[LINK] GovHack Sydney

[Roger Clarke]

>On 30/07/16 15:51, Roger Clarke wrote:
>> ... around the same circle we go for the umpteenth time. ...

At 8:55 +1000 1/8/16, Tom Worthington wrote:
>The Smart eInvoicing GovHack team had an interesting and pragmatic
>approach. As explained to me, they wanted to use the Australian Business Register < https://abr.gov.au/ > to allow businesses to exchange electronic invoices securely. Blockchain would be used in place of a third party gateway, who would have charged for the service: http://slay-the-bridge-trolls.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
>ps: "Smart eInvoicing" won a local prize in the GovHack competition: https://2016.hackerspace.govhack.org/projects
https://2016.hackerspace.govhack.org/content/open-invoicing

There's the problem of ABR moving, at best, at glacial pace.  (The Business Entry Point may *still* not have delivered all of the Phase 1 requirements that we - ETC at the time - wrote for them in the late 1990s, let alone Phase 2).

Another issue is that disintermediation is always attractive.  Until you discover how much you have to invest in order to achieve even the same results as the stodgy, old, expensive intermediary, let alone deliver on the extra promises.

You end up taking advantage of 20-20 hindsight, becoming a less expensive and more attractive and fashionable alternative intermediary ... and begin sliding inexorably towards being the next stodgy, old, expensive intermediary.

However, it'll be a nice test of whether the blockchain notion is the bubble that some of us expect it to be - and it's a great exercise for the participants in any case.  (Yes, I too once enjoyed innovative tech challenges, back before I became part of the problem).

-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			             
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
Tel: +61 2 6288 6916                        http://about.me/roger.clarke
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/ 

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University