How you get the data doesn’t matter, you are paid on lottery for GETs
No one pays for data stored due to another node going offline.
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Well it obviously does - if I get it by way of a PUT, I get paid.
If I get it due to unprotected farmers having “issues of permanent nature”, I get xxxx.
Another point in favor of my argument, that more young people will engage in unprotected farming.
Now we also have risk socialization. If you have RAID, you can also lose revenue (and relatively more compared to non-RAID-ed users, because you’re protected) due to “friendly fire” from horny unprotected farmers.
While disks have the the same likelihood of failure, if a RAID-ed guy’s disk fails, he loses a disk. If an unRAID-ed guy’s disk fails, he loses, but also everyone else who wins the unlucky lottery to rebuild the missing data.
No you don’t. The coins paid for PUT are destroyed by the network (they rejoin the pool of un-issued SafeCoins). You only get paid by serving GET requests, by the network. The network itself is the middle man here. A vault works for the network and gets a “wage”, an uploader pays the network. An uploader never pays a vault directly. It’s irrelevant whether chunks stored on your vault come from fresh PUTs or churn because other vaults go offline. A GET is a GET, the network doesn’t discriminate between them.
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I can’t believe I hadn’t realized that before (and I think I didn’t because the idea seems illogical).
As you know I’ve been arguing against various “freeby” and “freeloading” ideas all the time, but this is the biggest freebie that was in front of me this whole time and I didn’t see it.
Now I doubt that the economics will work out for MaidSafe farmers.
- RAID-ed farmers subsidize the network by taking on the burden of data protection from from unprotected farmers. They don’t get paid more for their work (!), and can’t be paid more for
GETs either because the system can’t tell who’s just lucky and who has RAID. - Zero punishment for bad farmers who appear stakeless (free to join and free to leave as they please, if they notice a low hit rate)
- Low chance (5-10% of storage capacity per year?) of
GETs that has to be divided by 4 (or whatever the number of replicas is) and further decreased by the caching layer (if that layer is made to work efficiently)
Now I am not saying this can’t work, but I am saying that I’m quite certain that it won’t pay to use RAID and/or specialize (e.g. by running a large farm).
Those who farm on unprotected storage will lower the price to the point where it’s going to be uneconomical to use RAID (s/w or h/w).
In all other non-free approaches that I’m familiar with, farmers get paid to store data, so seeing a certain price the person can with some certainty tell if it pays to buy a 4TB HDD and populate it with (say 1 year) storage contracts (if you get paid to the tune of about 50-100% of the cost of the HDD, you’re probably going to make some money if you keep the darn thing online for 400 days).
With the lottery approach, the gambling is going to work both ways - people will join to try their luck, but they will also quickly leave if they don’t start scoring within a week or two (think of the added network churn for the RAID guys…)…
I’m surprised that prospective farmers aren’t more vocal about this (or maybe they’re like me - couldn’t comprehend that they don’t get a cut on PUTs).
I’m amazed you didn’t understand this too. It has been discussed in depth going way back and I’m sure you were part of the discussions.
The only thing I think you missed while absent was the switch to non-persistent vaults, and that just has the effect of shifting the balance further away from pro-farmers to ordinary users.
The market mechanism is there to ensure that while the price and opportunity is maintained for ordinary users (who will just switch on farming and be happy whatever they earn), should there not be enough provision this way, the rewards will ramp up until sufficient pro-farmers are attracted to fill the gap.
I don’t see how this can fail. You like markets, and this is a really well thought out one IMO.
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PUT’s increase amount of safecoin there and increase the value as well (more useful utility), so you get an amortised ‘cut’ if you like. More Puts == more farming will be successful, esp as time goes on and the network gets larger.
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As a prospective farmer, I don’t care much at this time as I am going to build a RAID 6 server anyway for my personal files and simply farm on it, and because I will also farm to promote free speech and privacy, and earn enough to use the network myself.
making a few bucks would be a plus but isn’t my main goal.
But I agree that only some few early adopters will think this way.
