Idea 453 of 500. Cluster 24: Proof and trust, as a business
Published price lists at the tourist sites and in the taxis, with a complaints line that answers
The mechanism, from the book
The one thing. A country where people do not expect the rules to hold cannot build anything else, and proof can be manufactured by private people, one published record at a time.
Every idea in cluster 24 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Ride with five three-wheeler drivers at one tourist site and ask what they charge for the usual trips and what they would agree to print on a card in the vehicle. Put the agreed prices on a laminated card with a phone number you answer yourself, and ask the drivers to display it for a month. The proof is how many visitors call, and whether the drivers who display it get more fares.
- Who pays first
- Three-wheeler drivers and tour operators who lose customers to distrust, and pay a small monthly fee to display prices that visitors believe.
- What leaves today
- Every overcharged visitor warns others, and the island's price falls with its reputation; a published price that holds is proof visitors can trust.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. SixThe Fridge by the Road
The fridge by the road: proof that the rules hold - Ch. FifteenThe Odds
13 of 101 countries made it, and what Singapore's prosecution cost
More from cluster 24
- 451A verified-review platform for Sri Lankan businesses where the reviewer is real and the review cannot be bought
- 452Escrow services for transactions between strangers, so that the money moves when the goods do
- 454A landlord and tenant rating service, since neither can currently check the other
- 455Contractor registries with completed jobs photographed and clients named
- 456Independent building inspection, so that a buyer abroad knows what was actually built
- 457Court-record and land-registry search services for the buyer abroad
Idea 453 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.