This package is a store in itself. It contains a battery, a charging mechanism, and a computer. The computer is capable of holding and transferring digital currency. The package looks up physical locations it's likely to be sold at. It bids for transportation to the most likely-looking location. To buy the product a person transfers the requested amount of digital currency, from which the cost of manufacture plus margin is automatically deducted. If there's enough money left the package can bid to be returned to the store to be refilled. It can also offer bids to be recharged. There might be a kind of shop which only picks up these guys, charges them, collects the money, and puts them down in a collection yard to be recycled if they don't get picked up. Financial transactions of this sort are managed via traditional contracts (the package offers and accepts contracts) or that new digital currency which includes the contract in the currency.

Outside the scope of this idea is how to prevent theft but it may be that emergent behavior will include much higher bids for stores which would only sell physical security and a centralized place for access to customers to the packages.
-- Voice, Sep 26 2022

Smart Contracts https://en.wikipedi...wiki/Smart_contract
[Voice, Sep 26 2022]

Machine tipping Similar [pocmloc, Sep 26 2022]

So if I understand correctly, a smart product packaging that’s its own store, shipment facilitator and cash register right? Okay. Not sure how to apply this in practice but interesting idea. [+]
-- doctorremulac3, Sep 26 2022


//how to apply this in practice//

Make thing. Put thing in box. Wait for box to ask to be let go. Let box go. Wait for box to forward payment to you. Make more thing. Delivery contracts can be assured via smart contract: Anyone picking up the box can pay for it when they pick it up, and anyone can pay them when they drop it off. No need for agreements between companies.

The demand side can be satisfied by programs at the end user's end bidding for product delivery based on user specifications. Imagine a program that keeps a list of items you want and how much you're willing to pay for them. It doesn't have to be a comprehensive list in these final pre-AI days. You could just give it a shopping list and say, "pay no more than Aldi charges for a similar item, except the ice cream. Pay up to 5 pounds for that"
-- Voice, Sep 26 2022


Do I scent a whiff of Charles Stross / Accelerando?
-- normzone, Sep 27 2022


//Accelerando?//

We have to bridge the gap between scarcity economy and post-scarcity* somehow. I think this will help. And it can be built with today's technology and work in today's economy.

*yeah yeah, I know that access to a certain individual, plot of land, or physical item by a given artist will always be scarce.
-- Voice, Sep 27 2022


//post-scarcity//

Is that when things are just completely unavailable?
-- pocmloc, Sep 27 2022


It's like at Christmas, when you can't send anything by mail and expect it to arrive within two weeks.
-- Voice, Sep 27 2022



random, halfbakery