On Wednesday, February 5, 2014 2:33:30 PM UTC-6, pbirkel wrote:
2. PayPal to fund-collector. When they have accumulated the necessary amount they either send a single PayPal to Andrew or send a personal check (or other fund transfer mechanism).
Unfortunately that would probably look to the algorithms exactly like money laundering, which I guess is what it is, although not for unlicensed pharmaceuticals as is usually done. If you thought they were excited now, give that scheme a try a couple times.
Bitcoins? Seems to be the up and coming standard for cheap money transfer.
Probably postal money orders is the cheapest overall idea?
There are of course alternative financial models, like ebay or even an amazon storefront. That would require fronting the money so prices would go up and those marketplaces love to skim money. But you have to be realistic, I'm guessing for most people the PCBs would still be a fraction of component cost at twice the PCB cost.
Another idea is the classic parallel processing.