Ripple

The problems we see with the Ripple include the following:

1. A good currency must be flexible, or at least expand exponentially, to keep up with exponential usage or economic growth. The amount of gold being produced is growing, enabling it to mostly keep up with demand which is why it's price has been so stable for so long. The creators of the Ripple fixed the supply at 100 billion XRPs which they themselves took possession of. They "gifted" most of this to the "OpenCoin" organization (wasn't that nice of them) while keeping a huge amount for themselves. We hear they are currently giving out much of it for free. (If you find out how to get some for free, let us know.)
2. The peer trust system seems scary. I do trust my friends, but I worry about loaning money to others for another friend, and so on.
3. Not Open Source. The claim seems to be that some day it will be moved to be open source, but it isn't now.
4. There doesn't seem to be any easy way to use it, that we can see, yet.