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

I understand there are a lot of issues that need to be solved and new solutions need to be made to overcome these challenges. We all agree that it must be possible for the “provider” to get paid for their content/service etc. I believe that this must be solved on the app level. I don’t think SN should be an experiment in complex economics and incentive structure.

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It already is, but I get your point that this is why you object. This doesn’t to me mean that you should be against experimentation to obtain data on which everyone can make a more informed judgement.

I take the view that as there’s little reason to think the alternatives will be sufficient (without experimenting) that we should explore the option of PtP. I see reasons why it would work better, but I can’t be sure unless we try.

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You’ve said this a couple times and so I’m guessing you aren’t very open to having your opinion altered, no offense but I would like to know why you feel so strongly as I tried to provide reason to why I think differently.

Apps level solutions won’t be able to have the same kind of leverage/security/interoperability/reach/etc as the core network can. Simple as that.
Adds value to Safe Network Tokens utility too.

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First of all, I don’t have the knowledge like you and @happybeing have about the technical side of SN and what is possible or not with the current SN design. I learn a bit every day. I am looking at this from a bird’s view and a more principal side of things. We don’t know what SN will evolve to be in the future. This is the reason I want SN to not make social-economic decisions. at a core level. Even the economic structure that is planned is a big unknown for me. I believe in the flexibility to test out different solutions, make mistakes, learn and evolve. I can only see this done at the App level. Where SN core is just providing possibilities.

Are you sure? I didn’t know that. So SN has a lot of limits regarding app usage. Can SN have a bank function that can be used to transact?

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That’s totally cool and I technically fall in that camp too. I have probably gotten beyond just a high level view and understanding of the network to an extent but many of us are still learning.

Well like you mention it’s already doing that by that standard by incentivizing farming. So PtP is driven by human behavior not the network just like farming. They do rely on our feedback but that’s the point.

All I mean here is if an app creates a token to have the same kind of functionality as SN being rewarded via PtP, it won’t have core network components such as elders, opportunistic caching etc at its disposal so will be far inferior.

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Just to say - I am 100% going on my vague feeling about what seems to me to fit the fundamentals of the network, yes. I felt quite positive towards PtD when I first heard the idea, and I’m still not against it.

But I ran into this thread while doing some forum browsing about something unrelated recently Proof of unique human and the power of this idea finally clicked for me.

If it is possible to test various configurations, I am all for as much of that as possible. I don’t think PtD clashes with anything fundamental, is my point, but it seems less elegant than the idea of provably and freely sharing resources around as we see fit, for me.

I’m kind of presuming so why not ask: are we imagining PtD that would be optional? And adjustable? Or neither, or a variation, or we can’t know yet so that’s what we need to test?

This ties in with my slight preference for provable identities and no other constraints on data or moving resources - economics is hard, and ideologically a minefield.

I understand your frustration and I hope that SN core can find a solution here without the social-economic aspect. Is that possible?

I don’t think this is right. I only see two potential negatives: 1) fees for any token transaction that isn’t the native token. 2) Mess of endusers’ potentially having to deal with many different tokens with many apps implementing their own tokens (but a conversion tool could address this; the network-wide shopping cart would still be feasible)

The ability to issue tokens (with fees in the native token) would do that even more effectively than Pt{ } because there would be no ceiling placed on the value of a popular app’s token or on the dev’s ability to control its issuance. Good or bad, different devs might want to try different economic approaches for their respective apps, which they won’t be able to do at all if they were tethered to the native token’s economics.

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Well since all data is treated equally on Safe including SN then in that regard you are correct but SN is also a special data type using AT2 with special spam protections and so forth being deeply tied into network components, along with your point on tx fees, these are are undeniable advantages are they not?

Yes I agree PtP can be done at an app level along with interoperability etc I just don’t see as many downsides as upsides. It is fundamentally aligned with PtD except for consumable content.

PtD rewards app developers based on usage
PtP rewards users for popular content

In my mind it completes a circle.

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I hear you @Nigel. I really like the Pt{ } setup too. But I’ve become convinced recently that it won’t help the network (personal opinion yes, but based on carefully studying why people flock to certain networks or hold a certain token as valuable).

It would be interesting to set two different networks with and without Pt{ } and see which one is favored.

Edit to add: and yes, you’re absolutely right that the native Safe token would have certain advantages (mainly being fee-less) over any other token. But the other tokens will share many of the other advantages including spam protection (AT2 naturally gives you that), speed, etc.

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Have you come to any conclusions on other potential drivers to adoption?

I don’t regard PtP as a panacea either, I think of it like a lubricant. It makes uploading content (especially popular) slightly easier and desirable than not having it.

It definitely isn’t a financial boon but it is appealing and psychologically reinforces that our data has value and we own that data and should remain the stewards of that data.

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Compare any other solution with checking a box on your upload app.