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Mine neither, I will Farm for fun 
But to be honest, I have enough Maidsafecoin that will buy me a lot of storage already. Here’s my prediction for what will happen when the 1.0 network goes live:
People see it, understand it and use it. A lot of people will understand that next to mining Bitcoin or some other coin this is way more easy! They’re already used to sharing a torrent once they have it, and now they can actually make money on it. I vision myself back when I was 16 years old. With the opportunity to make some money using my computer. Even for 1 dollar a day I would’ve done that at that age.
Because Farming can be done by everybody (as opposed to mining) a lot of people will start to do it. The network sees this so the farming reward will go down day after day. After some time the Safecoin that can be farmed a day will be quite low. Which on the other hand will increase the price.
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The routing guys have made a huge leap here in this sprint (caused some delays, but worth it) where routing will almost always (unless on mobile etc.) try and start a node when it’s called (i.e. from a client app). If it can it will then farm. This is all aligned with the current determined drive towards lots of nodes with tiny state (persona accounts == network state). This will progress through launch but will potentially make tiny nodes possible and perhaps even on mobile phones as they charge near a wireless connection. It is a really nice step, so sorry for slight delayed sprint, the guys are working their hearts out just now (one had to take a break for a few days) getting it all running again (network started on droplets today, some vault code to change to match the API).
This is key to making everything capable of farming, something that will be very good if it works out, we will certainly try 
In any case we are much closer that we ever were in this regard and if nothing else it makes vaults as efficient as possible for now. It’s a huge ‘hat off’ to the folks in routing and the rest of the team for putting up with very fast moving API’s this sprint. Great work all round.
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I don’t see the price as being determined this way. Otherwise I think your prediction seems very plausible.
Price is I think relatively independent of what is happening on the network regarding farming. It is part of the mix, but only one of several price influencing factors, and it is those that I’m most intrigued by.
First is demand from people who want Safecoin for speculation and/or use, but have only recently decided they need/want it. This could be a significant factor as awareness ramps up.
The supply side is from people wanting to cash in either on farming earnings or speculative holdings. But I’m not convinced either of these will be significant for some time, or at least until the premium on Safecoin has risen quite a lot.
The question for me is how the demand side will develop, not just for storage but other things that people start to utilise Safecoin for.
It is very exciting to imagine, and that too will encourage people to want to farm at least a bit of their own Safecoin.
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Well, we have to see when the thing goes live. But to me, Farming won’t be done for fun only. It actually costs money to provide resources. So what’s inside the price of Safecoin? Let’s just compare it to a diner at a restaurant. You pay for the food, the salaries of cooks and waiters, the building, electricity, taxes etc. It’s all in there.
Farmers are the restaurant and getting people to eat. What do these people pay for? Data, electricity, storage, caching Chunks, and everything else that’s part of it. I know, most people already have a computer, but being a Vault will ask for some more electricity and resources.
So what happens when the Farming Reward goes down and down? You get less Safecoin payed as a Farmer per MB. for the same amount of resources. Well something gotta give. If you have less Safecoin farmed on the network and the demand stays exactly the same, the price should go up.
What might happen although is the “Bittorrent effect” where people just supply to the network to get back later. If the Farmig Reward is way lower it should also be cheaper to PUT data to the network, so people actually get what they give. Without a concern for price.
Then don’t use RAID, the network already takes care of redundancy, in my view there’s no need for farmers to do the same. Vaults being wiped is expected and even has security benefits.
Vaults fill up slowly, and from the very moment you start one it is expected to run the full set of persona’s that are responsible for that position in the distributed hash table. This means routing, validating requests/commands, etc. It is a flat cost in bandwidth and CPU, regardless of the amount of chunks stored. Vaults that come and go too quickly don’t stand a chance of making a profit, since the gains of the very few GETS they will get to serve won’t weigh up adainst the flat cost from running the persona’s.
The farming (income) rate is balanced to aim for 33% available storage. If vaults turn off because the reward is too low, or if many people upload data to the network, farming income is increased to again attract more vaults. If there’s more than 33% free space available, the farming rewards will be lowered until it hits 33%.
