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

I also have doubts about whether piracy is actually a problem. Take a look at the gaming industry for example. This year the game The Witcher 3 was released without a DRM system in place. This means that not even a crack was necessary to properly pirate the game, copy/paste does the trick. Yet they sold over 6 million copies at $65 a piece. That’s 390 million USD.

There are two big falacies in the discussion about piracy. One is that people always pick the cheapest option, i.e. they pirate when they can. The above example (and many others) indicates that that’s not true. Quality of service seems to be the big factor here. If an industry suffers from piracy, that’s an indication that their quality of service is really bad. The PC gaming industry got over this through high quality services like Steam and GMG.

The second falacy is that a pirated copy equals a lost sale. That this is false is made obvious by the concept of price elasticity of demand. With exception of products that their derive their (status) value from their high price, it is ridiculous to assume that (all other factors being equal) demand for a product with a price tag would be as high as demand for that product for free. Considering price elasticity of demand, it is not unlikely that demand from pirates mostly evaporates if piracy would be eliminated.

All this considered, I think many artists screaming about not being able to make a living because of piracy are simply unwilling to face an inconvenient truth: There’s not enough demand for your art because it is simply not good enough. That, or your industry suffers from a service problem. The latter can be solved by using SAFE without requiring a PtP mechanism.

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Although could help its rapid expansion, I am against implementing the PtP for several reasons:

Legal: Let’s face, the first to use massively this function would be pirate groups. That could bring legal consequences for Maidsafe. At the close of Megaupload one reason given was:

An incentive program was ADOPTED encouraging the upload of “popular” files in return for payments to successful uploaders.

The SAFE network will have against a lot of people, give more weapons to these groups is unnecessary.

Producers wishing to be rewarded can becoming Apps. Develop a simple framework for anyone to perform this function would be enough without be necessary implement PtP.

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I’m curious. How much money would 10 or 20% of farming revenue be worth? I mean if safecoin is worth $0.001 then not much but if it spikes in value to sell for like $14 a safecoin or more (maybe $300 or $400 like bitcoin) that value of that 10% is going to go up. We need to put this in perspective here. Instead of thinking about “I want 70% to 100% of the profits from MY content.” It’s “What percentage of the network data is my content and what are the odds someone is downlaoding it?” Remember any given content be it a historical document like the magna carta or hot porn is going to be all mixed together as anonymous encrypted data. Also remember the value of safecoin is not just determined by content creators but also by the raw security and anonymity of the network. If we compromise security, freedom and access for the sake of content creators we have FAILED as SAFE. In the grand scheme of things serving content creators isn’t the goal of SAFE, creating a secure internet 2.0 is the goal of SAFE. Therefore PtP must not compromise security or cater to special interests and must treat EVERYONE equally if it is to be implemented. I know this is probably obvious to everyone but I’m stating it anyway.

Now how would content creators make money if the moment they released something it would just be pirated. Well for starters I’d stop treating your art like product and start treating it like a service. Your “content” isn’t what you’re selling. YOU are what you are selling. You aren’t selling your art you are selling YOU, the artist. Your fans are developing a relationship with YOU and therefore that is what you capitalize on. Sure try to make a buck on content where you can but where you want to make money is not the content but rather things like live performances, book signings, personal interviews, donations, personal appearances, various bits of merchandise, and basically any chance to connect with your fans. And if you haven’t hit this level yet then why aren’t you thanking the pirates for giving you free marketing of your content, and therefore of your name?

Also content creators could create their own personal altcoins that could be used to buy discounts on their merchandise or special back stage passes and the like. Think the Free to Play model but you pay for special extras. Have you not played League of Legends before? What about Star Wars The Old Republic? Dota? Lots of games use this model. Basically you can play it for free but if you want that super strong armor or that experience boost that you don’t REALLY need you have to pay money. Same concept. The music/art/movie is free but you pay to meet the artist, get the autograph, talk to them on the phone, visit them back stage, buy the t-shirt and assorted merchandise, get your name mentioned in the book/in the lyrics of the next song/during the credits, and all that kind of thing, go out on a date with that hot actress you’ve always fantasized about, whatever. All that stuff you don’t really NEED but want. Which is where the idea of the personalized altcoin comes in really handy because some of this could get really pricey but if you bought enough altcoin and saved up enough you could afford it.

