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

Wow i somehow missed this! This is an interesting idea… although, why would you want to be reuploading the data? The upload cost is a lot more than just simply storing the data, hence saving more bandwidth and unnecessary upload times

But that the sections can erase data can lead to a single section, which for any reason are in trouble (even pure chance), generate a huge damage to a lot of files because a single chunk has been erased.

In fact, it could be an attack vector that allows someone, who, even without getting control of the consensus, can have the power to make critical data disappear.

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I see this as the deal breaker for this “solution”. I am sure the network will have algorithms to deal with a section becoming “full”

To be able to sell a secure network it also has to include data security and not allow accidental (deliberate in this “solution”) deletion of any chunk.

The temporary chunk idea is a far better “solution” in that any temp chunks that have expired their event “time” limit can simple be removed.

But still I think if the network has any sort of adoption then this will never be an issue (needing to delete immutable data)

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It’s only for simplification purpose. A re-payment protocol could be implemented in the long term, but in a short term, simply reuploading chunks will have the same results. I will also add that the payment is supposed to cover the cost of:

  • Bandwidth to upload chunks (when files are uploaded)

  • Storage of data

  • Bandwidth to download chunks (when files are read)

The first part is only a fraction of the total cost and there is no proof it is the main one. I say this because there aren’t any network economy simulations provided by Maidsafe, which is a major problem and is the reason why this topic is so long and doesn’t go anywhere.

It’s just that this case (a section running out of space) must be managed by deleting older chunks rather than losing random ones. But no worry for you, you’re among those you advocate this case will never happen.

Anyway, deleting a chunk should be a last resort action. My initial proposal (Sacrificial data vs non-permanent data) was a complement to a first level security brought by sacrificial data. This mechanism has been suppressed but must be replaced by something else.

In this situation, merge section, eliminating the most problematic nodes, seems to me a much better solution. Even in case of massive lack of space, a restart of the network seems less problematic.

My opinion is that I do not think it happens, but if it happens, the network is doomed and erase some chunks will not save it.

Agree.

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Have you ever thought what happens when the network shrinks in space? Honestly. Your assumptions so far has been the safenetwork will expand in network capacity forever.

But what if it doesn’t? Farmers slowly quit after it hits its peak of storage and farmers. Farmers slowly quit as there are much more GET requests which cost bandwidth than PUT requests to store data on the network. As their profitability decreases as well as maybe their ISP starts to shut them down or charge extra cos they used too much bandwidth due to fair go policies even if they have an unlimited bandwidth plan?(who knows what could go wrong resulting in network capacity decreasing) What would happen? So storage cost increases to increase farmers pay and hence attract more farmers? But what if that at the same time gets people more reluctant to store data on the network because it cost higher? This is another reason why I proposed the option to add another option when storing.

Basically, AS IS, the network can NOT sustain if in the circumstances that people stored a lot of data and stopped storing new data instead just constantly accessed their existing data. Dropbox can, all other cloud services can because they charge monthly recurring fee and limit bandwidth. Please don’t overlook this issue. As this can be more serious than you think. Once farmers start dropping out you’ll have redundancy issues as network gets full. Everyone’s data could be at risk. And they can’t even help it! They may not have new(or much new) data to store. They just want to have access to their existing data. They want to pay for their existing data but cannot.

Of course, they can reupload their data but it won’t even help as the same data will be detected and just have the same copies. So they have to change their data by a little bit then zip it and reupload it to ensure their data is safe. This is way too much work for the average person than just having a second option to have a rental model and know their data is definitely safe. You can have the code so something like, when network gets full and it comes to it, for the people paying rent, the network priorities to maintain their 8 copies of data instead of those who paid one time. This isn’t really a bad option. And this shouldn’t happen anyway according to you as the network keeps expanding. So there will be no difference to the people that paid once to store forever over those that chooses to pay small amounts in increments

Yes. . . . . . . . . .

EDIT: I have a little time to answer

You have described the doomsday scenario that I and others have thought about in the past and aluded to in the posts above and why some of it is unlikely

You describe that ISPs will throttle back unlimited bandwidth.

  1. if they did this then obvious there will be less farmers, but the profits for them under the current model will be higher so they can afford to add more vaults and others who initially could not because of costs now can because the income is higher. Its dynamic and dancing to boot :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes::rofl:
  2. AU has already been through the cycle of ISPs being unlimited then p2p abuses this unlimited to restricting quotas to now again providing REAL unlimited. The USA has to catch up since they are about 5 to 10 behind in this particular cycle. Europe is already past AU and even provide 1Gbit/sec unlimited. I even gave you prrof that AU is increasing quotas and reducing costs and this is after bittorrent strained the ISPs previously on unlimited. The ISPs have now met the demand and providing unlimited again. Our USA links may slow at peak but that is a common problem world wide.
  3. Rental and charging for bandwidth and storage to the viewers/browsers/downloades is only going to hasten the decline in use of SAFE which will result in uploads drying up and then farmers leaving once rewards become so scarce that even the higher price of SAFEcoin due to scarcity is not enough. Maybe in a decade.

