I've thought of building an app where voters could enter their opinions and be notified whenever their representatives vote for or against their views, but I can't figure out monetization.
For what it's worth, the two primary issues I've seen raised with Libre is monopoly and finance regulation. I wouldn't be very excited to hear Bank of America is getting into social networking; I'm not sure why I should be excited that Facebook is getting into banking. As for regulation, my (limited) understanding is that if Facebook wants to act like a bank, it needs to be regulated like one.
Central banking is a huge part of international economic policy and stability. There's a reason private money was outlawed in the 1900s.
And the reason is probably a bit more nuanced than this sentence projects. Furthermore, reasoning in the 1900s should not be used to justify government monopoly on money in 2019.
Sometimes, being in the cryptocurrency industry, it feels like a shouting match between people who have never studied economics or distributed systems or cryptography.
> Central banking is a huge part of international economic policy and stability. There's a reason private money was outlawed in the 1900s.
Private currencies seem to be legal so long as they aren't viewed by the government to be a method of avoiding taxes. Can you point me to some more information about this? Everything I've read seems to point to private currencies being legal in the United States at least (aside, I am aware of the liberty dollar case in the US. The government's angle was that it too closely resembled US currency iirc).
The spirit of my comment shouldn't change though, if I instead refer to the establishment of a U.S. dollar.
That being said, the fact that you have to pay rent with legal tender in states like CA goes a long way in regulating private currencies.
Seriously? This is the thing stopping you? It doesn't sound so much like you care about democracy so much as making money. Clearly you can use ads but that isn't very profitable. You have to ask yourself, which is more important: democracy or the time you put in to make the app. You can even make that decision AFTER you have made the app (you don't have to figure out monetization first)
Also consider the fact that this tool would likely see a lot of traffic, and some legal challenges as well (launched by the politicians this will be exposing). All of that costs $$$$.
Alternatively, you could always go ads, or maybe preferably, add a paid feature for certain niceties(one touch calling, assistance in writing, etc).
Have you read a bill? It’s filled with “replace subsection (a) with subsection (b)” and other legalese because they’re literally making law. You either have to be knowledgeable enough to understand the bill, or take the politician’s word on what the bill says, or rely on a news article summarizing what the bill says, or rely on the activist group who projects the unintended and intended effects of the bill.
Sounds like you want to create a news organization that has your editorial judgment, accessible with a fancy custom app that uses “machine learning” or whatever buzzword’s being used.
If it's related to people's individual political preferences, and delivers easy to consume information to those who want to learn about their political environment yet feel lost in the process of figuring it out, then it's likely that people wouldn't mind donating a dollar or so a month to get that information. Also, people would really value the fact that it wouldn't be a matter of taking a politician by their words but by there actions. It'll cut through the bullshit for a lot of voters/users.
The potential positive consequences of building such an app are significant
but I can't figure out monetization.
Oh boy.
Not happy about the world, wanting to change in some idealistic way, but how to run ads and make money on it?
Just give proper notice.
I don't know about that. It's true that ads are meant to sway thoughts, but aren't debates basically supposed to do the same thing? The problem would be misinformation.
The information shod definitely be use carefully and thoughtfully, I agree. Or possibly even not collected at all, if at all possible. I was just pointing out one avenue of monetization.
You could use the data for good. It could help politicians and candidates find out what constituents want to a high accuracy. This would clearly be a good thing.
The issue is how that data is handled. If that data becomes public (you always have to assume there's this chance even if it is controlled) then it could easily be used for nefarious purposes. We've seen that it doesn't take much money to spread a lot of misinformation. Because of this I don't think it would be a good idea to just sell that data to whoever wants it. There could also be problems of resale.