I agree with that. I’m sorry if it didn’t become clear. I saying that growth comes from money.
Do you think that the DeFi market of the Ethereum network has value for SAFE?
I think SAFE’s goals have value.
Additionally, I think an automated onramp to SAFEcoin built directly into SAFE has value.
I expect that SAFE will be a better platform for DeFi.
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I’m sorry, I’m not expressing myself correctly. It is obvious to me that all of us who have been here for 6 years and work for SAFE see the huge, non-money value. I’m not talking about it. There are no outsiders here. For us it is obvious.
I am talking about outsiders who are not here and who are not interested in our value, otherwise they would be here now and work with us.
I know that these people value money and that is why they would join us and give us their energy. We get value that is not money, they get money. We all win.
I disagree. I remember the internet before the web, and I remember the web before the dot-com era when parasites began flooding the internet solely for power and greed. It was a better overall experience then.
The parasites will come, and I wouldn’t seek to stop them, however I wouldn’t expend resources that could be better invested to accommodate them.
Relatedly I’ve become convinced that an ERC-20 MAID is a project distraction and therefore I don’t support it.
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This has already been discussed and I don’t think anyone is pushing for it to be done by the team now.
We are discussing whether it makes sense for a third party to make an ERC20 token. What do you think about that? Is there a value that SAFE would get if this party added us to the huge liquidity of the Ethereum DeFi market?
I can’t know if I would support the idea without first identifying the optimal SAFEcoin purchase options scenario, to then know how an ERC-20 MAID token could be implemented in a way that serves longterm goals.
However we couldn’t have that discussion because this issue dominated it, and that’s partly what convinced me to be against ERC-20 MAID, irrespective of whether MaidSafe or community members spearheaded it.
Looking at SAFE through ERC-20 eyes is coming from the wrong direction.
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Thank you for the answer, I am trying to understand what people think and why, to enrich my knowledge on the subject and to assess whether there are dangers that I do not know 
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I liked talking with Michael Jackson of Skype. Now skype had a cash element you had to get some credit to make landline/mobile calls, but skype->skype was free. The interesting thing was skype had no servers (they did have 6 or so bsd machines for bootstrapping nodes onto).
Many folks computers could be reachable by others (like our nodes) and those computers ran telephony signalling and relaying. This allowed everyone to make free skype calls.
Now the question is (when thinking btc/eth money etc.) Why did folk do that? Why did they not switch off skype when they were not using it (bandwidth like today was gold).
The reason was value, the value of having audio calling and messaging worldwide for “free”. Now in btc world (of today, not so in 2009/14) the cry would be,
- use it for yourself,
- give nobody else anything
- Profit!
However the world does not work like that, greed is good can be true, but I feel it is like the stuff that floats to the top of a boiling pot. The scummy stuff that’s visible, but tiny in volume compared to the rest of the pot.
I get misunderstood a lot with this, I don’t mean incentivisation is bad, quite the opposite, but it’s not money alone and in some cases not money at all. When we see only incentivise == give money then I think we miss a huge part of how the world works. Some folk have never seen money, they want food and shelter, some folk all they see is money and it’s unbalanced. If the world went to hell in a handbasket and the economy collapsed (not as unlikely as we imagine) all us money folk would really want to pal up with those who did not know money, because they know nature and how to feed and shelter themselves.
I digress, but understanding true value is hard, I am convinced though it comes in many many forms.
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Everything you say, David, is true!
In this case, I’m trying to focus the conversation on a type of value and I’m not talking in general.
The question is as follows. Is there a value in the Ethereum DiFi ecosystem that the Safe Network can take advantage of. If the answer is yes - then what is the value for us. If the answer is no, then what are the negatives for us.
For example, I personally think that there is a huge value for us - our first users and our first farmers + liquidity where these farmers can exchange part of the profits and maybe give it for advertising the network.
I am not sure we know the answer. A larger question for me would be, where is the most immediate value to the project. Of course I say launch and get the Engineering complete, but apart from that, where do we get greatest value.
Then I go into a mode of thinking of the planet as a whole. Defi etc. can perhaps bring a rush of money, maybe also cryptocurrency haters would not look at SAFE as they see it as another quick get rich scheme. The world is large though and looking at how things take off is important. I don’t know of any Defi project/product that has grabbed worldwide appeal in the same way skype, email, facebook, twitter etc. have.
So the fundamentals of SAFE are Privacy, Security and Freedom, the network achieves this via Safe Network and this we know.
With that a given we need to discover what gives this value! Perhaps, and I am no marketeer, it is getting SAFE into as many hands as possible. Then onto deeper thinking.
Imagine a world where you don’t lose data, imagine a world where you have a website or blog and it’s maintained free of charge forever, imagine cyber terrorism cannot exist, viruses in your data no more, imagine not being locked to your computer, any computer can be your’s (fuse etc. @happybeing and @danda 
), imagine your private memories, videos, photos etc. are protected forever and private, no company or government has access to your thoughts, dreams, aspirations and conversations.
Then we need to think, where is the value? Is it more complexity or less, is it getting out a very simple, easy to understand proposition to as many people as possible? Can it be so good it grows organically and fast? Can we make it available to those who have no idea about crypto? And so on.
