Thanks for your response. It helped me to create an FAQ...
"It isn't really free money because you have to make the effort to contact them to get a share."
That's like saying picking up a quarter on the street is not free money because you had to bend over to pick it up. And then there is the cost of having a pants pocket to store it. That cost money, And let's not forget the cost of minting the coin. Some poor soul had to work in a dangerous mine to extract the ore. And then there is the smelting of the ore and shipping the raw materials to a mint and on and on and on. No free money in picking a dollar bill up up off the streets.
"But after that first dispensation, how do you earn more?"
Like the article says, the payments are weekly in perpetuity. It's not a one time payment. I have received payments for almost a year. Furthermore, if you refer someone, you get additional payments for 1 year. This is to grow the program while keeping it from being an MLM opportunity. They will discontinue the referral payments later as the program grows.
"It needs exchange listings, and merchant adoption, or at least OTC shapeshift-style exchangers to give it exchange value."
Manna is traded on the SouthXchange. There you can trade your Manna for many other tokens and convert them to other tokens to convert to fiat currency on other exchanges like Coinbase. This is the same as how steem can be cashed out. Moreover, Manna's exchange value has increased over the months as the chart in the article shows.
"Unless it has reasonably compelling utility, it will have no value and more or less will be worthless."
Manna is already traded on an exchange and can be traded into fiat currency and spent at your leisure. You could even use it to buy that Lambo you have been drooling over.
"In my opinion, a far better 'UBI' program would see them giving out crypto mining rigs on a payment plan. One decent current model miner only costs around $1500-2000 and pays for itself in 3 months."
I have my doubts about this statment. Who can prove they are making that level of income from mining. All I see is idle comments about how profitable mining is when it really isn't. It's not enough to own a mining rig. There is a lot of expertise that goes into setting it up and managing it. Then there is the overhead of storing the mining rig, providing electricity, cooling it down, Internet service etc. Furthermore, they don't last. They become obsolete and need to be replaced with improved models to remain comptetive; another $1500-2000. No UBI here.
"UBI is really a nonsense idea, completely ignoring the facts of economics."
On the contrary, it is an economic fact that automation is eliminating jobs more and more and it makes sense to plan for this contingency by anticipating the situation and providing alternatives to the masses besides unemployment and poverty for the poor while enriching the wealthy who own the means of automation. UBI has been shown to eliminate poverty.
"Steem itself is a great UBI."
Sorry, but Steem is nowhere near a Universal Basic Income and was never designed to be such. You have to be favored by the oligarchy to get any worthwhile amount for your efforts, as you state in your comment. It's more like voluntary slave labor. The normal steemer busts his chops for hours to create a post and then gets paid pennies for the effort, if he's lucky. Steemers support the oligarchs in the lavish style they are accustomed to with their cheap labor.
