Consider LLMs as the recent iteration to monetize free content, like ads do too, and you are not far from seeing the approaching AI-first enshittoscene. No matter the smart engineers altruistic goals, ROI has to be met.
Ad tech is annoying at worst, it doesn't take literally your job and most of job market with it. Without any seemingly easy way to move to fields which are booming so overall it would stay the same.
I hate ads with passion for past 20 years and (very) actively avoid them at all costs, but I'd take those over what world llms seem to be bringing in soon.
This addresses email notifications only. There is a lot of apps that would send you notifications that you want to see like your hardware needs attention but also sends some useless promo notifications
Tether actually has one of the better business models out of all of it. They take real dollars, print fake dollars, then buy bonds/treasuries (and gold) with the real dollars.
… and keep the interest from those and their “high value commercial paper.” Now, why this is better than a money market fund, and regulated similarly… no idea.
There are at least two scenarios in which “just a dollar” is a great outcome for someone purchasing a stable coin (assuming that it’s actually stable):
1. You want the convenience of digital coin transfers/payments without the variance of price swings (e.g., recent Bitcoin). This can be especially useful when you have access to a phone but limited or no direct access to modern banking facilities.
2. It’s easy to get your local currency onto an exchange, but it’s not easy or advisable to have a dollar bank account or keep large amounts of dollars in cash in your locale.
3. (I guess for completeness) You want to engage in activities that are of questionable legality (e.g., drug sales in certain places, online poker in most of the US, etc.).
It doesn't make sense for Americans, or anyone with access to a dollar denominated bank account.
For the other 80% of the planet though, it's a game changer. Rough estimate, but feels fair, as outside the US most people can't have one without substantial access to capital.
At the end of the day, it's just another IOU, much like a bank deposit, except instead of getting the 0.1% yield and FDIC (IF you're in the US), you get the ability to transact 24/7 across borders in a much faster manner than even bank wires, let alone ACH payments.
It is also one of the worst models to have a sort of ongoing conversation with.
reply