No money? Time enough? A new platform has been developed where people can exchange goods or services. Usually we pay in cash, by credit card, we trade or we can even pay by bitcoin nowadays. One of the disadvantages of money is that you need to have it in order to be able to buy something. On Marktplaats.nl, a famous Dutch platform where people can offer and buy second hand goods and services, some people also ask to trade something instead of using money. There are even platforms, such as Ruilen.nl and Swapit.nl that focus solely on trading instead of paying with money. One of the disadvantages of trading is that it can be quite unfair sometimes. If you paint your neighbors house for 10 hours and your neighbor takes care of your garden for 5 hours it is not such a fair deal. Besides, it is hard to measure exactly how many hours one spent on a service and if you make a trading deal with a stranger it is usually hard to find something worth exactly the same. There is now a solution for this: the tijdmunt (timecoin).
Tijdmunt makes it possible for people to do a service for other people and in return receive a tijdmunt on the platform. One hour of work equals one tijdmunt. This tijdmunt can be spent on a service of someone else, so not especially the person you did something for. It is a platform where demand and supply come together. Tijdmunt currently has 260 users, and expects to grow faster in the future. At this moment there are 63 advertisements of people that offer something on the website, from repairing a flat tire to a dvd box of Lord of the Rings. Currently there are only 19 advertisements of people looking for a service, from someone looking for a hairdresser to someone looking for a programmer. On the demand side of the platform there is nobody looking for goods, only for services. Users can save real money because now they can pay in tijdmunten instead of with money. New users have to register on the website www.tijdmunt.nl, where they can create a tijdmunt bank account. This bank account allows them to transfer tijdmunten to other users of the platform.
Similar platforms where people can exchange services or goods for time were developed, but most of these websites are location based and local people do things for other local people.
The vision of tijdmunt states that before money it was normal to exchange goods and services, but over time consumers and companies have become largely dependent on money. The financial crisis has shown that money also has its limitations and therefore tijdmunt could be used as good complement to the normal money, because it is independent of place, investments and systematic risks. To me, tijdmunt seems like a fair complement to money for people doing services for each other. Would you try it out?
Sources:
http://www.geeferom.nl/project/tijdmunt-sociaal-geld-voor-iedereen
http://www.makkie.cc/service/verdienen/
http://www.marktplaats.nl/z.html?query=ruilen&postcode=
http://www.metronieuws.nl/binnenland/2015/01/nieuw-betaalmiddel-rotterdam-werkt-op-basis-van-tijd
http://www.tbrabantskwartiertje.info
Picture: http://www.caseact.com/Features/images/1
Consumer Value Creation 