Economics

The plan is to make QBUX available to be bought and sold through various gateways and exchanges. Unlike in securities transactions, where the intent is to hold the token and sell it later at a higher price, QBUX are designed to be spent on a growing marketplace of content, widgets and "productized" functionality. The real economic incentives of the participants are outlined below:

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• App Developers make money because once an app is developed, the marginal cost of making a copy is very small. Thus, App Developers are interested to have their apps installed on as many Hosting companies as possible, and used by as many Communities as possible. The more people use the app, the more the App developer can make by selling QBUX for {App}BUX vouchers, and then redeeming them to Hosting companies at a profit.

• Hosting Companies specialize in buying and managing the physical infrastructure (computers, hard drives, network connections) to service widgets, so Communities and App Developers don't have to do that. They then license and install various Apps and Content, and receive new updates as they are published. By charging Communities more in micropayments than it takes to operate the Hosting service, the Hosting company can make a profit that increases with the number of Communities using them to host their Widgets.

• Communities want to release an online portal to serve their members, without having to reinvent the wheel. They aren't interested in developing apps or maintaining hosting infrastructure, and are willing to pay for both. They typically have budgets — which they collect from local services, membership dues, donations from benefactors, or in other ways. This kind of expense can fit into various budgets, including "online presence", "events", "recruiting", "alumni", and so on. In fact, even the collection of dues can be automated by an App via a Widget on their website, bringing the process full circle.

• Members of communities, i.e. authorized users of their website may be given some "trial" {App}BUX for various Apps, to try. They be rewarded with various credits for taking actions such as recruiting new members, or sharing memes on social networks.

• Community Management companies can also arise that work together with Hosting Companies to perform services such as customer support, removing spam, moderating the community and enforcing community norms, something that is extremely difficult for centralized platforms to do, but something that can be done on a local level.

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The ecosystem itself has several economies of scale that actually make the entire ecosystem more efficient and save everyone participating a lot of money over time:

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• Reusability: Instead of every Community paying to develop the same functionality over and over, one App Developer can just release it and make it available in a "productized" way to all Communities via the Qbix Platform. And every time there is a new version, improvement or bugfix, it is made available to everyone.

• Remixing: By being made widely available and freely licensed in an open ecosystem, Apps and Content can find new uses that their original authors never even imagined. We have already seen the explosion of innovation enabled by the Web over the last 20 years. Now, Qbix Platform can take it to the next level.

• Network Effects: App Developers and Hosting Companies are incentivized to make as many partnerships as they can with one another. The more Apps a Hosting Company offers, the more Communities will use them. The more Hosting Companies and Communities use the App, the more money the App Developer makes. The more Communities bought {App}BUX, the less chances any rogue company can clone their app and compete with them. (This action is normally disallowed by the default App licensing.)

• Separation of Concerns: The whole ecosystem is separated into at least three roles: App Developers, Hosting Companies and Communities. The latter includes Universities, Startups, Organizations, or entire Villages. Rather than hiring in-house programmers, and trying to manage their own infrastructure, they can enjoy the results produced by professionals, in a free and open market.

• Collaboration: Different roles can work together to help everybody. A hosting company can work with App developers to release a new version that optimizes their unit economics, and thus their profits. This version benefits all hosting companies. A Community can partner with an App Developer to build and promote a new type of app for their members, and then earn QBUX making this app available be hosted worldwide, benefiting communities everywhere. For the first time, making this Open Source really pays.

• Economics: This economic model also helps prevent common economic problems on the Internet, such as "click fraud". Unlike traditional ad-supported models, the QBUX economic model is closer to micropayment-based models like the Basic Attention Token (Brave Browser). And because Communities have to buy the {App}BUX they spend, they are vigilant not to give "fake traffic" to anyone, because they are effectively spending their own limited QBUX to do it. They thus pass on the cost to their users, through an internal credit system. Their members help the Community purchase more QBUX through various actions, including possibly paying the Community the fiat currency it needs to purchase more QBUX from a market maker.

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The Community can manage its own local economics in many ways, including giving users free trials, rewarding them with credits for certain actions, and charging them for usage. All of this can be automated through the Qbix Platform.  

Note that regular Users themselves do not need to have custody of QBUX themselves. This allows the system to handle billions of users, and also to be made more compatible with any local regulations, since the only entities that need to pass checks for anti-money-laundering are the Communities, App Developers, Hosting companies and so on.