This is a discussion about the Safe Network in the largest Bulgarian facebook group of devs, which I found by chance today (the specific discussion, not the group).
From two minutes of reading the site, the experts already know that Safe is a scam …
This only confirms my opinion that the imposition of the network will continue for decades, so my call is for everyone who believes in Safe to roll up their sleeves and start promoting the network, because its actual release will not change anything and the sooner we start talking about the network the better. Just my personal opinion.
Given that so many projects are scams and that so many people use them to pump and dump and scam others … SN probably is a scam from their perspective – because it doesn’t provide them an easy opportunity to easily pump and dump!
I have no fear of SN success down the track. Once it’s up and running the proof of what it can do for humanity will be obvious IMO.
From the outside, when someone stumbles across the Safe Network project they will see a project lacking good optics. I know you are a diehard supporter but you have to understand the people building the Safe Network don’t promote it. So when people see that not even those working on it care to promote it, they are left with wondering why. They think hmm “If Safe Network is so ground breaking why don’t the people creating it talk about it?” Why would an opensource project that needs volunteers and dedicated programers not promote the project? This is what people think when they by act of a miracle discover it.
The bad optics are a result of Maidsafe not promoting Safe Network in anyway. It’s been pointed out many times by people with marketing backgrounds. I used to mention and promote Safe Network whenever it fit. Whenever I had a chance. But over time I realized the company creating it doesn’t bother promote it. They don’t share the same enthusiasm publicly that supporters do. They work against those trying to promote it as they hold greater sway with the public than enthusiasts. The bad optics at this point are not an accident.
You can’t say there is nothing to promote either. There is so much work to be done to get it launched having a larger community could only help. It seems it is not wanted by those working on it. It gives off a weird vibe for the project. From the outside it looks scammy and half hearted. We are asking people to look past all of this to see what the project is really about. Most people will pass when they see the poor state of the optics.
Being one of the first ICO’s they raised only a scant fraction of what other projects raised in the following years. Hence they can’t afford to promote it and develop it - at least on the scale of so many other projects that have come and gone. They can’t afford to bring a large number of people on board or even lend much support to volunteers.
I think that if you want to donate ten million or so dollars, which would still be a pittance compared to the tens of millions raised by other projects, then perhaps they could do more things at once.
It’s easy to criticize, but honestly, David and team are working their hearts and minds away for very small change relatively speaking and that’s really hard - as they could walk away and start something new and get large $$ funding.
All in all, their behavior is that of very honorable people. Something not found in many other projects at all.
I have said we would focus 100% on launch and that is what we are doing. Equating that to not caring is disingenuous and equating that to us lacking enthusiasm is wrong. You stand anwhere in any project and you will have folk talk of no/bad/too much/ marketing and those who do are always experts.
When we get to that stable Fleming network then the story will change dramatically, but even then it may not mean we do the marketing that suits everyone. There will be the “everything is marketing” cries and there will be many many experienced preachers who can laud marketing prowess on us and more.
However, look here, look at this forum and the number of folk who can do marketing and ask yourself, do the builders of something need to be the marketing folk? Does a truly decentralised network need some owners to do the marketing or can we do something different here? Can Safe be promoted by many in many different ways? Does Marketing a decentralised network need some God figure?
I say no, if this is to be owned by nobody then it should be marketed by everybody, that is everyone who wants to be involved, from app builders to evangelists and privacy advocates.
So let’s stop beating up Engineers hoping to make them something else, let’s stop with the marketing is everything nonsense, let’s get the best from folk who love doing what they are doing and involve many, in many guises, not under a banner of MaidSafe, but under a banner of the “Safe Network”.
You’ve already made this point several times, and the general consensus is clearly not with you - you’re free to continue repeating yourself (with a different word to keep things fresh, here it’s ‘optics’), but I sincerely don’t understand why you would. What are you hoping to achieve? Your point is clear, MaidSafe’s response is clear. What can repeating again and again achieve other than wasting your and everyone else’s time?
It seems clear to me - you can either accept that this is a company that is going to do things differently than what you think they should do, or you can continue taking time away from the team who are trying to get this thing done.
I do sympathise with having a disagreement and being upset when things clash with your conception of the world, but there has to be a limit to how many times repetition of the same point is useful.
The engineers are focusing on getting the Safe Network rolled out, and judging by the updates, things are progressing very very solidly. The recent DBC stuff is world-changing; when the time comes for it, marketing an actually world-changing product is going to be a lot easier than marketing some blockchain fluff that has 20 other non-world-changing flavours available in the market.
World-changing in the sense that the Safe Network might not be viewed as the next-level Bitcoin evolution, but rather Bitcoin as a little testing sort of phase before the actual revolution which is the Safe Network.
