I posted this on Friendica awhile ago and am reposting it here for discussion. Also there’s been some discussion on here about safecoin taxes which is quite disturbing to me and I’d like to offer a voluntary alternative to that which would be money/funding pools. (I’m working on the vocabulary but it’s the same concept). Anyway here’s the post.
You know #maidsafe is more than just a way to #decentralize
data, it’s a way to create a low income assistance program. Think about
it for a minute, think about how ubiquidous computers are these days.
If you have a computer, a cell phone, laptop, or anything that can run
maidsafe, you can generate an income. It might not be a huge income
depending on the speed of your device and the trading prices of
currencies but it’s still an income. If someone produces enough they can
increase their production rate. If you have funds you can buy someone
on low income a divice and they can then start generating revenue.
Moreover the maidsafe network could additionally be used to allocate
funds to those in need using bitcoin transfers and funding pools (by
funding pool I mean an account or other entiity that people send money
to which then redistributes money to a list of users according to a
given ruleset. Kind of like a monotary version of a mailing list). This
would be easy to engineer in the maidsafe environment given a) it’s
inherent decentralized anonymity and security and b) it’s encouraging
and incentivizing of developement of new applications.
Of course the concept of money/funding pools and the like could be
applied to anything that taxation is currently used for I just used
income assistance because that’s what I was thinking of. It’s basically
just the core concept of #crowdfunding
and redistribution. The difference being it’s totally voluntary in it’s
design and for those that subscribe to it be it giving or receiving.
I would also like to point out that for the above reasons I find the suggestiion of making maidsafe invite only distasteful because it could and very possibly would exclude low income or no income participants.
I’m not quite sure what you’re implying with the low income assistance and funding pool idea. What’s the end goal exactly? I think I’m just misunderstanding you.
In terms of “invite only,” the point is to prevent bots from generating multiple accounts by charging a small fee. Bitcoin currently does this with their transaction costs. It would only be “invite” because someone else in the network would have to give you safecoins to log in with. I think the general consensus here is that we’re talking about a dollar / a euro, or less. Not a tremendous amount of money, and not a subscription. It’s a small one time fee to prevent bots from taking advantage of the network by generating millions of accounts to spam the network.
Is that enough to deter low income participants? It would also be someone else’s dime most likely. I’d invite you by giving you a safecoin. I don’t believe we’re talking about classism and economic suppression here. If someone can’t scrounge together a quarter to start an account, there’s a bigger problem.
Also, in the beginning, who would you say is adopting this system? It’s not going to be a no-income participant. There’s going to a really, really specific demographic. Probably predominantly male, ages 16-35. And that demographic tends to like exclusivity (a short period of perceived exclusivity by the nature of the network effect). By the time its in a place where it expands beyond that group, it should be extremely easy to get a safecoin to start an account. There’s probably going to be faucets and all that. Or something similar. Or ask a friend. Or hashtag #needSafecoinForAccount.
I’m not quite sure what you’re implying with the low income assistance
and funding pool idea. What’s the end goal exactly? I think I’m just
misunderstanding you.
I’m saying think about the implications maidsafe will have on our society and economy. And as for the fundraising think about the concept. It would be excellent if an app was made for that. Basically this is about thinking about the implications of maidsafe and from there possibilities for apps and applications for the software.
In terms of “invite only,” the point is to prevent bots from
generating multiple accounts by charging a small fee. Bitcoin currently
does this with their transaction costs. It would only be “invite”
because someone else in the network would have to give you safecoins to
log in with. I think the general consensus here is that we’re talking
about a dollar / a euro, or less. Not a tremendous amount of money, and
not a subscription. It’s a small one time fee to prevent bots from
taking advantage of the network by generating millions of accounts to
spam the network.
Is that enough to deter low income participants? It would also be
someone else’s dime most likely. I’d invite you by giving you a
safecoin. I don’t believe we’re talking about classism and economic
suppression here. If someone can’t scrounge together a quarter to start
an account, there’s a bigger problem.
Ok I can see your point here. And if you’re giving someone a device you can give them safecoins along with it.
Also, in the beginning, who would you say is adopting this system? It’s
not going to be a no-income participant. There’s going to a really,
really specific demographic. Probably predominantly male, ages 16-35.
And that demographic tends to like exclusivity (a short period of
perceived exclusivity by the nature of the network effect). By the time
its in a place where it expands beyond that group, it should be
extremely easy to get a safecoin to start an account. There’s probably
going to be faucets and all that. Or something similar. Or ask a friend.
Or hashtag #needSafecoinForAccount.
Also a good point. Althought not everyone who is into freedom and independence is that sort. Many libertarians are of the older generation non techie variety who would probably find maidsafe very appealing but intimidating because of the tech language barrier. (Note I’m using “libertarian” in this case in a very general sense to cover anarchist, libertarian, conservative, and pretty much anyone that values freedom to one degree or another, label it as you will).
@Russell We need to be careful here because I don’t think rationalising “it’s a tiny fee so people won’t be discouraged” is the way to understand people’s behavior in this case. The issue is pure psychology, and people behave very irrationally when making this kind of decision.
Not for the first time in my early morning catch up of MaidSafe mails I’m wracking my brain to remember the name of an excellent book that I never finished :#) which illustrated this with fascinating examples.
Replying here has reminded me. I highly recommend The Winners Curse by Richard Thaler - now if only I could locate my copy!
I mentioned something like this on another thread (I believe it was the one about proving a user was human) that most of the world lives on less than a dollar or two a day. So “a small fee” can actually be a very big fee in the grand scheme of things. Also setting a fee displays one’s intent. If maidsafe is gratis then that sets a different intention than if it requires mones a fee, no matter how small.
You have an important point that both the cost for the account, or the tech-language prerequisites can form barriers for adoption among the wide population. It is a challenge for this community to smooth these barriers in every way, for every person. This will be an ongoing effort, no doubt!
Setting a fee (small for the rich people in this world) also sends a clear message: Google and Facebook are free, and everyone has now learnt that in fact they are instead paying with their personal data. Some people are okay with that, others are less comfortable with this business model, some completely reject it. Asking a small fee, makes it clear that our intent is to put the user central, not the advertisers or other big data comapnies/NSA.
Concerning the billions of people in the world that have to feed a family on less then two dollars a day: obviously yes, 1 dollar is an expensive amount. But in the same sense as I explained earlier with the malaria nets, good-willing organisations can sell safecoins at a subsidised price on the ground. That would be the most cost effective digitisation campaign ever built - by orders of magnitude !
Friendica, Diaspora, Libertree and many other decentralized open source socnets do not require you to pay for use. In fact the open source community in general is usual gratis. So I find your logic flawed. Just because one pays with their privacy on facebook does not nessesitate or imply a quid pro quo requirement to get on the network.
Subsidized by whom? Subsidization to me says taxation by government. Taxes are a form of theft and more to the point they originate from the people in the first place. Who is footing the bill for this? Are you suggesting that someone be taxed, either in the first world or third world, in order to pay a fee that is only negligable to those in a minority of the world and who have the majority of the wealth?