asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: 94% of MPEx April revenue from reg fees?

asciilifeform: ezdiy: I think you misunderstand. I'm not trying to convince MP of anything in particular. Just playing out a thought experiment: what would happen if MPEx actually had competition.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: there could be logical reasons for starting one's own "MPEx, with blackjack and hookers." Say I want to use evil altchains. And, AFAIK MPEx shares are non-voting, so it isn't that I could buy enough of them to make MP do this deed.

asciilifeform: what I'm rather hazy on is how well MPEx would hold up against a "good enough" clone that meets the basic criterion of "not being an outright scam" (AFAIK none of the MPEx competitors have met this standard) ☟︎

asciilifeform: Ok, let's see if I understand: the 30 BTC is for keeping MPEx a market full of people who measure 1000 times "before cutting once." No trendoids, etc. Now let's say Warren Buffet (or somesuch) opens WBEx, charging 1 BTC.

asciilifeform: truffles: I meant the banal fact that MPEx works as it says on the box, and none of the vaguely similar services proved to do the same

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: How would you personally explain the apparent lack of competition to MPEx? Is it simply the fact that no one else has the "reputation capital" ?

asciilifeform: ezdiy: I'm not clamouring to buy an MPEx account for a penny, just objecting to the notion that the fee is somehow different from taxi medallions

asciilifeform: just like an MPEx account

asciilifeform: MP has said, in essence, that he doesn't want MPEx to become a Shanghai crawling with the equivalent of rickshaws.

asciilifeform: IMHO taxi medallions are a fair comparison. They, just as the MPEx fee, exist to keep the riffraff out.