I think you mean well and that you are sincere about your upset, to be clear here. I would however respectfully urge you to consider that maybe your conception of how ‘marketing’ or ‘products’ or ‘value’ or ‘innovation’ or ‘the cryptocurrency space’ are supposed to work might be getting in the way of viewing this question level-headedly.
If you read the opinions of the bg devs carefully, you will see that the content of our sites looks like a scam for them.
There are certain statements on the sites that sound like promises, just as scams promise things without being able to fulfill them. From this point of view, it may be good for the next version of the site to make a clear distinction between what the long-term goal is and what has been achieved so far.
I will also allow myself to comment on your desire to impose a course of action on David and the team. In my opinion, our task as a community is to give opinions and criticism, but everyone decides for themselves what they feel is the right action.
Obviously, everything in life is just probabilities, and there is no way to know in advance which is the most correct action.
I personally feel that the community should be the driving force behind the marketing of the project, because it can quickly and cheaply test many different paths, and if one of us finds a path that is particularly effective, we all can focus on it.
My experience telling people about Safe is that most everyone of them, coder or not assumes scam first. It’s the whole of the crypto space that’s seen as being filled with scammers. So it takes persistent explanation to convince people otherwise - and I believe this will continue to be the case until we get to beta. This is one of the main reasons I see no point in marketing right now - it’s a huge uphill battle to convince people and that means much more time/$$ needs to be spent to make converts.
I found that the less the person has a background in programming/networking the more accepting they are of the project, although they may be sceptical if it is possible.
As you say @Dimitar we need to have the evidence of the promises working in real life for the project to take off perception wise
If Ethereum for instance would have waited with launching testnet and mainnet until they had POS and a solution to scaling, etc, etc, all figured out and perfectly working they would have been considered a scam too. We would have still be waiting for launch and ETH would not be listed on only two exchanges perhaps. Having something running and improving over time works, and makes marketing much easier.
It seems that for some reason Safe cannot be gradually evolved from e.g. some highly imperfect and conventional distributed storage or some kind of centralized blockchain into the product we are actually waiting for (that is actually worth waiting for). It may be because of certain necessary interlocking complexity where “everything just must depend on everything.” Or it may just be a preference not to spend additional time and effort on trying to avoid an all or nothing approach. Either way, that’s up to those dedicating all their resources to it.
Nothing prevents an impatient observer launching a project taking an evolutionary approach towards the same goal. That would be an interesting race. Which approach would make the finish first?
I believe SNT will take many years to derail BTC and others. So I suspect that those investing in BTC mining today will still make their $$ back over the next few years. Pissed or not, this is the nature of investing … missing the boat is all too common.
Edit: read the tweet after lol … yeah, I suppose those thinking BTC is going to drive post scarcity will be disappointed - or rather have something to blame … we are never going to post-scarcity as human wants are unlimited.
I would think that comparing Ethereum to this project is like comparing Ben and Jerry’s ice cream to mouldy fruit.
They can’t launch an imperfect product (as Ethereum could) because there is literally no product.
It’s frustrating beyond words and yes, I get they keep plugging away but it’s not looking good is it, more than 10 years on.
I am not marketing this to anyone, as it’s just an idea with nothing to demonstrate in the real world.
Yes, I know, the “troll” nonsense retort will appear, but I don’t care about such silly labels.
Anyways, said my peace and anyone I know who knows about crypto has dismissed this project as pie in the sky.
But still you feel the need to tell us this same old shit again…
You are either simply an attention-seeking waste of space or yet another clown that thinks you can depress the hodlers and thus the price with your constant attacks.
Learn this pal - We really could not give a flying copulation what you think. Loser.
I don’t get why you or anyone else feels the need to come here and talk shit about the project.
Why? What is the end goal?
You could not pay me to go to a forum on the internet and shitpost about a project I don’t believe in.
Countless projects out there that I think are a useless waste of space but I feel no need to go there and tell them.
Each to their own but it is one of those bizarre internet things that I will never understand.
I am airing my disillusionment, like it or not, there are plenty of people who feel that same way towards it and if they become so disillusioned, then how the hell are those who don’t hold going to be attracted to this?
I am sorry that the sycophants don’t approve of someone speaking their mind, but tough.
I disagree, I think it’s looking really good. Why are you of this impression … It would be a travesty for them to develop a project that’s as limited as existing projects plus they had goals in mind from the beginning that were never going to manifest overnight - there is no reason I can think of that you would think otherwise - they’re frickin buildin a new Internet!! It’s nothing like these other crypto’s that are mostly copying pre-existing tech and tacking on a bit here and there and then marketing the crap out of them … they are ALL scams compared to this project. Go back and read the early documents here - they were never building the next bitcoin or ethereum clone.
