Oh that, I was trying to fit it in the original topic, but the topic seems to have shifted a bit.
Yes, Arguing about a subpoint again. (A thread veiw sure would be nice)
Generally I think data is data, and ought to cost the same. One could make the case that public data will yield more returns for farmers, and thus could be priced lower, but that isn’t likely terribly true. Lots of webpages etc get very few views, and a lot of private data is used hourly…
Actually this is a good time to revisit this. Maybe someone in the dev team @dirvine or @BenMS might want to put this on their list to reconsider.
Reason being that now there is going to be reward the creator, which really provides the incentive for Public data.
If I recall correctly the reason for the 25% of private data to upload Public data was to give incentive for people to provide content for others to use.
This would be double dipping for public data to be discounted to 25% of private data upload AND also to give to the creator according to #GETs
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I give my vote on this.
Pay the producer would mean all data costs the same to put up, so not really a "double dip"£ but we still need to keep poking at this one. The thing to realise is when folks talk of getting the same data over and over again then it’s very simple to remedy in a few ways, the simplest being a safecoin address can map, but regardless (there are side effects).
The number of gets on the network will be like everyone accessing the Internet. So imagine a every 100 billion page hit’s somebody on the net get’s a penny. Some folks may have a machine that get’s like mad trying to be more popular than all the other net users together. So this gets harder as the population increases. Then you have the issue of these Get requests themselves going through relays, they will disconnect nodes transmitting like mad I would think (as they are secondary connections not routing connections).
So there is a load to think about, as ever the answer will be very simple if it works at all. I like we all try to see how we would hack/game the system, it’s what the developers do continuously so great the community does as well. Not always easy though.
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It seems to be a hobby for many of us here!
Getting back to the OP:
This one point in particular does worry me (which is why I was viewing this thread in the first place today). If indeed Private data costs more than Public data, I believe that one of the first APPs to be developed would make it dead simple to upload Public data asymmetrically encrypted. Making it easier and cheaper to game the system to the economic benefit of the user, if not necessarily benefit their security. Is there any reason why this could be infeasible?
I understand the idealogical reasons for wanting to incentivize public sharing of knowledge, however “technically possible” combined with “economically feasible” is a strong motivator for many.
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Very true
But I get the feeling that the cheaper upload for public data is likely to never eventuate.
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Ahh…mmm…OK. Thank you @neo. (rant to follow…)
I know that there are a lot of varients of different ideas floating around here and that no code has been started for these advanced features so nothing’s written in stone. However that makes it quite difficult to figure out which ideas are spurring onward and which are dead in the water!
For instance: Pay the producer. Hell, even app rewards for that matter. I’ve seen plenty of percentages and talk, but no RFC’s or proposals of the sort. To harbor against sounding like a whiny witch I did want to say: I’m totally OK with that!
Going over the code, the network itself is still at the “it’s kinda coming together in bits and pieces” stage. I would much rather my head be correctly attached to my spine than worry about what kind of shoes to wear.
I keep seeing many people with their “IT’S HAPPENING” posts, and smirk and shake my head. It’s certainly coming together, but it’s far from being fully implemented (yet!).
So I guess I’ll keep these questions on the back burner until they become relevant. Until then, all I can do is understand/learn/debate what’s there at the moment, remembering that it’s much easier to address these core concepts as they’re implemented, as they will undoubtedly be branching out far and wide in the future.
/rant
Free public data! I like that. I think David’s initial idea would be interesting. Private data will be a little bit more expensive but not much. And private data is more valuable one could argue from a philosophical perspective which will justify having to pay for the private data, while the public data is free to store.
And spam in public data isn’t much of a problem because of the deduplication functionality on SAFE.
That’s just individual freedom. People who really want their data to be private will choose that alternative even if it costs more. A bigger problem is how will people be able to distinguish what is private and public data? Really dangerous if someone stores what is believed to be private files as public data.
@smacz, this is an example of why it is to expect that all the bad solutions will definitively have to be tried before a good one is given a chance. 30 comments into this discussion on an obviously “disasterful” idea, it is completely okay to keep arguing in its favor.
