Safenetwork sustainability concerns - Bandwidth has an ongoing cost however Safenetwork is a pay once, benefit forever model

Honestly I don’t think people are overlooking the potential. But rather are evaluating the problem for what it is and how any supposedly solution maybe unneeded and maybe worse than what it is trying to cure.

You need to evaluate the potential for the problem to ever occur. Need to evaluate the potential risk to SAFE. Need to evaluate the need for any “cure”/“solution”

I think if you read most of the posts here and that is what people have done. In essence a lot of the supposed problem is both a lack of knowledge in how SAFE does things and how the world’s communications and data storage actually work and responds to demands for increases.

6 Likes

Ok, fair enough, i do admit I’m not 100% tech savvy about how it all works technically. I am simply just analysing philosophically and logically. I just think:

  1. the health of the network should not DEPEND on NEW data being stored on it. Existing users shouldn’t have to rely on other people or themselves storing new data to sustain their already stored existing data. It’s like buying a USB and putting all your valuable personal data in it and then worrying about how other people have to buy more of the USBs you bought and store their personal data on it too for your USB’s data to continue to not be affected.

  2. Paying once for a FOREVER ongoing service, especially the services that cost money on an ongoing basis, is obviously a brand new model, and i do think it’s fair to have some concerns regarding the sustainability and scalability of the network. Because i tend to think the scalability will be limited to how much new data is uploaded to the network every month(or any time period, days/weeks etc.) Sure, it can have other factors such as cost of bandwidth, how much bandwidth is used, and cost of electricity and the websites/apps being built on it, but how much new data is uploaded will also be a factor and i think it’s best to make sure it won’t be a factor at all, or a factor that has much less of an effect than it can potentially have with the current economical model.

Do you think YouTube would survive if nobody made new videos? Or would Facebook survive if nobody posted anything? (cough MySpace cough) what people here trying to say is if people don’t upload network is already dead. It doesn’t matter if we do or do not pay for bandwidth. Nobody uploads anything = nobody downloads anything = no one farms anything. If one of those happen network will fail, there is nothing that can be done to fix that.
You can argue that if we put time limits
1 safe coin = 1 gb (for a month) instead of
1 safe coin =250 mb (until safe network is dead,)
Would be better. But you can’t just say if nobody uploads anything, because even if 1 safecoin=1kb
Someone would still upload.
Sorry for bad English, I am very tired right now

3 Likes

the health of the network should not DEPEND on NEW data being stored on it.

That would be nice, but there are other systems with similar mechanics.
For instance pensions. Of course this is not an ideal solution: I’m afraid that my pension will be a bit lower then what pensioners get right now and that I’ll have to work longer.

1 Like

Yes you right but I guess the philosophy of YouTube and Facebook makes it OKAY for them to DEPEND on new data. But a data storage network depending on NEW data and without it unable to sustain existing data? You have to think about that.

That’s explains a lot of things…

All your problem is that you not considering two basic aspects:

1.-The cost of bandwidth (and storage) decreases exponentially.

2.-And you are unable to understand the basic of an exponential decay.

1>1/2+1/4+1/8+1/16+1/32…
The cost, in data storage and bandwidth, the first few months is greater than the sum of the rest of “perpetual” life. That’s makes the percentage, corresponding to old data, become, in a short time, a very small part of the total.
In fact, focusing on bandwidth, the real decay will be even greater because the old data will be less demanded than the most recent ones.

By the way, “perpetual” doesn’t exist. Us, the earth and the universe are time finite.

2 Likes

Safe network isn’t sia or storj. Even though it can be used as them. I think that is not the main focus.

1 Like

Try thinking of stored data not as a rental but as ownership.

When you buy stuff, it is yours. There is no recurring fee. Whatever resource goes into making that stuff exist is beside the point - it is yours regardless until it either dissolves or it is given to another.

Storage on safe net is like ownership. You pay once and it is yours to access forever or until it disolves.

We cannot guarantee that land will not errode or that war may make your claim unsustainable, but we still accept that these things can be owned. The same is true for safe data.

2 Likes

Well that’s the concept of Maidsafe… it’s supposed to be perpetual… which is why i said it might have some sustainability concerns. And saying time is finite is a big assumption, can you back it up with evidence?

I know the cost of bandwidth will decrease, but that’s not the point i was trying to make. I was saying the cost of bandwidth WILL be a limiting factor towards it’s growth, and it shouldn’t be.

Think of this situation - What if cost of bandwidth increases or stays the same? The network doesn’t grow? I mean of course it’s unlikely. But i’m just saying philosophically the growth of the network shouldn’t be limited purely to cost of bandwidth and storage. It should be also supported by people’s desire to maintain their data on the network and use the network in general. People’s desires to contribute and in return get their data stored on the network. My idea of the Gigabyte-hour would run this perfectly. You can contribute your storage to get GBH and you can use it to store data. You can also contribute your bandwidth to get GBGB, and use that to store data yourself. It’ll be an internet built and maintained purely by the people. And it’ll depend on existing users without the need for existing users to want to store new data.

