Maidsafe is gonna destroy their spy business model in the meantime. 
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Would we be able to offer users a cloud storage solution on the Safe network that could be easily set up and used by your standard computer user? (by standard, Iâm talking about people who can do the basics like register for a DB account, and use a drag and drop function on a simple to understand GUI)
We could also allow for a certain percentage of farmed Safecoins to be set aside for a free (say 10GB to start with, or more if possible) cloud storage app that people could easily sign up for and use. It would also have, and this is important, a very simple way for those users to send/receive those files to other users on the Safe network as well as an option to send to other people on the clear net. This is something that could be easily linked/integrated to the upcoming messaging system that is to be announced, and would attract a lot of attention to us from the start as well as the business community that are looking at the world evolution of cloud computing.
If the GUI for the app were simple enough to use, then I can see that attracting a lot of people to use it given the security that the network provides, which other providers like Dropbox, OneDrive or Google Drive really canât due to then being fully centralised by nature.
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SAFE is a âcloudâ storage system
Public data storage allows anyone to access and âprivateâ storage is your traditional âcloudâ storage/drop box.
So simply upload your files into your SAFE storage.
No need for special APPs and if you create one, people will just say I donât need that, I can just store it myself using the NFS (mounted drive) supplied with the client. Much better than any dropbox, since its builtin.
And if you want to share access to one of your private files then just hand out the datamap to that file and then the others can access it too.
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No, I understand that and I know that it is a cloud storage system, plus a whole lot more. I was rather inquiring as to whether we would be able to offer an app that is targeted for one specific purpose and that is as a safer, more secure and improved version of what is currently available out there at the moment. Basically something that would attract people who are looking for a simple to use cloud storage solution. I know that I may have mis-worded what I was trying to get at, as I do know that Safe is actually its own platform of which cloud storage is just the tip of the iceberg.
For example, if MVP were fully released tomorrow and I wanted some of my non techy friends to get involved with Safe, then having a simple to download .exe that would execute a nice looking program with a easy to use GUI (maybe this would also include a local folder that is created automatically on their machines like DB that would auto-sync with their data on the Safe network) would be easier for them to grasp and use, rather than if I were to try and explain what Safe is, how it works and why they should use it. If I just told them that all that had to do was download that program, register for an account (this would also actually be their main ID for the Safe network) and they could then have a better and free to use version of Dropbox/OneDrive etc, then it may appeal, initially, to the wider audience that I guarantee wouldnât have a clue what Safe is, but do understand how to use a simple program to store data that they can also share as well.
Sorry if I worded that wrong, but 99% of my friends are appalling when it comes to anything to do with computers as well as backing up. Example, last week a friend phoned me up to ask how to get some images from a USB stick to his laptop. For most people this would be a very simple thing to do, but there are a mind boggling amount of people out there that would also find situations like that a task.
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You can create an APP that caters to segment of the public who say love saving those cat videos to their private storage and the APP downloads off the web the vid and stores it on safe, all within the browser. Or if the cat vid is on a SAFE site then save the datamap
Thats a mickymouse APP, but just an example that yes you could make something that people may like in a âcloudâ storage APP.
My only reserve is that if you donât make it something more special than a âdropboxâ APP then people will learn to save to their NFS mounted SAFE drive directly.
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I tried to explain; and no, it wasnât for people just wanting to save âCat videosâ.
Forget it.
Um, yes. It is for people who wants to save cat videos!
You are forgetting that storage is cheap. These corporate giants are able to afford to offer free storage in exchange of data. Data itself is worth more than storage. They make money by by selling to 3rd party agencies or government.
This time around, money is actually redirected to the people of the world, not corporations and the government. When the people earn money, they can turn that into a investment vehicle, which can be used to invest open source cellphones, meshnet, and other means to empower individuals, rather than the collective.
If you read in the article, the corporate giants has so much money that they have their own internal network where all employees can use. In these internal network, it can recursively find user data, and use it for their gain! Facebook and CIA work together so they can find potential âterroristâ. Google and US government work together so they can track you, know your routine whereabouts, and know when you post at certain time frame.
So back to the cat video, even it is just a cat video, the government and the corporate giants knows more about you than you do about yourself! So it would be wise to post in safenet, so these corporate giants and government doesnât know about you, your whereabouts, and your routine actions online.
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I understand what you are saying. I taught someone yesterday how to bookmark a page and that boggled their mind.
If I told them they can download the dropbox app and just store files in it right away, they would be amazed.
If I told them they had to download SAFEnetwork, connect to a new internet and then pay a little SafeCoin to store files, they probably would go with dropbox.
Something needs to be done regarding this, like you say, store some coin for a free 10GB but you can only spend the coin on storing files for example.
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The only ânegativeâ difference is instead of clicking a few times âaccept termsâ you need to click to pay safecoin. "connect to a new internetâ goes automatically after downloading and installing of course 
. There are quite a few positive sides when youâre comparing Dropbox and Safenet as well 
Controlling your own data, privacy, anonymity and all the other things you know it offers.
I also believe that thereâs a bootstrapping method in a RFC somewhere that says that every new account gets X amount of Safecoin, usable for storing only. Please donât take that last sentence as the truth, Iâll try to find the quote
" This may be temporary and only used in test-safecoin, but it is likely essential to allow this for the time being. It may be a mechanism to kickstart the network as well."
