with how such a system is implemented and the nature of its ownership (which must be universal but in specific ways).

I believe there’s a critical opportunity that won’t be open long… to at least begin to make changes in the structure of finance, money and credit-creation generally… to de-centralize at least a part of that process.

And I’d like to suggest why a GENERAL UTILITY Internet Wallet under Commons control and ownership has a vital role to play in accomplishing those ends. Ends that may never be reached by request or accident at this stage… especially if they are dependent upon a positive response from the same Corporatist mindset you refer to. They must be intentionally designed and implemented… and come into existence alongside (but not in direct opposition to) existing structures. (in my opinion… which sorely needs feedback).

And I know I have to have some responsibility in this… whether some personality quirk… or simply the inability to get out and meet people face-to-face…

The evolution of television provides an example of how a ‘hard’ technology… which COULD have done a lot more to open up politics, community, and civic life generally… has instead made politics ridiculously expensive… ALL because of the ‘soft’ technologies around it (first laws and regulation… finally simply cultural acceptance and forgetting)… ultimately becoming a sea of marketing to the ‘lizard brain’ and vastly INCREASING the cost of civic participation instead of reducing it.

I’d like to explain why this is a way of preventing that from happening in this vital landscape… and its global potentials.

But I think this is a very important model. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. Here’s my problem… I know I could be wrong… But I think I may be right! This landscape is rapidly taking shape and once that happens inertia makes some changes very difficult. I feel like I’m running against a clock. But unless I can find out that I’m wrong I’m pretty much stuck in this race. And if I’m right… I feel rather bad that I haven’t been able to run faster. Its a dilemma.