Well…you can imagine a situation like this, you can own land, on the condition that there has to be new people buying new land on other parts of the Earth all the time. If they stop, you will also forgo your ownership of the land. Would that make sense to you?

I don’t see why you would have a situation like that, would you prefer that over say, simply paying a rental fee for the land, or simply contributing to the Earth and humanity in other ways that the land will always remain yours? Or would you prefer your ownership and the availability of the land be dependant on something you have no control over? Can you sleep well knowing your precious land is not dependent on your efforts, but dependent on something else in which you have no control over. And if something happens to that something else you’ll lose your land?(in Safenetworks case, lets just say people doesn’t use safenetwork as much to store new data as much anymore in the future and more so to maintain existing ones)

Has this ever happened on the history of earth? Why would it ever happen?

Edit: To add, life boating is a pretty pointless exercise. You could argue that if no one wants to buy land (storage) then it is likely because it no longer has value. At which point, you wouldn’t want the land (storage) either.

1 Like

Has not happened since the telegraph was first installed. And that was ever so a long time ago Before even I was born :wink: . The price for bandwidth has been dropping for over a hundred years and is still dropping at a good rate and faster than it was when the internet first existed. Yes there maybe a time when it will level out, but by then all of the future tech being worked on and being brought to commercialisation giving at least 1000 to 10000 times the speed and 1 million time the bandwidth. Also the future tech shows we will still be multiplying the bandwidth for a few more decades. By then SAFE junior will have been born and maybe grown up to being a viable replacement.

As an example the Southern Cross Cable (under sea) was laid between Sydney and LA. It has seen over 10 times (25 times from memory) increase in its short lifetime (10 years?) and that is without touching the cable/repeaters. But simply tech that enabled the cable & repeaters to carry more data than it did when installed. If the cable was replaced then that speed would have been 100 times per fibre and 5 to 20 times the number of fibre for less than the cost of the original cable. In fact they are planning a second one now. In other words 2000 times the bandwidth for less cost in just over 10 years

That is the understatement of the decade.

The only reason it won’t continue on the path of multiplying bandwidth is some global disaster/war occurs (man made or natural), but in any case we won’t be worried about bandwidth not growing but having bandwidth at all.

Its just a tax and for what, to protect against something that has so little chance of happening. The chance being equal to the global destruction of most of viable technology. If we plan for all these truely insignificant chances then we will not have a network, it’ll take millions to send data and take decades to program in all the possibilities. There would be at least 1000 more likely problems I could list which come before taxing bandwidth and storage. But these too have such a minimal chance of happening and if they did SAFE would be the least of the problems.

Yea I might have over stated it a bit, but the point is very much valid

To have bandwidth stay constant is to say the internet is stagnating and cannot handle the continuing growth it has seen for 30 years.

Sorry that is such a bad parallel.

1 - prices controlled by greed
2 - There has never been a time when more people have wanted to buy land than who actually do buy land.
3 - Governments are allowing properties to be split so more people can buy land
4 - New housing estates are being open up all the time, even in countries with low or near zero population growth. Like my country.
5 - Did I mention prices are set at the maximum people can get for the land. Greed of man at play and/or survival of man at play if not greed.

That is because wanted land is scarce and all land is owned by someone somewhere. Nothing like that for disk storage. Also disk storage is multiplying at 10 times every 5 years. You cannot even conceive of land space/availability increasing by 10 times every 5 years. If it did then land would be ever so cheap to buy and noone would need to rent.

3 Likes

And to add short term weight to bandwidth costs dropping one of the local news outlets (lifehacker) has this report

Telstra has announced that all customers on NBN plans will soon receive double their current data allowance - which is good news for 4K Netflix fans. Furthermore, users who currently pay more than $99 a month will be migrated to unlimited NBN plans. Here are the details!

So a doubling of quota for the same cost. And note that is 99 AUD for unlimited. Other ISPs have similar and cheaper plans than Telstra who is the most expensive.

Another good bit of information I found out today is that (semi-NDA) SSD manufacturers are working on 40 TByte drives. 2018 is going to see a “quantum leap” in SSD drive sizes.

Who knows when the 40TB drives will release, but since its chips then it doesn’t have the lengthy design cycle that magnetic hard drive technology has.

