Poll: Should MaidSafe implement PtP (Pay the Provider)?

In summary, you (and I think most everyone) don’t know how much anything should cost, and that’s normal.

What is not good is that this is not enough of a warning to most folks that pricing should be left to the market. Instead we’re are discussing how to do the impossible.

Here we are four (or more) months before the release and now there are even ideas to introduce a new coin…

I was criticized for proposing to not charge anything for uploads until coin economics has been worked out. That increasingly looks like the one of less bad ideas in recent weeks.

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It would make sense on a project that’s overdue to limit scope. Instead MaidSafe seems to be tackling everything except world peace. And someone will probably start a thread about addressing that one day. The more the scope of SAFE expands, the more likely: (1) the software will have awful bugs, (2) it will not perform its core functionality optimally, (3) development will be too costly and time consuming, (4) the network will have such a particular and idiosyncratic featureset that it will be useless except to the ~50 people who post here asking for features, (5) the project will be forked to remove most of the code and SAFEnet Lite is launched.

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Please everyone, keep the comments here brief so others can follow your thoughts and have their thoughts on the Poll in question.

If you wish to discuss, rather than comment the merits of one way over another then do it in the threads that are listed, or if in another thread then tell me and I will list it in the OP. People were expected to avail themselves of the threads if they wished to research the matter, and your voices would be heard in those threads if you wish to continue extended discussions

If this thread turns into a drawn out discussion between a few then it limits the abilities of others to have their thoughts heard in a concise manner and their thoughts will be lost in a large discussion.

Thank you for understanding.

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I worry about this concept. If it can be gamed, it could fatally wound the network.

Moreover, the value question concerns me. Really, the producers need to set their price and consumers should decide whether it is worth accessing it. This is how value is derived in a free market, which should always be our guide.

The above being considered, I don’t think I can support the proposal in its current form and I would rather a strong core network was concentrated on.

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First off @zankfrappa I appreciate your comments, as you have had some incredibly insightful ones in the past, and I would very much like to have your input in the current and future debates. That being said, I am unable to view your posts as they are rescinded at this time.

Back to the OP - No. I do not believe that PtP should be implemented at the network level. This may very well be better suited to be dealt with at an APP level, but the network should not be the one to determine which (if any) content should be rewarded.

P.S. My thanks to the moderators (@system, @happybeing, @Melvin, @frabrunelle, @polpolrene, @jm5, @fergish, @Seneca, @neo) for keeping this strictly a polling thread. I am more than happy to either create a new thread with my comments/concerns or contribute to an existing one knowing that this thread is strictly for polling purposes only.

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And “brief” comments on why one chose what they did if they wish, as this provides insight to the community views.

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This makes me feel a bit wary.

It all sounds great to have software developers and producers get paid for their content, but I`m affraid having these economic systems built into the core could cause serious side effects and have unforseen consequences.

How can the network give the right value to the content? If by quantity, it can be gambled or incentivize “spam” and “click baits”.

On the other hand it would be nice if e.g. music creators could get paid directly when people download their songs.

I´m on the fence with this one, but I´m leaning towards just having a basic core network without too much economics built in…

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The producers will be paid out of the network. So watching a videoclip is free, but both Farmer and producer make some money on it. I think that’s a good thing. It makes the network pay out to creativity. And it’s optional, if you share a videoclip without your wallet-address you make no money on it.

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I have no doubt people will come up with forks. Some might just want to get rid of any coin at all. Like a free PUT and GET network where they hope people will just provide resources. Others might get rid of some layers of protection in the hope to make things faster. That’s the great thing about open source.

Sure but wait.

Not by using Get request.

It’s been mentioned before but, if doable, rewarding app developer on PUT request is much more promising.

  • It incentives app developer to create valuable feature for the user.
  • It aligns the interest of the holy trinity of Safe in the same direction. Users get new valuable feature, App developers get rewarded for creating them and farmers get new valuable data to store. It’s win-win-win.
  • User’s get to make the jugemental call about what is valuable and what is not because they have to put their money where their mouth is.
  • Since users pay for PUT, it can’t be gamed.

This covers the goal of the app developer reward, having great app for the network and giving the open source community a new income stream.

What about the artists?

It’s obviously a very popular feature and it’s easy to understand why but wait, I think a reality check is in order.

The amount of money you will generate with your blog post, mildly popular song, book, essay, comic strip will be abysmal. The amount of data that these represent compare to all warez, porn and movies that will find their way into Safe will be so infinitely small that there is no way this will change anything in a significant way to your current state of living.

And IF you manage to create something that is so massively popular as to get your fair share, you are in a position where other business model would work as well if not better.

People who create value have already mutliple ways of getting value out of it, even more so on Safe.

Instead of thinking that we fixed the producer problem by rewarding uploaders with the Get reward, I think it would be much much more productive to develop platform that will help them get real money like: Shop plugins, crowdfunding, patreonage, subscriptions, ad network, gift, etc.

