[orik]

The value proposition for the user is very weak - too weak to get people to spy on each other.

What are the odds that I'm going to get a payout? That someone out there is interested and willing to pay for one of the license plates I've seen? Probably very low. Do I really want to waste my smartphone battery doing this? I'd rather have maps and music on.

[greggman]

I would be happy to submit free videos to the police if they'd issue citations. When people break the traffic laws they are almost always putting other people's lives at risk. I'm happy to pay some of my time (pushing a button that uploads a 20-30second video of the violation) in exchange for safer roads.

[mc32]

Tie it in to law enforcement, get paid for detecting someone driving a vehicle with a warrant against their number plates.

[GFischer]

Insurance companies too.

[beamatronic]

Or an Amber Alert

[beamatronic]

That's why you would pay the drivers to run this app. Then via the Long Tail, they could get royalties every time the data they collected is re-sold.

[anigbrowl]

This might work for fleet purchases, but the economics for individual motorists don't look favorable.

[Retra]

You would spend more charging your phone than you would get from the service.

[jwcrux]

Generally, a system like this might work by handling queries via two ways:

* A "point" system - spend "points" (or credits) to find a user by license plate. * You can buy credits with money directly, or you can earn them by contributing information

That way, if you're a data contributor, you have access to the information without having to pay. That's how data.com works.

[baddox]

They don't seem very popular in the US, but always-on dashboard cameras already have obvious value. Maybe a dashboard cam cloud storage company could offer a discount on their services if you allowed license plate data to be gleaned from the footage you upload. Or maybe they would just throw a line in their ToS and do it.

[gus_massa]

IIRC they are very popular in Russia because the insurance companies reduce your prime. This cause a lot of interesting videos, like the meteorite a few years ago, and a lot ow weird accident videos: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dashboard+camer...

[eck]

> What are the odds that I'm going to get a payout?

The expected value of slot machines is negative too. Humans have a psychological weakness for "Just one more, I haven't won in a while, I'm due." In this case though it wouldn't even cost money to play.

[shortstuffsushi]

The expected value of slot machines is negative, but there is that slight chance of making a significant amount of money. That sort of "lottery odds" behavior doesn't really work here, imo.

[rsuelzer]

Then make it a lottery. Payouts for certain licence plates at certain times of the day.

[33W]

I think the value is when the local police pay for the query as well.

[happyscrappy]

>The value proposition for the user is very weak

The value prop for the average user is also very weak for encrypting data. I am more likely to lose all my data than prevent some theoretical malfeasance, never mind the extra time and effort. I am not a secret agent.