7 Likes

Yes, but you’re missing my point of it needing new data, it still needs people to store new data, which you can argue will always happen, however i’m just saying from a philosophical standpoint. THINK about it, it’s like asking someone else to do something in order for your desires to be satisfied, you’re not the one doing the work anymore, you just pay once and depend on new data storers. So a ponzi scheme is basically same model - pay once then profit off the new investors so to speak. Now of course i’m not saying the safenetwork is a ponzi, but i am using the concept of a ponzi scheme to better help you understand what i’m trying to say about the philosophy of depending on NEW data being stored to retain old data. Old data storers do nothing but hope that there will always be new people storing data.

You can argue all you like about the cost of storage or bandwidth decreasing, it doesn’t stop the point that the cost of those things WILL still be a limiting factor to the networks growth. Regardless of their cost. You can say that if they do cost less and less the network will be able to grow more and more, however, if we implement a safety net which i don’t know why most people are failing to even considering the need for, you can make it such that new data will be a much much much less to a non-limiting factor to the networks growth, it can only be better and no worse. But no, everyone refuses.

This is like walking two doors, A and B. Door A you’ll definitely get $10, the other you can either get $10 or $20, but nothing less than $10, right now most of you are choosing door A and refusing to think or believing in the possibility of door B, I’m simply suggesting if there’s door B, why not walk through it? (and i believe there is)

Well, you know what though, if it does happen, many people will lose their precious data on the network, so just MAYBE, have something so no one loses their data regardless of whatever happens.

This is included in what I said, think about it.

I said

when more people have wanted to buy land than who actually do buy land.

You said

many people want to buy property but can’t afford it

How is that not more people wanting to buy land that do actually buy it.

And as people have said and reasoned to/for you.

If there is (almost) no new data then the network is not being used and the network dies.

People using the network will store their data there. If they are not storing their data then there is no data being stored and the few who did store data will have to copy it off before its lost.

But if people are using the network then that means data is being stored so they can be using the network. Basic human nature is to generate data and store it. Just look at facebook or google. If people stopped storing data on google or facebook then they would die too. Hardly anyone is going to use either if they are not storing new data and they would close.

So that philosophical stand point is just like can God make a rock he cannot lift. It can make for discussion, but isn’t a practical issue. So like your “people will use SAFE, but (hardly) anyone is storing data” is similar. Its a logical fallacy because people being people will generate data and store it on the network they are using. And the opposite is true in that if they are not storing data on the network then its evidence they are not using the network. And the 5% exceptions are only proof of the generality.

So like anything that is not being used by enough people it will die. Simple. And adding taxes will only accelerate that demise. If people are not going to pay the lowest possible prices to store data (send messages, comment on forums etc) then they certainly will not pay extra due to taxes and also not pay to retrieve data, browse websites. So your ideas is only going to accelerate your doom & gloom scenario of no one storing and the few left lose their data

So you are saying if it costs little and people don’t like it then adding extra costs will help make the network survive. Nope it just accelerates the demise with even less people wanting to use the network.

2 Likes

Untrue. You are asking for core functionality of the network to be changed - compromised - in order to cope with a highly unlikely scenario.

2 Likes

you are failing to realize complications of renting data and the fact they may be more costly for the network. you see if we make the cost “the amount of gb you are currently storing” * " x safecoin " it creates a very obvious attack vector. A person can easily upload than delete massive amounts of data to network, in a network that trust no one and probably will fight a government or two this is major weakness.

but second thought is what if we say network deletes every uploaded data 1 month later. 1 this would imply people would need to reupload everything every 1 month think of a youtube that deletes every comment every month?. 2nd this would mean we need to add a timer to every data chunk, you see we can make an agreed timer on network which shouldnt be a hard deal going forever but we need to tell data to delete themselves lets say 1 month later, if we uploaded data to conventional cloud that would be very easy but for it to be truly deleted on safe network we need to add this information on every single data chunk. So lets say you upload a 1 gb file to network. that 1 gb file will be broken into 1000 1 mb file and each 1 mb file will be send to 8 computers. each 1 mb file will have its own if( global timer >x) delete this. And a computer would need to check every mb, for 3 tb of data stored in a computer that is 3.000.000 comparision per minute?(depends on how often you check) but that is a lot of wasted computation power. Ohh by the way network doesnt reupload the same file when someone else uploads it and just gives him references so that would need to change delete time, which may cause lots of data race problems.

so it may be just easier to store data forever

but I can personally see a middle ground. We can add a last accessed year integer to files that is updated every time someone accesses data (if a conflict between vaults happen later year would be accepted as real one) and check once a year if 20 years has passed without access (while checking if 2 vaults have different last accessed year every vault will be updated to greater one.)
But these can be implemented later and are not as easy as you think to implement. (also not as easy to think, there are probably better approaches and also maybe my methods are not really viable due technical constraints)

I think the world is starting to realize the need for a decenteralized internet and safe network needs to be out before a big boy such as google makes a decenteralized internet that is under their control