This essentially means that the network will select the minimum amount of cheapest vaults that are around, and the rest can sod off. This may sound bad to some, but it means it can keep upload costs very low as well, which makes the network as a whole more competitive. A low upload price will attract more uploaders, which will fill up the network, which increases farming rewards again to maintain 33% of available space.
In my view the network isn’t unecominical or socialist, it actually makes use ruthless use of market forces to provide it’s services at the lowest cost possible. This may mean that pro farmers initially can’t compete with the home farmers who farm out of idealism and/or barely make additional costs from running a farm. But after a while this cheap space will be filled up and thus rewards will increase to attract more capacity. At that point pro farming could become big.
A high churn is actually a security feature. Data moving around a lot makes attacks on the network even harder. Sure, it increases bandwidth costs of vaults. But unless that cost makes network storage so expensive that SAFE isn’t economically viable, there’s nothing to worry about. The farming rate algorithm will make sure enough vaults are attracted.
In other words, you mean that the monetary inflation rate will drop, or that even monetary deflation will set in. I agree.
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You’re making a leap here that I can’t follow.
There are two independent things that adjust here:
- farming reward, which shifts up and down automatically, with regard to storage provision (farmer provided resources) and demand (user consumption of storage). This happens without regard to the “price”, but obviously the price will be factored in when either farmer or user, makes their decision to farm more/less, or consume more/less.
- price, which shifts up and down independently of farming rewards, according to the supply/demand for Safecoin on exchanges, which in turn link back to farmers, consumers, and other users of Safecoin
So price is not just related to farming and storage consumption. In the short term, it will probably be influenced quite strongly by speculation, later less so as farming/storage dominate, and other Safecoin uses come into being. But even if farmers & consumers were dominant in the price setting, I think that the degree to which this affects price will very much depend on the sensitivity of those players to Safecoin price, and I don’t think either will be very sensitive to it - primarily because I expect those people, farmers and storage users to largely be one and the same. Hence if I farm for my own storage consumption, I care little about the price of the coin.
I think seeing this as affecting price assumes a bitcoin like environment, where professionals interested in one side or the other, dominate both camps. I think SAFE Network will be nothing like this. Amateurs will dominate both camps, and they will not care much about the price of Safecoin.
This I think leaves the price free to fluctuate quite a lot without affecting the balance of the network, and I certainly don’t see a mechanism whereby if pro-farmers are leaving, the price goes up. If pro-farmers are leaving, and more resources are required to counter this, the farming rate goes up. For the price of Safecoin to be forced up, you’d have to have either less Safecoin being sold, or more being bought.
Of course that can happen, but I don’t see it as a direct consequence of pro farmers (ie price sensitive farmers) leaving. Maybe you can explain the causal link?
EDIT: One thing I didn’t include in the mix which I think is relevant to your scenario, is the PUT cost. This is also adjustable isn’t it? So if the network needs more Safecoin in order to increase farming rewards, this doesn’t happen by the price of Safecoin magically rising, but by the network requiring more Safecoin for each MB PUT. I think that’s how it works anyway.
Safecoin has underlying value, just like Oil. What’s in the price of Oil? You pay for the cost that it took to get it up, you also see some speculation in price (both + and sometimes -) that adds to the price. And you’ll also pay some extra because people want to make a profit on Oil. Well, if there’s less Oil coming out of the ground, and the demand stays the same, than the price goes up. How’s that different from Safercoin?
I understand how supply and demand affect price, and have used that in my explanation of what I think will affect the price. You haven’t explained how supply and demand will cause price to go up in your scenario. You’ve just said if there’s less Safecoin being paid to farmers the price will go up. That is missing some causal explanation - that’s what I mean by a leap - and I’ve explained why I think its wrong. I don’t accept that the price will go up just because there’s less Safecoin being paid to farmers, it goes up if there are more people wanting Safecoin and willing to pay more for it. I’m willing to be convinced, but I don’t see it yet.
