> We believe that everyone should have the freedom, and ability, to make money. A step is worth the same value for everyone - no matter who you are, or where you are. What matters is how much you walk.
Earning money mostly comes through creating value for others. (When it doesn't, it comes from diverting value into your pockets.) Walking around is great, and I encourage everybody to do it. But pitching it as the "freedom to make money" is absurd. Talking as if random people walking around Africa can double their monthly income is obscene.
I can't believe the BBC would publish that article, either. I understand the tech press is mostly toothless, but even so I can't believe that such a hallucinatory scheme received only the mildest questioning.
Actually, for many, walking more would create value. Underwalking creates a large societal cost in health care, climate change, and more. I would pay people to walk more.
Waste reduction isn't the same thing as value creation.
Even focusing on the waste reduction, whether walking decreases a person's health costs or their climate impact depends a lot on the person. I've seen reasonable claims that a person fueled with beef is, from an ecological perspective, better off driving than walking in that beef production causes more ecological damage. And the mentioned Africans already walking a few miles per day certainly won't see an increased health benefit from merely tracking that, and still probably wouldn't if they decided to walk more.
But even if they were on average reducing societal waste, that's extremely hard to monetize. If you'd really like to pay people to walk more, you're welcome to start with me! But even if you were game, I suspect the supply of individually contributed walking-incentive dollars is way lower than the demand.
This is very funny. I'm sure their very advanced security measures will prevent me from creating a nice passive income, earning mint while my smartphone lays motionless on the couch next to me.
With the information sharing business booming, I just cannot in good faith use something like this. I'm almost 100% sure they are going to sell location data and (maybe) shopping habits.
My guess, this is like a loyalty card, but it gives you points for been there rather than buying and it also works on different shops.
If that's the case the way of selling it, as if it is the best thing for your health, its obnoxious. They probably won't care if you walk of drive by as long as your mobile reaches the shop wifi so the customer -the shop- pays.
Location data selling, as other commenter noted, is a real possibility too.
EDIT: After reading the more complete bbc article seems like I was wrong. They say to be using gps and acelerometer data, no idea how it doesn't get hacked to death since both can be faked easily. They also mention that location data won't be for sale. I'm still sceptical.
The only practical application I see is it being a loyalty card for a gym. Members would earn points for exercising at their gym which could be redeemed for tchotckes. If the app implements geofencing it could be practical.
I can't see how this could be real.
Faking GPS data and simulating movement on a device you control is trivially easy.
Add an incentive to obtain a benefit by deception and you have one broken product.
From the description, this doesn't seem like a Bitcoin miner, but rather a completely different virtual currency that is simply given to you based on the number of steps you walk.
I have been wondering whether this is a prank or a con, so I have looked into the people behind this. The whois record shows the domain registered to one Nissan Bahar of Keepod Ltd, London, UK.
You may remember Keepod, the $7 personal computer the size of a USB stick that runs Android[1]. It got insane media coverage circa 2014[2], has a respectable-looking Wikipedia page[3], got funded to the tune of $41k on Indiegogo[4], currently is out-of-sale. $7 for an equivalent of Chromebit, I hear you thinking? Well, not really. The "personal computer" part of the pitch is a lie. In reality Keepod is the same kind of a live USB distro that has been around for years. There is no added value.[5]
So it is a con. But the media coverage. Is. Insane. The quality of the website is stellar. The funding dollars will be real. And a year from now, another seductively implausible project will appear. I'm looking forward to it, this guy has talent!
there were CRAZY ideas that changed the world but this BS isn't one of them. the math simply doesn't doesn't add up. if everyone (except people that can't walk) is making money (3 USD/day is max) without actually contributing back to society ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
how in the hell did they get funding is what I want to know
> We believe that everyone should have the freedom, and ability, to make money. A step is worth the same value for everyone - no matter who you are, or where you are. What matters is how much you walk.
Earning money mostly comes through creating value for others. (When it doesn't, it comes from diverting value into your pockets.) Walking around is great, and I encourage everybody to do it. But pitching it as the "freedom to make money" is absurd. Talking as if random people walking around Africa can double their monthly income is obscene.
I can't believe the BBC would publish that article, either. I understand the tech press is mostly toothless, but even so I can't believe that such a hallucinatory scheme received only the mildest questioning.
I can't wait for this bubble to be over.