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Yes⌠@TheGift73 The interface you want to have for your non-techy friends will come. Itâs not here yet, and MVP wont deliver it and it ultimately may be somewhat more involved than pressing a single button, but it will come. So tell your friends about MAID and tell them to wait a while and someone will build the onramp they want. We wont forget that some people will gladly pay money to avoid anything clunky and those folks will remain among the consumers targeted by the likes of Dropbox, One Drive, GDrive and USB stix.
If I told them they can download the dropbox app and just store files in it right away, they would be amazed.
If I told them they had to download SAFEnetwork, connect to a new internet and then pay a little SafeCoin to store files, they probably would go with dropbox.
This was exactly what I was trying to say.
Also on a side-note, getting them to figure out how to actually get hold of some Safecoin in order to be able to use the network for data storage purposes would be an even greater challenge for them as it would currently involve either buying some BTC and then exchanging that for Safe via an exchange, or to farm some for storage that they may provide. I would be more than happy to actually supply all of my friends with whatever amount of MAID/Safe that they would need to do this, but having an easy to get method for the average user to obtain Safe would also be beneficial. I remember when I first got in to crypto and managed to get hold of about 150k of Blackcoin which I then proceeded to give about ÂŁ100 worth each to 5 of my friends as I was excited about the future of crypto and wanted them to also start getting involved with the future of finance and the internet as I saw it. However, even after getting them to download the wallet, I still had the task of getting them to set a passphrase and make multiple backups of the wallet.dat file on multiple devices. An even greater challenge would have been trying to explain how they could then either trade that Blackcoin for BTC or another currency, or to try and obtain more Blackcoin later. Some may eventually get it, but most would think, meh, too much like hard work and not easy enough to do in a few click. Which is why I also inquired about creating free (X amount of free storage) accounts for new users that may pique their interests into the Safe network that could be subsidised by some other method.
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What would be the difference between clicking âyesâ on a screen that asks if you want to pay 1 safecoin (Safenet) or click âyesâ on a screen that asks if you accept their terms (dropbox) ?
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If I told them they had to download SAFEnetwork, connect to a new internet and then pay a little SafeCoin to store files, they probably would go with dropbox.
Once again, you failed to understand economics in corporate giants. It isnât exactly free. The dropbox wants your data, and therefore they will provide the storage to you for free. Storage is cheap, data is 100x more valuable.
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I think MrTurvey does understand what you mean, what he and TheGift73 try to explain is that for mass-adoption, a freemium-kind-of model might be the best solution.
As far as I know this was considered in earlier stages of development, but David and the Maidsafe-Team decided that it wouldnât work, because of freeloaders who would exploit this.
Anyway. I think this could probably be implemented as a 3rd-party-service, like the bitcoin-faucet or similar solutions in other systems.
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There is no such thing as freemium model. Thatâs all hogwash. No business can operate on free model, it is not sustainable. Business earns money by earning upload stream/download stream, collecting data from users, and sell virtual items to users.
For example, valve dota 2 / team fortress 2. Surely it is free but their entire business model depends on the virtual items, and people playing their game. If people are buying/trading virtual cosmic items, then it adds value to the company. When somebody says valve is worth billion dollar company, it simply means that valve virtual items are worth billion of dollars. If nobody is trading, and nobody is buying their virtual items, their entire model collapsed, and the company will have to file bankruptcy. You see, their virtual cosmic items is akin to safecoin, or bitcoin. It is defined differently in a way that it cannot be used as âmoney.â But thatâs a lie. These virtual cosmic items are considered commodity, there are people out there who does day trade and make money off of it. They define it in a way so it cannot be registered as money transmitter so that the feds, and government agencies donât go after them. Gabe and the employees are brilliant in this grand scheme.
You are wrong. Many services for consumers are offered for free and are either provide teaser entry level options and/or are subsidized by corporate subscriptions. This model will never change.
You are ignoring the economic effects, and my example on valve.
The difference is this. Iâm a noob user, I am being told I need to pay right away to store my data vs using dropbox where I get a certain limit for free. Of course, Iâm going to go with something I donât need to pay for right away because I might not even reach that limit.
It doesnât matter to most end users how the business is making money. If you get free dropbox then they will take it. I use google search engine for free, I donât care that they are making money through adverts surrounding me. Others donât care that Facebook have rights to all photos uploaded.
Donât get me wrong guys, I am all for MaidSafe, I am really looking forward to it. But I do agree with TheGift73, in that we need to give the end noob user an incentive to use this storage over others. I get that anonymity is an advantage to us and some others but your average user wonât care if they are totally anonymous/files are totally private. Thatâs why people use Public Clouds/Dropbox/Etc because they believe they are private enough.
The idea of each account having some safecoin able to be used just for storage, works for me. It doesnât have to be a lot, it just needs to be enough to work as a trial.
Yes I can see that but like I said, itâs possible that you might get some coins (for storage only) so that would be your âcertain limit for freeâ. And if that noob user still prefers to hand out control of his data and decline privacy and such than heâs more than just a noob in my opinion
Iâm not saying that we shouldnât do anything to make it as easy as dropbox but the developers give the ânoobsâ the opportunity to get something better than theyâre using now. Itâs not that bad if they have to do something for it in exchange .