You make rental and Bandwidth charges against the browsers and downloaders then they will simply reduce and eventually stop using SAFE which precedes the death of SAFE. Currently anyone can browse SAFE without even an account let alone paying anything. As soon as you charge the viewer/browser/downloader for bandwidth then they have to have an account and sign in just to use SAFE for browsing/viewing/downloading. Surely your psych training tells you that that is a barrier too far for the casual reader/browser/viewer/downloader. Once they stop then companies move their websites to a new platform or just back to the traditional internet and SAFE slowly dies. Even if it was flourishing, once you charge to view then the doors may hit the last people to use SAFE in the backside. Don’t believe me then do a survey of 100,000 people in 100 nations and see for yourself. But surely any seasoned interneteer will have seen that model come and go quickly. Microsoft tried it rather shamelessly in the mid 90’s and failed spectacularly because people bypassed them and used another system.

You CANNOT charge people for viewing, it doesn’t work, has failed in the past and will fail now and fail in the foreseeable future. To charge for bandwidth usage when viewing is foolishness, just ask microsoft how it went when they tried to charge to view the internet.

10 year anniversary for this presentation, I dont think the message has changed much if at all.

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This is from late 2014, but still relevant: World could 'run out of storage capacity' within two years warns Seagate | TechRadar

The fear seems to be too much new data, rather than too little. It is a good thing all that spare capacity could be unlocked by safe net, huh?

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If I recall correctly seagate was in the mist of their hard drives not lasting and seagate getting a bad name.

I guess that would work to mean the viewer doesn’t ever pay.

My issues though would be

  • when the “GET” fund runs out what do you do? Charge the viewer or just not be able to access the content. Or a combination of those two?
  • Honestly do you think that many outside of big companies and people selling goods would put into those funds?
  • And then there is the complexity of the code to implement such a system.
  • And do we even need it? Using spare resources to provide free reading of data is not that expensive. The farmers who use their spare resources are paid for it and that will then provide coin that would eventually return to SAFE with people uploading their data.

Your idea is new from what I can remember, although personally I don’t think its necessary, but may solve some of the paying to view issue if it was implemented.

Not that I know of. Using the search feature or using google to search might be able to show topics that you are interested in. A lot of ideas and topics have been discussed over the years and there is a wealth of information here.

what you dont realise farming happens when data is retrived not when data is putted.
think of it like this there is a large pool coins.Some assigned to user some isnt. when someone retrives data from network vaults take a chance at guessing a coin which isnt assigned to a user, if they find it they get a safecoin, if they dont its a failed attempt. So farmers are paid according to data they provide not the data stored on them!! if nobody puts data in to network and just hodls farmers will still farm because safe coins value will be too high, even with to low chance it will be profitable.
So there isnt a payment being made to farmers, because network pays them. The users pay to network.(All safe coins being assigned to someone is practically impossible)
therefore as long as there isnt a better bigger safe network, it will be fine

its only free if you grow your own food and its very scalable

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Thinking about it, while the money supply is growing, no one needs to PUT anything, as rewards can come as new safecoin, rather than recycled safecoin.

It will be interesting to see how many new coins vs recycled coins are awarded. Either way, there is a disconnect between PUT paid and farmers being awarded for delivering a GET.

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Just as an example for something unpredictable happens that reduced the amount of farmers. It doesn’t have to be that event specifically.

Well having a second option to do so can only be better. If they don’t want it they can simply not choose it. I don’t see how letting people choose if they want to pay less upfront but recurring or more for one time is going to be worse than only having one option of doing it one time.

You know what’s funny, when someone argued that charging people to update their status on social media I don’t see you making such arguments. You got to be a bit less biased towards specifically targeting my or other rental based proposals. You CANNOT charge people to post a snapchat or update a simple status on social media, but when I brought this up, the responses was like, oh but they can just leave their computer on and make so much more safe coins than they use! Well why don’t you also use the same argument here? If they leave their computer contributing to the network even if views are paid for people will still get it for free.

And yes, like @anon41664782 has said, you can also make the data uploaders themselves to pay for the views for the users, to account for the bandwidth usage. Many companies will be more than happy to do this as they’ll most likely spend a lot less money on bandwidth and security as bandwidth is mass contributed from unused ones and not centralised and hence cheaper. And they don’t need to pay high amounts for added server speed and security as safenetwork gets faster the more people that use it and is already very secure.

The current network model as is would basically ask companies like Google, who probably pays millions a month to their servers, for their bandwidth, reduancy and security, now pay $1 to have the same features. But who pays instead? Of course the farmers! This is stupid. I think @neo you are quite biased with your views supporting the current state of the network. Just like the post someone made here regarding “is safenetwork really a big deal”. Please TRY to view it from other perspectives.

