Come up with a way for people to take out their enemies with no consequence to themselves, and another way for other people to get paid for doing it without being identified and you will make more money than Warren Buffett and Bill Gates combined. People completely underestimate the market for revenge and convenience killings in the world. Settling grudges with death would be more popular if the law did not frown upon it as it presently does, and if it was not so expensive. As it is, you must have connections in organized crime or know a desperate crack-addict, and also have lots of cash, to get someone taken care of.

This is where the whole question of bringing back duels  usually comes up, but they give an advantage to the more skillful, practiced dueler, and the challenged person gets to choose the weapon of choice, so those don’t work either as fat cowards often need people killed more than anybody else. There are lots of people who would happily embark on the job of revenge-assassination if they could be (relatively) well-paid for it, and could be certain of getting their money after the deed. Video-games and movies have romanticized the occupation of paid-killing. Some people are just curious about whether they could pull the trigger or not and what it would feel like.  These would be your freelancers. If you had a Paypal-like set-up where, say, a college student, starved for cash, could get a certain amount of money for assassinating someone, and where the hit could be confirmed, it would be very, very popular. Type in a name and address, deposit the fee and wait. Guaranteed hits. Who wouldn’t pay for that at some point in their life? How could that not take off?

Hurdles to overcome:

1. Trained killersMost people don’t have experience in this kind of thing, particularly the people who would be most interested in the asassination line of work. In order for your operation to work properly you need personnel who could make it look like something other than a murder, or to frame somebody else if there was no way that could be done. You would also need them to research the targetand pull off the job independently (remember, all this would be on a budget). 

Possible solution:Have a traveling “trainer” who will provide a short crash-course in researching the target, killing, and provide a plan for carrying the job out and getting away with it.  After a person has successfully done a few jobs, all they would need is a DVD with instructions. 

2. The policeThey tend to not take murder lightly, so for certain targets you might want to teach the freelancer how to make it look like something else, an accident or suicide, maybe. Make it easy for the detectives to blame it on somebody, perhaps another enemy of the client thus allowing them to take out two people for the price of one (perhaps this could be offered at Christmas or something). However, what happens if the freelance amateur assassin gets caught? Then your whole operation would be in danger.

Possible solution:Any freelancer in the employ of the company, and who gets caught would be killed by the training team who would get their (the freelancer’s) fee as a bonus. If you fail, the money you would have gotten pays for your death. See how neat that is? Steps would, of course, be taken to ensure that only the smartest, most capable people were selected as local assassins so as to minimize the possibility of arrest. 

3. Maintaining anonymityThis is, possibly, the biggest hurdle. The global banking system is set up to make anonymously transferring moderate to small amounts of money difficult. Online transactions all leave a trail somewhere, so that all the law-enforcers have to do is to look hard enough and they will find a connection. 

Possible solution:Either find a way to use the system that is already in place or come up with your own shadow global economy with banks and investment operations solely for people that the law does not like. A Bank of America for criminals. Another solution is to make it cash-only, with the trainer operating as a courier for the fee. Steps would be taken to ensure that he was nowhere near the scene of the actual job, and to protect his identity during the training process.

4. Confirming the killYou would have to wait until the coroner pronounces the person dead and the freelancer is completely in the clear before final payment is made. If there are photographs or anything that might present a connection between your freelance contractor and the murder there is a strong possibility that they will fall into the wrong hands, so taking pictures of the corpse is out of the question. That means that payment cannot be instant, or at least not the full payment. Let the confirmation come from newspapers and medical reports. You will have to acquire a reputation for prompt payment that will bring trusting clients. 

Possible solution:You could make this an Internet business with a legitimate front, like an Ebay or an Amazon, but  spread the rumor that you also dabble in assassination. Figuring out the legitimate customers from the illegitimate ones will be difficult, but there are ways to do it, like an invite-only system with the ability to invite going only to clients who have used the service before and paid in full. 

5. Economic inequalityHere we have the problem that has always come from paid murder: the rich can afford it more than the poor. Therefore rich people can use it to oppress the poor, or they will at least get more benefit from it. A rich person can afford to blow $500 on a hit whereas a poor person may have to struggle to come up with that much money. 

Possible solution:One hit a month for everybody thus providing a level playing field to all clients.