Creating coins and promoting them, signing up to an NFT system and managing it, having a donate button on your site, or integrating a tipping component, using ads etc.

All require setup, decisions, most need ongoing management of some sort, and some are onerous. So far there’s no model that works independently of intermediaries, and no model that works for producers.

PtP requires literally nothing from the uploader after a one time, decision: “do you want to earn rewards from your uploaded content?”

And they can still use any of the other models available if they choose.

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My heart tells me that the Safe network addresses so many problems and is such an elegant, superior solution that it would be “instantly” adopted :slight_smile:. But my head tells me that there are many landmines ahead and careful attention must be paid to human psychology.

For instance, I kind of dislike the “digital scarcity” arguments that many use to assign high value to something like bitcoin, but it is what it is and we must heed it to ensure people flock to the Safe network. Humans are greedy. The Safe network isn’t going to change that. The more people see that the Safe network has value, the more they will flock to it. Attempting to somehow fight or control this greed is one of the biggest risk I see for adoption (because a competing network that doesn’t do that might win out). I would let the greedy do their thing and thus attract the critical mass we need. Outside of that, we just need get the word out when it’s ready.

Exciting times. The maidsafe team has done a superb job with very little resource.

And I’m looking at the bad actors who will abuse that system and end up discouraging people from using this network or flock to one where at least there isn’t such issue. People are strange. I suspect they might be okay with gaining little from uploading their data but be very mad if they see someone else gain from their data.

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The current system is massively weighted towards giving a tiny minority of highly promoted popular producers most of the exposure and rewards. Yes, they and their agents will “get angry” and fight hard to maintain that unequal privilege - as they did with Mega Upload.

I don’t care about them, they’re doing just fine under the current system. I care about the mass of talented hard working creative folks who don’t get a look in.

This doesn’t mean trying to change anyone (fight greed etc). The point of PtP is not how it affects those who have high profiles and the lion’s share of rewards already under current models. The point of PtP is to provide a really easy way for everyone - any individual without the need for an intermediary or marketing budget - to participate in rewards immediately their content gets popular.

It will frankly, not be worth trying to steal from these more workaday producers unless they get really popular, in which case they will still have “enough”.

If people try to steal it will be the really popular content that is already generating lots of revenue for those who are lucky enough to be at the top of the popularity tree. They aren’t going to bother trying to steal from me, or even Nick (sorry Nick!), or anyone but the most popular.

That theft, like mimicry and counterfeiting is a price already paid by the wealthy who already have enough. The benefit comes to all those who currently miss out because of how current models work (money centralising power and cornering markets).

PtP doesn’t make anyone rich but gives them an option, gives anyone who created something popular a modest reward, something to build on, which takes zero effort away from their creative and regular promotional activities.

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What’s fair about the current models?

But regardless, most opponents of PtP want it shut down at the idea stage because they perceive some potentially problems, as an argument that it shouldn’t be tried to see if their concerns are real or not.

It’s as if people are afraid it might work. Everywhere else “attacks” are put forward as a way to identify flaws and improve the robustness of the network. Only in this area are they used to try and prevent that happening! It’s odd.

If it’s tried and doesn’t work it can be dropped. Why wouldn’t it? So let’s do some experiments.

You know that this isn’t being worked on because there are other priorities until launch. Because of opposition, it was decided to remove it from the first launch, so now your argument is that it hasn’t been worked out and so should be discarded altogether.

What is it about this that makes people take unreasonable positions to try and kill it before they know what it is?

It has the hallmarks of an ideology.

You raise some good points about attack vectors that would need to be mitigated.

I have always thought of it as being chunk based. The reward would only be possible for a 1MB immutable chunk.

Interesting concept, but some of your concerns go away if there are no rewards for chunks delivered via cache.

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@happybeing any ideas how one could mitigate this type of attack?

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Certainly opens up a can of worms:
Quality = popularity - disinformation magnet (don’t forget Facebook Twitter et al will still be there directing traffic to Safe)
Payout proportional to file size - AI-generated mega novel worth more than exquisite haiku, long, turgid prog rock epic paying thousands of times more per play than Napalm Death’s You Suffer, etc
But no harm in experimenting surely?

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We aren’t at the stage of designing it so your perceived faults are premature. If we were trying to design this I might respond, but I’ve given this zero thought in years and well aware that there are issues to solve. At some point I’d welcome these points, but not before we are making a serious attempt to generate solutions.

My argument is for the principle of trying to find alternatives to the current model and PtP is a placeholder for this. You defend the status quo without considering its flaws, and point to flaws in an informed idea to prevent it being considered at all, let alone designed and experimented with.

That’s in complete contrast to every other aspect of the network, and that’s why it seems ideological.

If people want Safe to solve the many problems in current ways to reward creativity, my position is that we try to design alternatives, and not try to kill them before conception.