Key word there. WHILE the money supply is growing. And you’re right. However this post is about long term sustainability so it doesn’t solve the problem. But I agree that new coins will help boost it get started even if there may a lack of money at the start to sustain it potentially because of the problems I brought up

Sometimes it’s not better.

I don’t understand why you’re so confident of your perspective.

Tell that to ISPs. Tell that to snapchat et al who sell user data. Tell that to advertising companies who buy the data. People pay handsomely to post their pictures and movies online, they just don’t zoom in to the ‘per post’ view.

I agree having a popup saying ‘do you want to pay to $x to post this’ every single time won’t work. But putting some money into an account and slowly dripping it away is fine. Everyone overpays for their internet now (who ever uses their full monthly data allowance? what if they also had data rollover, as safe will? what if it continually gets cheaper to post rather than more expensive, as it will with safe?)… yet nobody complains and everybody posts.

Your arguments would benefit a lot from stepping back and thinking about why you might not be right. I know you’ve claimed not to be technical, so maybe take some time to try to better understand the technical side because adding ‘features’ to track chunk rentals or timeouts or incremental payments may be possible, but if you don’t understand the technical aspect you aren’t really in a position to be saying it with such confidence.

I’d like to see an analysis (hopefully from you) of how simple or hard it is to add a rental feature to the network. Then maybe I’d be a little more convinced.

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Yeah, you should also say that to paying for viewing the network.

Uh… But even if one potential solution I proposed is technically challenging, that isn’t a reason at all against how the current model is sustainable… Which is what the post is talking about…

Yes, may I also add every single website right now pays for people to be able to view them in the forms of hosting fees and server CPU/bandwidth/storage. On a recurring basis. So making them pay per view of their data would make no difference to them now and with the safenetwork, in fact, it’ll probably be much cheaper and they never have to worry about DDOS attacks or server hacks, or server scalability issues, or server being shut down or censored.

But no… the safenetwork with(potentially) the Pay the Producer model, not only not charging websites anything but paying the website for popular data. I just don’t know how well it’s going to sustain. I think my concerns are quite valid given how vastly different the model really is when you take time to think about it

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Agreed. But you haven’t sufficiently argued that either a) the current model isn’t sustainable or b) the proposals are sustainable.

I have seen a lot of this sort of argument: “If miners stop mining bitcoin the bitcoin network would fail” or “if people stop sending bitcoin transactions the network will fail in the end”. Well, miners have stopped mining bitcoin at times in the past, but the network hasn’t failed. I’m not convinced about the sustainability concerns being raised. I agree it may be a concern to consider, but it may also not be. So far the argument for not being a concern seems to be far stronger.

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Agreed as well, very good points BTW! Finally seeing a good debater :slight_smile: , although for a) it’s a little debatable, i’ve tried my best to outline the reasons why, how current website owners combined spend so much to maintain their servers and Safenetwork comes and basically make them spend nothing, this is in my previous post, along with all my other previous posts in this thread mainly commenting on the fact that it is DEPENDANT on NEW data and how that can be of concern, as only new data storers pay existing data storers and all data downloaders, it’s philosophically not really settling, as the whole network is dependant on the amount of new data coming in, which at some point could stop or significantly reduce(or just slowly reduce), and the demand for accessing existing data will only increase, so even if the amount of new data gets stores stays the same, but the demand to access existing data keeps on increasing over time, it may still be a problem. For b) the main concern has always been bandwidth and electricity costs of running ‘farms’, those have recurring fees, there’s no reason to argue against that isn’t sustainable, those are the models we have today, and they not only sustain but scale just fine. Only issues are data security, censorship and privacy.

You have to realise Bitcoin is fundamentally different as it has a difficulty adjustment mechanism that essentially ensures it has to have miners if Bitcoins were ever valued at even $0.001, and the amount of miners will be dependant on the value of the coin, and their mining efficiency and electricity cost, and also the amount of miners doesn’t really affect the network. You can have 99% less miners now and Bitcoin will still confirm in 10 minutes. (of course, if the miners dropped the network could be susceptible to 51% attacks which remain to this day, a concern, a big quantum computer if developer by a single cooperation could still do this attack and stuff up bitcoin, anyway, off-topic now)

The safenetwork does not have such mechanisms that adjust for adoption and sustainability as Bitcoin, hence why I am proposing, basically, the safenetwork needs to try to improve their current sustainability mechanisms. Either by changing their current econmical model, or change their adjustment mechanism when they start losing farmers and the network starts to be short on storage, charging more for storage will also make people reluctant to buy new storage on the safenetwork, which doesn’t mean farmers get paid more, contradictory to what @neo has previously said.