Ethereal Ethereum thoughts - Part I

Just some Sunday morning thoughts on the Ethereum network and the value of Ether.

As the price of Ether goes up and down I, and it seems some other million people, are wondering about what is the real value of this token thing. Because a token is just a token, say a random number you somehow own. Then you start selling and buying it and the miracle happens (?).

And when you want to know the best first step is usually just RTFM... Yes, Reading The Fucking Manual...

So What is Ethereum?

This one is easy, you can read it here, at the Ethereum Project site:

Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts

Still easier: Ethereum is a bunch of computers that run programs.

Ok, but what is Ether then?

We just need to keep reading the docs:

It is a form of payment made by the clients of the platform to the machines executing the requested operations.

Yeah, of course, those computers running the programs are not doing it for free. They run on Ether, some kind of fuel, or electricity, or... money?

There must be something more, I hope, because so far it seems we've just invented the... distributed slot machine? We need to know what this machine actually does, right? Keep reading...

This enables developers to create markets, store registries of debts or promises, move funds ... and many other things that have not been invented yet, all without a middle man or counterparty risk.

Well, this is like something. So we've got a distributed accounting system that is powered by these tokens/coins... the 'no counterparty risk' sounds a bit..... well, the 'many other things that have not been invented yet' sounds exciting. But overall this sounds like upcoming arcade games we'll be able to play with these coins. Interesting...

So yes, I want to buy some of these coins, now the question:

How much should I pay for these tokens?

Which is really difficult to answer before seeing all those exciting games. Just let's admit the thing may have some actual value and look for some other perspective to know more.

What if I am a developer wanting to provide such 'games' or Dapps, like they call them.?

On one side I don't really care about the price of the tokens. Users will buy say $1 worth of tokens and that is what I can ask as a payment, then I get $1, that's fine.
But on the other side, since the machine runs on tokens too, the more expensive they get, the more expensive it will be to run my app, just like electricity costs, maybe I should be worried about that...

And yes, this seems like an important concern:

More expensive Ether means it is more expensive to deploy and run the Apps. Thus there may be a price above which the whole thing stops being useful.

...

And I guess this is enough for some Sunday morning thoughts. I have more thoughts but no more time today. And btw:

1. Full disclosure: I am the happy owner of around 2 Ether -rounding up-, still I am not that sure about whether I want the price to go up or down. I won't get too rich or too poor anyway :-)

2. I find the technology truly promising and fascinating. The point is: if Ether gets too expensive I'll just sell it but if it keeps some 'reasonable' (TBD) price I may use it to deploy some smart contracts... who knows...