There are (so called) complementary currencies in communities all over the world. So I thought, why don’t use delta chat bot for this?
There are many complementary currencies systems and one of them is “mutual credit systems”.You may read about it on wikipedia (Mutual credit - Wikipedia).
So, the idea:
bot, which coordinate mutual credit system
community creates group chat
add this bot to group chat
set up currency: name, credit and debit limits, date of credit clearing (to balance accounts to zero points)
User1 send message to group chat: “pay 100 units to User2”
Bot provide operation and send message to group chat: “User1 balance: - 100; User2 balance: +100”
commands for checking up all users/specific user balance, service/product, so on…
bot reminds to group members about credit clearing date
members meet up to balance their credit and debit upto zero point (by providing services/products or by using national currency)
Hey there, this looks awfully close to shared expenses logging (like tricount) and it is a perfect use case for webxdc apps (https://webxdc.org/):
send the basic app to the conversation, start filling in the name of the context (“Christmas holidays”) and the names of people
all participants can enter exchange credits, from who to whom
another “tab” with current status
do the reconciliation afk, mark it as done
when a new context arises, even with the same people in the same conversation, send the basic app again, fill it with the new context (“Summer Camp”) and start over again
Advantages over a bot:
does not need to be deployed: deployment of an always-running server is infinitely more complicated than sending a file in the conversation
does not need to be deployed bis: no need to have an internet connection running, you can do stuff while offline
does not need to be deployed ter: only participants know what’s happening. No third-party (typically the bot hoster) know what is being done, who is involved, who owes what to whom
integrated backups that are distributed to all participants
Drawbacks:
can only be used from deltachat. But the whole group is on deltachat already anyway
Nope. Mutual credit system is not about group share expenses…
is about avoid national currency within local community (you may have no money, but still you have skills to offer),
and is about support local businesses (because you may spend your earned “credit units” only within community),
and in some cases is about to avoid risks of inflation of national currency (mutual credit is “money”, which supply is equal to what community actually have to offer, it issues while people serve each other and erases while credit clearing process.
I tried to find out some app providing mutual credit system or timebank, but I only found some online local services. And in the case of app or bot this system may be implemented just anywhere.
It is indeed different in goals, but is the same in usage: people start with the same amount of units and exchange it. A sharing expense app can be used for that.
There is a difference in the scope of users: in your description I understood that everyone would be part of a single chat group, in which case a webxdc app works. But if the community is bigger it might get unwieldy to have everyone in the same group chat, so a bot that anyone can talk to 1-to-1 becomes handy.