Frankly I don’t think “content creators” should be separate from devs since devs are just another form of content creators. If we’re going to create a PtP system we should reward content creators across the board somehow and if we’re going to specialize somehow, be it with altcoins or whatever, we should do it for everyone. People could buy devcoin as much as they could buy porncoin. One of the ideas proposed is that a “karmacoin” would be dispensed and that would be used to buy different altcoins. I think the point of this would be to force users to have a “bank” that they needed to devote to content creation of one kind or another. Somewhat like the “free to play” idea. Where you automatically get awarded a set amount of game tokens every month that can only be spent at the in game store. So if the PtP system did dispense “karmacoins” then those could be converted into some kind of altcoin of one’s choosing then it would be similar to “here are your monthly chips and you can spend them in whatever network store you choose.” But my question is doesn’t PtP undermine freedom by it’s very nature? I mean it’s great to want to support the artists but to hardcode AND all the issues of subjective value it brings up seems to bring up the very underlying issue of freedom to choose what one spends one’s money on.

Here’s a thought: make it subscription based. A little checkmark in the user preferences or whatnot. And those that check the mark get a discount or some kind of special deal from content creators, just like crowdfunders give their backers special deals as incentives to back the fund. What the incentive is could vary from creator to creator but in order to get your percentage from the program you’d need to have some kind of incentive for subscribers. This would also create competition between content creators for better incentives and therefore garnering more subscribers (and therefore more revenue from their respective farming percentages). Also make the percentage someone gives voluntary. If content producers are competing then users might want to give more or less in their respective percentages.

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The safe network is low level. We are talking about replacing servers, not necessarily the applications running on them.

Considering that the team is cautious about even adding time to the protocol, why should it concern itself with rewarding people for posting content?

Rewarding content creators is a social, subjective, decision. I really don’t think mixing this with the core network protocol is suitable. Another way needs to be found, IMO.

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I moved a number of posts back to this thread, since they weren’t about App dev rewards but about PtP.

Great poll.

Linking to this as it is relevant:

I agreed with @whiteoutmashups in the above because I think it’s only fair and here I voted Yes, depending on the implementation. But I think the poll should be asking another question also and that is; should the network be paying/rewarding anyone other than farmers?

There are pro’s and cons to both IMHO.

I personally think you either do one or the other. You cant half-ass around. You either do or you dont.

And if you do, than you need to be fair and Pay the Producer or at the very least prompt the app developers to implement strategies for this e.g. tipping.

If you decide to not pay anyone its great because its one massive weight off the shoulders of MaidSafe, but I suppose this will never happen because MS has already said it will pay app devs.

Anyway, all this is just hot air until this thing takes off so I think people just need to calm down before adding more ideas and suggestions to a network and system that is already so inflated that it could do it more harm than good.

Lets all remember that a tree which eventually bears fruit begins with simply seed, soil, sun & water…

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Far too complicated.

All they need to do is continue doing what they are doing and then place the responsibility on the app developer to either offer shared revenue model or a tipping model.

MS seem to like their natural systems philosophy and in this way the reward system is similar to a tree. In a tree model the trunk does not necessarily support every branch and leaf. The trunk supports large branches, large branches support smaller branches and smaller branches support leaves. The network rewards the app developers and the app developers reward or allow for the reward of content provider (producers).

K.I.S.S.

I have had the technical know how to never pay for music again (And I did boycott the major labels for a while) for 15-20 years, but I have happily paid Spotify for their service because of library and ease of use.

Think how little start up costs and operational costs will be for the next “Spotify” when they are running it on SAFE. My advice for artists (@we_advance) is be the first to create the next spotify like service with SAFE and keep the creators in control. I guarantee someone will sooner or later and a non-artist will think a lot less about how the creators are paid.