[EDIT: Discussion continues: Proposal: App Rewards by “Pay per PUT”]

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I voted “Yes, Depending on the Implementation.”

I agree with some of the concerns but also feel we have an opportunity to create an alternative solution. Here’s my thoughts on how I reached this decision.

Q: What if it fails?
A: Then it fails. Innovation rarely comes without the possibility of failure.

Q: What if it breaks or doesn’t work the way we expect?
A: Then we fix it, change it, or scrap it.

Q: Isn’t human feedback the best way to valuate a product or service?
A: Yes, but major networks still use “view count” to determine popularity. Even though some or all views were a negative experience. So they got clever and created a “like/dislike” system to filter out click baits. I’m surprised AD companies still payout on views, knowing about this flaw.

This is where I reached my conclusion.
The intention is promising because it attracts (uploaders) who pay nothing on networks like (youtube, facebook, google). On the SAFE Network, they must pay Safecoin to upload, which could be a deterrent.

PtP compensates uploaders by rewarding them for their effort and expense. After the Network is popular, it may not be as relevant. This is why new businesses hold “Grand Opening Events” to get the ball rolling. This is also the reason I think it should be done at the beginning, or shortly after public release.


This part is for the implementation options Poll, assuming we have one later. I’m putting my thoughts/ideas here before I forget.

Perhaps, a LIKE System would be a simple and most effective solution.

  • It requires human feedback.
  • It can incur a micro payment cost in SAFE GB, instead of Safecoin.
  • It can be made unique per account, preventing spam.
  • It measures positive views more accurately.
  • It removes the (File Size VS File Price) problem.

For people concerned about the Safecoin economy, I recommend rewarding SAFE GB as an alternative. By the way, this doesn’t stop: donations, pay per view, subscriptions, or any other revenue steam.

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Despite the publicity that you do of the safe GB, their existence would be a huge mistake. Would complicate the network understanding, could lead to problems in its economy, generates developmental problems and, possibly, will hinder its adoption.
The safe network must survive solely on Safecoin and the existence of any other altcoin, in the SAFE network, must be outside the core.

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13 posts were split to a new topic: Proposal: App Rewards by “Pay per PUT” (commission)

50 posts were merged into an existing topic: APP Developer Rewards (Discussion)

In Music, the prices are pretty well set… 70 percent of revenue for streaming services like spotify and 70 cents on the dollar – Apple pays a similar amount for itunes downloads.

If you want to attract established artists you are going to need to beat those rates. You may be able to get some indi stuff cheaper – but even there you need a 15 cents per download or so.

But we aren’t charging the consumer — So they will probably download to their heart’s content – And free is a really good price so we will likely have a TON of users – but all in it for free music – We need to make up for it by something entirely unrelated – Charging for uploads. They are not likely to be storing massive amounts of data – Because you don’t need to upload a lot of data to be allowed to download. If I download 100 songs, then I would need to generate 70 dollars in PtP funds pay artists what they would earn at itunes – but I would need to collect 11 times that to (100% for the farmers and another 10 for the pTp apparatus) So we need to store 770 dollars worth of uploads to fund enough for 100 songs to be downloaded.

For me as a farmer to have expenses deserving of 700 bucks worth of payment I would have to start bordering on owning my own datacenter. You would need one of those for every 100 songs downloaded.

That doesn’t count movies, TV shows, Youtube clips, whitepapers, Porn, or the thousands of other possible media…

The math just doesn’t make an ounce of sense.

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The GIGANTIC point you’re missing here is that those models only worked on an older version of the internet, where the main way to even ACCESS the songs was to BUY them.

As soon as anything comes out on SAFE it’s freely accessible to everyone on earth forever, so you can’t try to charge for it like iTunes etc used to be able to get away with

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No That is exactly my point.

If nobody buys them then there is no money and nobody gets paid.

And no – Pretty much any song or show I want to download is available for free right now (So long as I don’t get caught) and a buck isn’t worth the trouble most of the time. If I want a song I get it though the legit channel. Spotify or pandora etc certainly aren’t breaking the bank or lacking users.

But pretending to make a legit channel when there is no way in the world it would be is a joke.

Feel free to dispute the math.

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Where did the 11 came from?

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Well 100 percent to farmers and another 10 percent for the PtP. Several times we have been corrected that the 10% is not taken from the farmers… it is in addition.

Even if it was the math is still exponentially inadequate to replace the current revenue streams and no artist would switch unless they where willing to work for peanuts…

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I’m in favour of least postponing this idea until well after launch. I think there’s a good argument to consider this feature creep, and it may turn out to be a liability. I think we should first see SAFE’s economic model in action before adding another layer to it.

Another issue I haven’t seen mentioned here is that downloading does not equal endorsing. I regularly watch videos posted by groups I strongly disagree with just to learn what they are like and how they think. Example: The propaganda videos by ISIS. With the proposed system in place, I would indirectly fund a terrorist organization just by monitoring their activities. The result would be a disincentive to view anything other than content one already agrees with.

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