Now that I feel I’ve been a part of this community for a few months, I’m starting to feel confident about explaining why I chose this investment. So I’ve begun to pitch family and friends. However, I certainly don’t have the expertise to explain many aspects of the network. Therefore, I could use some help on how to rebuttal one crazy friend I have. In a text, he wrote
Its a mesh network…mesh networks have zero real world utility unless there is mass-nearly 100% adoption. To me its crazy to think any single product in the world can draw every consumer. I hope you make money but I’m sorry, the tech has been attempted before and it didn’t work. Maybe they make it WAY better, different, but I just cant wrap my head around how it could work. How can someone access the safe network without an ISP? The most basic of problems with it is that you need to use a funnel like an ISP to even access the network. Each of those gateways is centralized…immediately rendering the entire network…unsafe. I’m not saying it cant happen…I just truly believe it wont work because they need to have everyone using their network. And that’s not gonna happen in a capitalist world.
All my chips have been pushed in. I’m in whether we crash and burn or rocket to the moon. But with that being said, does he make any legitimate points? Or is he completely off?
Why should it only work if 100% of people are on board?
Not true because from first contact to the safe network all traffic coming from /to your computer is encrypted… (relevant topics: self authentication and self encryption of data)
Yes all users who want to surf the safe network obviously need to use peruse or need to install a safe plug in (to be developed by someone else than maidsafe because it makes safe browsing somehow unsafe ; )
… And if an application wants to utilize the safe network it obviously needs to connect to the network too - but that doesn’t mean the user will recognize this
Why would you want to do so…? (theoretically the safe network is an overlay network to the internet - so it can run without the internet but with… Whatever is there to connect the users… But it just will use the internet for the foreseeable future ; )
Long story short - he doesn’t make completely illegitimate points - but since he didn’t look into any details on the design he has no clue what he’s talking about…and is making 100% wrong assumptions that lead to wrong conclusions…
… That’s kind of like only having heard hip hop music and deciding ‘no music can sound good because I already listened to it and it was horrible’ … (would be a valid conclusion on wrong assumption too imho ; )
The friend of @smoothman9 made some good, intelligent points, questions that many potential users of Safe Network will have in the future. Rather than dismissing their questions, we should be preparing to provide thoughtful, intelligent replies.
The safe network is as much a mesh network as the current web really, just serverless/more distributed and p2p. But I’d call it a network, hence the SAFE Network, what’s in a name right? This network has nothing but utility if you ask me. Encrypted anonymous communications and transmission of data, decentralized storage, private digital cash like currency you can mine on a pc/Mac and perhaps mobiles or earn by building apps, if developing apps no need to pay for continuous hosting or set up security for potential users, perfect for IoT, BitTorrent like speeds for ALL data (no more seedless magnet files!), censorship resistant, in the future distributed compute (science, big data, online operating systems, faster services, etc), multi-sig capabilities, data chain receipts (optional public ledger), the list goes on and on. Passwords aren’t even stored on the network!
There are good documents and info on this forum, search “safe network architecture” it’s my favorite doc on here to explain an overview of the network to the semi technical, which it sounds like your friend is. Actually here’s the link- Redirecting... He sounds like he has a healthy amount of skepticism, I would address that and mention that you did too until you dug in but it’s a very big project so it’s hard to retain all the relevant information at times. I’d say don’t push it too hard but honestly having to explain it to others is a great learning opportunity for you. Hope that is helpful to you and welcome to the community!!!
I’m similarly clueless how to convince my brother, who is a software engineer. Unfortunately, I don’t think he has any interest in learning about it. He turned his nose up after a cursory glance after I told him about it. Sucks, cause I wanted his opinion, as a relevant expert, for my own piece of mind, but looks like I’m flying solo, since he’s not willing to spend the time to dig into it.
I think we all have at least one skeptic, people started listening to me about safe after not believing me about Bitcoin a couple years ago. He likely thinks the scope of the project and or adoption unlikely. A lot of people say oh it’s freenet? No, it’s not there are no federated nodes. So it’s like TOR? Or I2p? Why would anyone choose SAFE over those? Well because those still use servers they just route around them a bunch to obfuscate the IP address and the traffic is unencrypted at the exit node soooo SAFE is far better (no IP after first hop etc). Best thing you can do is learn enough to know when he’s making assumptions and then point out that it’s actually this or that. Anyways, I know it’s difficult sometimes but hang in there and good luck.
Yeah, he’s a bit snobby about the “scope” of the project; doesn’t get why it’s been under development for ten years…and I do get his hesitancy. Being in that line of work, he’s seen a lot of incompetent coders. Not that the developers of safenet are, but I get why he sees that as a red flag. I just wish he had spent a little more time looking into the size of the project. I asked him to RESEARCH it for me, and he came back 10 minutes later with a thumbs down. Unfortunately, he is just as short with his cryptocurrency investment studies. I stopped asking him for recommendations when I realized I’m more familiar than he is with the market, and tech. /rant
Unfortunately I think it takes more than 10 minutes to find any info that scratches the surface of the technical aspects of safe. There’s github but that still isn’t enough to understand how it all ties together. I feel for you, must just be a dismissive dude shrug but hey you’re here with an open mind so props to you!
I would defend maid til the very end, but y waste my time. Not worth the energy, once the safe network is live, there will be no need for rebuttals or arguments. It will be self-explanatory
Yeah, that’s why I’m here, and not listening to his “expert” opinion. I was irritated when he texted me back so quickly. But, I’m from a family of skeptics, so I’m cautious with my optimism, too. To be fair, I stumbled across maidsafe after finding storj a week after he told me about “his” idea to come up with some way to share storage. So, theres probably a bit of bitterness there, that there are already dudes working on his idea. He’s probably still under the assumption that safe is “just” about storage, too. Not sure where he went for his “research.” Ah well. Maybe I’ll rub it in a bit when I gift him a Lambo. Lol.
Thank you for pointing me in the right direction. I’m going to do some serious reading over the next few months and hopefully I’ll have a much better understanding of the network! And you’re right, explaining it to someone else is a great learning opportunity!
