Re: [Asrg] About that e-postage draft [POSTAGE]

[John Leslie <john at jlc.net>]

Steve Atkins <steve at blighty.com> wrote:
> On Feb 11, 2009, at 2:45 PM, John Leslie wrote:
>>
>> "Banks" would be compensated by debiting a customer account more
>> than the amount of ePostage issued and/or crediting a customer
>> account less than the amount redeemed. Or, perhaps there would be a
>> per-transaction fee (in the thousandths of cents, presumably). I
>> see no role for IETF in saying which model a "bank" uses.
> 
> Just to throw some arithmetic onto this.

   Very welcome!

> A large consumer ISP might send 50 million emails a day externally.  

   That sounds low to me.

> Assuming that there isn't "one bank to rule them all" it seems
> reasonable to assume that any given "bank" wouldn't handle much more
> than that.

   I'd agree that depending on more than 100 million per day in
drafting a business plan would be risky.

> A thousandth of a cent banking charge would be about $500 / day or
> $182,500 / year.

   I did say "thousandths" (plural). Will you allow me two?

   And IMHO, there are two transactions per email. We've passed
$500,000 per year, anyway.

> That's not a plausible budget for running any organization with the  
> level of reliability and backing that would be needed,

   What level of reliability _is_ needed?

   I figure five-nines on losing track of a token is marketable.
Tokens outstanding needn't exceed, say, a billion. Guessing one cent
tokens, we've got perhaps $10 million "outstanding", but in fact
only settlements ever need to change hands.

> not by at least one order of magnitude.

   That's "close enough" -- I was a physics major. ;^)

> So "thousandths of cents" doesn't seem realistic language when  
> discussing a per-transaction fee.

   If so, the market will support a higher fee. (I don't mind!)

--
John Leslie <john at jlc.net>