heathervescent

Politics in the Mojave

**cross posted from the Future of Money Kickstarter Backer update**

The Sharing Economy gets Political in Twentynine Palms

In my local community of 25,000 people, AirBnB is illegal. This is being revisited with a new proposal for review by the City Council. Last week I spoke at the City Planning Commission Meeting - it was a heated discussion with local hotels bringing out every fear based story they could to build a case against allowing AirBnB rentals. (They see it as competition and are doing everything they can to block it.)

This has been my call to get involved in local politics. The Sharing Economy is critical to our future economic success - whether you live in a big city or small area. It brings money into the local community and economically strengthens it - encouraging local entrepreneurs to start businesses. Businesses people have pride in, get paid a wage where they can live a decent life. Not to mention connect you with passionate locals in unique lodgings. 

In a city like Twentynine Palms - which has been economically dependent on the local Marines base (Where will Military spending go in the coming years? Not to ground war resources I can guarantee you.) - economic diversity is critical to our longevity. I want this crazy (in a good way) little desert town thrive - and that takes a diverse ecosystem. When you come visit the gorgeous Joshua Tree National Park, I want you to experience unique locally owned restaurants, visit cool locally created retail shops, drink artisan beer, take home locally produced honey and return home with memories of the gorgeous desert sunsets.

The way local politics works in Twentynine Palms in this situation - the Planning Commission hears community concerns, makes a recommendation to the City Council and then the City Council votes. Last time they considered the idea (5 years ago), they voted against it, despite a positive recommendation from the Planning Commission. I'm working to ensure we allow AirBnB style rentals in this community this time around. 

Last Tuesday, after three hours of discussion we had only gotten through 5 of the 15 sticking points. The planning commission saw the community benefits - but had many regulatory concerns to discuss. We're reconvening on August 5th to go through the remaining 10 points. I'll be there again to be part of the discussion.

This is my first foray into local politics and wow, is it a lot of time and energy! Worth it on so many levels - not least of which it's material for the series!

I'd love to hear (and share with the commission) your comments about the Sharing Economy and AirBnB. And if you by chance want to join me August 5th, there's always crash space in the dome.

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AirBnB has more than an economic impact - it facilitates human connections making the world more friendlier. 

I queried my Facebook Community for their experiences on AirBnB. Here's what they had to say....

 

Amazon Wallet Review

I don't usually jump on the bandwagon and review a new mobile wallet - but Amazon is a company I watch closely regarding the Future of Money and Transactions. Today they launched their mobile wallet. I was really excited because - it's Amazon - they've got their new phone (which I am considering switching from my beloved Samsung) and well, Amazon has huge assets and generally does innovative things.

I immediately installed it on my Android Phone.

It's clear, this is a very basic 1.0 release. I guess the idea is that I will manually enter the cards I have in my wallet into this app - take a picture of it, sync the barcode.

 

 

(I tried to take a phone screenshot of this entry screen, but was DRM protected from taking a screenshot!)

Here's what it looks like from the Google Play Store Images (covering a bunch of the fields with dropdowns and keyboards.)

What a PITA - who is really going to manually enter the card information from their wallet? Does anyone actually use the physical card for rewards points? (I never do.) 

After adding a card or three, I went over to the amazon.com/wallet page. I wanted to see what functionality I could do there. I'd much prefer to input information on my computer than my mobile phone. 

At my Amazon.com/walllet it had all my basic payment information (which Amazon has because I've been buying things from them since 1996!) and a section entitled: Merchant Cards - which syncs up with the UI/Information shown in the wallet app. The cards I just entered on my phone immediately synced with the site - which was expected. My Amazon saved payment methods did not show up in the wallet app and are not (as far as I can tell) accessible from it.

My immediate reaction to this 3 minute interaction: BO-RING.

Part of that is because I live in the future. I also have high expectations from Amazon (as part of their reputation currency) - but I'm also human and understand software development and launching innovative products - so I reasonably see this release as a baby step. It's a Google move. The app has basic (unusable to me) functionality - but I can see where it could lead to functionality that would interest me (although it's likely 1-3 years out).

• I imagine Merchant Cards, will read Merchant Currencies in the future. Take a lead from Fidor Bank, Amazon. And then mash that up with Etsy like merchant stores.
• I imagine pushing my payment methods to the phone. And using theses verified/authenticated cards for payments via the mobile app in the real world. 
• I imagine integration with my Amazon Payments (which I used for my Kickstarter). This is totally missing (or I missed it).

There's a lot of integration that could occur in the future. And this baby 1.0 release is the first step.

So while I am less than impressed with this release, I see the potential for Amazon Wallet to go in a direction that DOES interest me and is TRULY innovative around money and payments. So I won't stop watching Amazon with my hawk's eye.