It really seems that you haven’t read, or attempted to understand, pretty much anything that’s been said from the very top of this page.
I once wrote, but didn’t publish, my view on this topic. But I did post bits and pieces of it in my comments on this forum, and I even saw someone’s comment that was very much aligned with my thinking (I can’t remember who posted it and where) which said that the token/coin is an afterthought. Might have been @jreighley, IIRC.
Because there’s so much work to be done (dev-wise), the economics hasn’t been given a lot of thought yet.
One would think those who can’t code would use this time to propose some improvements in that department, but most seem more eager to create a new sharing economy of abundance & stuff.
I hereby propose a bet of 0.25 BTC to the first person who wants to put the same amount on the chance that public data will be cheaper than private (that is: I would take the other side, that by the time of release of MaidSafe 1.0 or on July 1, 2016 (whichever happens sooner) - public SAFE data will not be cheaper than private). (Why? Because if by some chance public data is cheaper than private, it will destroy the network)
The funds can be held in escrow by someone like polporene or other person acceptable to the both sides.
My offer is valid until end of November 2015.
Note: this post was edited twice, last time on Oct 11, 2015, to clarify the betting proposal.
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I can only hope that engineers, not the mob, rule the day.
Hear hear! No seriously, I hope everyone hears this. 'Cause it’s the best way to think about it.
EDIT: Misunderstood bet
I read the points briefly. Let my address them:
Ideological: I doubt the incentive argument is valid. People will make their data private when needed.
Economical: Free public data could be problematic for the economy of SAFE I admit. Because there will probably be a lot more public data stored than private data, and the farmers need to earn enough safecoins to keep the network going.
Technical: Some people may game the system by encrypting public data, but very few. How many people among the general public use PGP today? Not many.
Solution: Make ordinary public data free, and introduce a new type ‘public content’ with 100% cost (the same as private data). The public content data will let people earn safecoins when people use it as a reward. It will still be problematic since someone can upload the latest blockbuster movies and earn a lot of safecoins, but at least the 100% cost would prevent a lot of spam. (I haven’t thought this through, so it could be a bad solution, but anyway just something to examine.) EDIT: An additional idea is to have a maximum reward value for public content files. So that a very popular file would only reward someone up to that maximum limit.
Unless one is using a mobile device, there is little reason to use private data.
You encrypt your data on the client, post your data on a publicly accessible SAFE drive, and save money.
There’s no downside to this except more CPU/battery power required (which matters more to mobile devices).
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Well you are using insider info
I’d say that is a sure bet you have there
David stated that here on this forum, and more than once, which is where Seneca got the info at the top of this page.
Maybe, but the whole sentence was “Pay the producer would mean all data costs the same to put up, so not really a “double dip” £ but we still need to keep poking at this one.” so it’s not decided yet.
We’ll see, but I’m pretty sure, yes 
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One radical idea I just had is that in Bitcoin the coins are generated out of thin air so to speak. Would it be possible to do the same in the SAFE network? So for example, if the public storage was free, then the farmers could still earn the same amounts of safecoins regardless of whether they serve public or private data. Because the system can generate the safecoins in proportion to the farming, similar to how bitcoins are generated in relation to mining (although in Bitcoin the generation of new coins follows a fixed rate). Or is this already how the SAFE network works? 
Again, problem is private is more expensive than public, not that the prices cannot be made the same.
It’s not a technical problem.
My point is that it need not be an economical problem either. Because the price of the SAFE data storage can be decoupled from what the farmers earn. The system can reward farmers 100% in safecoins for both public and private data, even when users only have to pay safecoins for storing private data, and can store public data for free.
That is an accurate description of the current problem.
In this arrangement public data is not exactly free, but is cheaper than private (we’re it completely free, there would be close to zero demand for Safecoins).
By making public data cheaper, there is less demand for Safecoin. If there is 50% of public data in the system, there is 50% less demand for Safecoin.
Your solution doesn’t really solve anything, it only prints more currency and motivates users to make private data public (but encrypted) which further lowers demand for Safecoin.
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