Many comments on here are foretelling of what the future holds for digital creators. Adapt and overcome or become a blimp in the history books. There are lots of examples where people have an option to get the digital product for free, but millions still happily pay for a live show or a video game without DRM (for example). There is precedent, but we must accept that DRM/copyright/centralized-control of digital creations is going away very soon. I think in the end that will be a good thing for the creators.

After pondering this topic further, it does seem there is no difference between a producer and an APP maker. They seem to have the same risk versus benefit stratification and I guess should not be part of the core, due to the reality that humans will always be smarter than the system and just like any “regulation” the intended goal is often not produced but results in even more unintended consequences. Farmers only should be paid autonomously.

As an APP builder, it is hard for me to accept that I will not be autonomously paid by the network, but having Secure Access For Everyone is more important and will be worth more in the end (Well and much lower start up costs) for me personally.

In my opinion the risks of implementing PtP at the core GREATLY outweigh the potential benefits.

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Art & artist create shared culture, place to make and question identities, etc.

Art and artists create much value in world and do not need programmers to decide value or set rules to assign value. If you do that you likely get cat video and gossip magazine. Because you can only create incentive for use (storage, bandwidth).

Network needs application developers, network can adequately make incentive for applications developers? Good!

But network can not do same for artists or art because value () of art is always an agreement between people who share values and depends on how much they already have.

If I have “$6million” Picasso I sell it for most I can get when I need it - $1800 so I do not get kicked out of my house. Someone who can make my wife happy with song I let live with me and pay $100000 when I go IPO, LOL.

Network can compensate developer not artist.

(Also I can find $1.00 in change on street and eat at McDonald’s. New shoes for $4.00 at WalMart. This makes me stupid?)

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10% of what if not of the farming reward?

Farming reward does not change if PtP pay address is there or not. It is a reward in addition to farming rewards.

The calculation dynamics is expected to result in any PtP reward being about 10% in value of the farming reward.

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10% higher upload prices. The network pays the farmers as much as necessary to get the capacity it requires. In the end the network income and outcome must be in equilibrium (or else we couldn’t maintain the 2^32 SafeCoin cap), so the only option is higher upload prices. In practice this will mean that the uploaders of not-so-popular or private content will pay the rewards for the uploaders of popular content.

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Thanks to everyone who has voted so far and hoping that plenty of other forum members will vote (soon).

I think there are a lot of good points raised in opposition of this which is a little bum for me. I like the idea of something to draw in content creators just like the app devs and this in a novel approach. I agree with when you view something to learn more about but do not support (but PtP rewards them) that is frustrating. Perhaps it could be gamed to an exrent but the maidsafe crew know all about preventing such things as shown with the design of this network.

I personally would be content with a donation button and watermarking ability.
The upload cost would only bite you on private data to an extent also because if you’re providing public data for consumption some if not more of your cost to upload would be returned in PtP model. To me the model is saying hey the vaults holding the data of popular content AND the producer of that content will be paid based on popularity! And not inflationarily as popular content is cached and caches don’t get paid! Maybe more here are looking from the perspective of a dev and not a musician?

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Wouldn’t that just be more honest? Propaganda is already quantified by views that count as a sort of social capital, its the same with news, even watching with disagreement means you are a supporter, like it or not.

Had not thought of that. Society would not be as advanced in science & medicine if the unpopular views had not been considered (viewed) and had a measure of support.

Have you considered that groups would simply copy the content (changing it so dedup doesn’t occur) and allow “researchers” to view it without supporting ISIS. ISIS gets one views worth only.

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Thanks to everyone who has voted so far and hoping that plenty of other forum members will vote (soon)

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Would be good to have more members of the community vote.

Have your say.

@dirvine and the devs are taking into account what the community says and feels about this issue.

Also it has created a fair amount of thought in to how creators/producers can be rewarded and/or paid. Plenty of thought has gone into the pros & cons of various ideas including the original concept.

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@neo, would you (or anyone in the community for that matter) know the origin of this idea? (specifically for the network itself to reward content)

Yes it was David @dirvine as far as I know.

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