From 747419e2e085b95cf0a14211d9f4cfd3037f7da5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Hermes Date: Thu, 21 May 2026 19:32:50 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Add Agora username registry and PDS-as-a-service revenue paths --- ideas/passepartout-economics.org | 57 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 57 insertions(+) diff --git a/ideas/passepartout-economics.org b/ideas/passepartout-economics.org index 3a70e97..8032bfd 100644 --- a/ideas/passepartout-economics.org +++ b/ideas/passepartout-economics.org @@ -1333,6 +1333,63 @@ scale (compute marketplace, certification, hardware, migration). The switching costs compound. The network effects are positive sum. The market is nearly a trillion dollars. +***** Additional revenue paths + +** Usernames on Agora + +The DID system is permissionless — anyone generates their own DID +via HD key derivation. But human-readable @handles (short names, +common English words, three-letter IDs) are naturally scarce. The +early player controls the namespace registry: + +- **Free tier:** any DID can claim a namespace.username on a + first-come, first-served basis with proof of key ownership +- **Premium tier:** short names (2-3 chars), common words, brand + names, squatter prevention via auction or annual lease +- **Revenue model:** $5-$50/year per premium username, auction + revenue for highly contested names (single-letter, common + surnames). ENS-style: registration fees fund development, not + speculation. + +At scale: 1M premium usernames at $10/yr average = $10M/yr +recurring. The namespace registry is a natural monopoly — the +early player's registry is the most widely accepted, so every +new user registers there. Network effects lock in. + +** PDS as a service + +The Personal Data Store (the Merkle fact store exposed on Agora) +can be self-hosted (free, AGPL) or hosted by the early player: + +- **Free tier (self-hosted):** full AGPL PDS, runs on any Lisp + host, full control, no cost +- **Basic hosted tier:** $10-$20/month, 10GB fact store, 10M + queries/month, automated backup, automatic upgrades +- **Business hosted tier:** $100-$500/month, 100GB+ fact store, + unlimited queries, SLA, dedicated relay, compliance logging +- **Enterprise hosted tier:** $1,000-$10,000/month, air-gapped + appliance management, dedicated support, regulatory-compliant + data residency, integration with existing SIEM + +This is the classic open-core SaaS model (GitLab, Sentry, +PlanetScale). The free self-hosted version drives adoption and +trust (you can inspect every line). The hosted version captures +the value from users who value convenience over control. Bluesky +already demonstrated demand: they charge ~$10/month for PDS +hosting with minimal feature differentiation. + +PDS as a service is lower-margin than hardware appliances but +higher-volume. Target: 100K subscribers at $15/month average = +$18M/yr recurring, with near-zero marginal cost per additional +subscriber (the symbolic engine is CPU-bound, not per-user +metered). + +Combined with premium usernames: $10M/yr + $18M/yr = $28M/yr +recurring from Agora services alone before any compute marketplace +revenue. These are not speculative — they are standard internet +business models (namespace registry + SaaS hosting) applied to +a decentralized identity and data layer. + *** The full triad: Logos, Stoa, Agora The self-driving Lisp Machine is not the endpoint. It is one