It means the rate at which the SafeCoin supply increases will drop, or that even the SafeCoin supply will contract. If less SafeCoins are in circulation, it will be more scarce and there will be a smaller supply on the market to accomodate demand. Then price should relatively rise.
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All good so far…lol…I’d kind of sussed nobody’s likely to farm much Safecoin, which is a good thing in my view. Hot tip: you need to invest whatever you are planning in spending on rigs and actually buy Safecoin now. Todays buyers will be the one’s laughing, because others can’t really farm loads
That’s always been the Economics and logic for me anyway…I could be wrong…but what are the chances really… 
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It’s just supply and demand. That’s it. I think that this very basic principle will determine the price of Safecoin.
Buyers > People want to PUT data to the network and that will cost them Safecoin to do. For structured data they even pay extra. Next to that there are people who speculate with Safecoin. So they want to buy in the hope to make more.
Sellers > People who Farmed coins might want to sell when they have more Safecoin than they need to use the Network. Or they want to sell when they only Farmed to make money on it. Some other might want to sell for speculation, in the hop they can buy back later when it’s cheaper.
Here you have it. Buyers and sellers. For one person to buy, you need another one to sell. Where do the Safecoins come from? It’s Farming. So what happens when a lot of people are offering GB’s extra to the network that aren’t filled? The Farming Reward goes down. So now there’s less Safecoin farmed (supply goes down) while the demand might stay the same. Your right, demand is also a variable, so demand and supply could walk hand in hand and we have balance. But I don’t think that will happen. Look at all prices for Bitcoin and Litecoin. They do respond to halving the miners reward for blocks. It was build in for that reason (to compensate for computers becoming faster). For Safenet it’s different, the more excited people get to Farm coins, the less supply of Safecoin, so the higher the price will be. Just when OPEC decides to pump up less Oil.
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But this ignores all the other factors here, just seeing Safecoin in circulation in isolation doesn’t explain the system behaviour.
Firstly what is meant by that? The quantity issued has declined? Less is flowing between consumers->network->farmers? Then what about the real price determining factors - individuals buying and selling on an exchange. Who are they? Why are they willing to pay more? etc.
I think its an incomplete explanation. I’m not saying it isn’t true, but I really don’t see what the mechanism is supposed to be.
Here is the missing logic… however!
However, it looks like what I suggested - Bitcoin and Litecoin are an economy which is dominated by pro-farmers and non-farming consumers. SAFE Network is fundamentally different, which is why I earlier rejected that comparisson.
So let’s see the rest. You posit that there will be more GB being farmed than consumed (I’m not sure why, but let’s follow the remainder). Farming Reward drops (agreed). There’s less Safecoin going into farmer’s pockets (agreed) while the demand might stay the same (indeed, it might).
Aside here: Demand might in fact be rising, which in turn means more farming rewards (even if the farming rate is lower). You agree, in which case there’s no need for an impact on price. But let’s ignore that and stay with farming rate falling while demand remains steady…
Let’s ignore the Bitcoin/Litecoin comparisson because you’ve actually given a mechanism at this stage: “For Safenet it’s different, the more excited people get to Farm coins,
the less supply of Safecoin, so the higher the price will be.”
Well maybe, but its a big leap, because we’ve ignored all the other factors which I have suggested are likely to be influential. And if we resume my point about farmers and users being pretty much one and the same, the OPEC analogy disappears.
I rest my case 
Its all speculation anyway. I don’t deny the price of Safecoin will rise. I’m damn sure it will, but I don’t think that it will be about a reduction in farming rewards. I think it will be driven by demand from new people and organisations wanting Safecoin for speculation and to fund uses of the network they can’t fund through farming.
At least we agree on the directly 
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I don’t mean to argue that it’s the only or even dominant factor. Just that over-supply of network resources will decrease inflation and thus decreases SafeCoin supply, at least for a while, which has an upwards effect on the SafeCoin price. There may be other factors that completely dwarf this effect of course. I don’t believe we can predict price movements solely on farming income movements.
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