I think the question is bigger than erc20/btc/safecoin and is more related to the value proposition the network can provide, mainly though applications and app developers.
Then we can see the low hanging fruit, the next target to make this as simple, affordable and available as possible to every single human on this wee blue dot.
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This is my view, it’s easy to underestimate the strengths, and differences of SAFE compared with the rest of the decentralising ecosystem. For anyone who has been in the crypto space for a while, it can be easy to lose sight of how SAFE is different in vision, implementation and capability.
So I both understand the arguments around ERC20 and accept they have some validity, I’m not convinced they stand up, or are as important to SAFE compared to ‘conventional’ crypto projects (if there can be such a thing!)
I’m not complacent and will continue to learn about DeFi and everything else (which is valuable and fun for me to learn). I am though glad that Maidsafe are clear about, and consistent with the vision they’ve held for so long, and I see this as a strength, and something that’s vital to the success of the network. Any fork is unlikely to have this, which I think would put it at a significant disadvantage.
Nothing is guaranteed, but it’s my view that we should try to create SAFE the way we want it to be first, see how that goes down with developers and users, and work from there. To me ERC20 is not vital at this point, may have value, but also carries risks. Not just in distracting the team, but various issues that are not easy to explore and which are hard to evaluate. Basically a can of worms! 
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Yes, this is the key, focus on exactly this. Tesla does not advertise. Musk doesn’t waste his resources on advertising. Instead, he asks himself: “Will this activity result in a better product or service? If not, I stop those efforts.” A top-quality product will lead to lots of great word of mouth. Focus on that first and success will follow.
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Tesla doesn’t advertise, but they sure do market. How Tesla Used a $0 Marketing Strategy To Dominate a Market | Marketing Strategy
The problem is that people often conflate advertising with marketing. Any company who allocates the majority of its marketing budget and effort to advertising is in a world of trouble. However, any company that fails to have a cohesive and coherent marketing strategy is even worse off.
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despite the fact that i do agree with you and your word - advertising is still important and he does it in a way or another. advertising if often the key to success. obviously, if you’re having a good product or service that’s worth the efforts.
by having a shitty product, advertising is never going to work well. but having a good product - it may be popular even without advertising, but with it, your success is going to be 10x times more and faster
I’m not going to debate this, just point out that IMO getting people buy shitty products is one of the main functions of advertising.
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The third sentence of the article referenced says:
"For example, Tesla spent $58.3 million on marketing costs in 2015, while Audi and BMW spent $195 million and $196.6 million respectively.
My eyes hurt trying to verify this $58.3 million dollars in marketing costs for Tesla. The article in Marketing Strategy was published in September of 2019 and cites Tesla’s Annual Report for 2016 and, later, their 10K report for 2016. I cannot see this $58.3 million dollar figure he mentions anywhere. Is he talking about only for 2016 or for 2014 through 2016, the traditional 3-year period cited in financial statements? Is he talking about “Selling, general and administrative” costs? That encompasses a lot more than marketing. Maybe someone with better eyes can find it.
Notes:
- In an Inc. Magazine article from September of 2016 (https://www.inc.com/walter-chen/how-teslas-referral-program-generates-more-than-40x-roi.html) they state:
“Toyota’s sales fell by almost 10% this spring, even though they spent $4.6 million on marketing.
Tesla, on the other hand, has a $0 marketing budget, and their sales are through the roof.”
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The quote of $195 million dollars spent by Audi and $196.6 million spent by BMW came from an article in Wards Auto from January 2015 and ONLY includes TV advertising, not total marketing costs, whereas the $58.3 million figure for Tesla is, presumably, total marketing costs.
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It should be pointed out that Tesla is not only an automotive company, it is also a Solar Energy company and much of it’s expenditures for this type of thing is most certainly attributable to propping up the fledgling company formerly known as Solar City.
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The most powerful form of non-traditional marketing employed by Tesla falls heavily on the shoulders of Elon Musk and the power of communication with his many Twitter followers, and for this you need no marketing budget.
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Other things Tesla does such as publicizing drag races between its EV’s and conventional cars, road course challenges, customer referral programs (BIG one!) and ratings from various evaluators do have some costs, but they are minimal really.
I’m not trying to nitpick here, just trying to make some sense of a claim that, on the surface, does not seem to be accurate. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
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lol … how does advertising work? 
and thinking on the risk of driving Tesla, I wonder half of marketing is what you don’t say…
there is something to be learned though… Tesla promises something futuristic AND couples with daft actions like putting a car in space AND then rockets that land backwards … it’s quite a powerful attractor… and yes, that might not be Tesla but the association is strong brand and magic?
(nice to see we’re off topic 
)
Fancy that…up front and center the 2016 Tesla 10K lays out their marketing goals:
Imagine that…the same 10K talks about how effective marketing is crucial to their success:
Oh wait…I wonder what they do with those 302K and 506K square foot facilities dedicated to sales and marketing (I also wonder how much that all costs them annually):
Check that out…marketing in their SG&A expenses:
And here is the real kicker…they literally said they spent $58.3M on marketing in 2015:
It’s amazing what you find when you actually read the 10K.
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