A great video with a lot of exciting ideas (even if they're articulated somewhat stormily at times). This is definitely a viable advertising platform--one that makes good use of the attractive qualities of capitalism, by inspiring competition and desire for collection within consumers, trading exposure--and (hopefully) real human currency--for fabricated (yet, if implemented correctly, completely desirable) points.
nickpp's point is off the mark. Human currency carries with it an unfortunate (but absolutely and obviously necessary) burden of seriousness. If you spend it foolishly, there's a chance you'll "Game Over"--and (as my mom always used to tell me) there's no reset button in real life, sorry. Implementing a system where individuals apply a certain (limited) extent of value to a new, less dire, capitalistic system, is a win-win for everyone involved.
Blow all of your points on a retinal-based bar-code scanner that barely works? Oh well, at least you can still make rent.
I personally enjoyed the articles bombastic formatting and snarky tone, but I'm not sure the author says much of anything. The fact is, Dave's second assertion (that e-commerce/subscriptions is the new default startup business model) isn't based on more than speculation. He makes this second assertion with great conviction ("Get Dem Bitches to PAY You, G.") and I almost want to believe him--until I remember that most of both the media and content industries are still fumbling with whether or not selling subscriptions /digital content is a worthwhile business endeavor.
Also, the idea that a service's success hinges on a user's ability to remember a password is preposterous. Seems as if it could be somewhat of an obstacle when a service is first launched (Dave's early Paypal), but come on. Passwords have become commonplace, and for the most part--especially when money's involved--people don't seem to forget them. They may have when e-commerce was in its absolute infancy, but with the rise of ebay, Paypal, online banking services the password has garnered undeniable legitimacy among the majority of people. I have no data to back this up, but this isn't too outrageous a claim. Right?
Socialism has killed hundreds of millions of people in the 20th century.
I disagree completely. Implementing socialism in disenfranchised states is by far a more streamlined process than implementing any brand of capitalism. What killed "hundreds of millions of people" was the coupling of fragile citizenries with malicious and self-serving leaders, not the establishment of socialism. I see correlation, but no causation, and I find hasty dismissal of socialism as the "disproved and damned" counterpart of capitalism as completely flawed--especially in a society where the two have been working together (I'd say successfully) for quite some time.
It's far more illustrative to debunk (or in this case, merely explain) a single case--which Nate points out is what "the conservatives are mainly zeroing in on"--than to address all "hundreds or thousands of e-mails and documents." I'm sure Nate COULD have done so, and probably to the same effect, but what explanatory purpose would that serve?