Again, the same kind of confusion. We all know Safe eventually will be discovered by technically savvy people. We want it to be discovered by all the households of the world, though, the grandmothers, blue-collar working stiffs, technophobes and the like. I am merely saying we should do all we can to eliminate, or reduce, the reasons why they won’t investigate Safe. The powers-to-be at MaidSafe understand this I believe, that’s why a Public Relations person is one of the first non-technical positions to be recruited.
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The primary reason they won’t investigate SAFE is because they won’t have heard of it though. That’s the one I’d like to see cracked and the one I reckon controversy will solve for us. Those grandmothers and blue collars workers were never going to be involved in the first wave, or perhaps even the second. I am not expecting one wave to engulf the world immediately. I expect several waves to build momentum. It will gain credibility in time simply by proving robust imo.
If my granny were still alive she wouldn’t have much use for SAFE until it was huge and had loads of mainstream apps on it, same with most blue collar workers. The first wave will necessarily be the trailblazers who are incentivised by their own need for the functionality SAFE offers. Let’s just make sure as many of them know about it as possible imo. The rest will come if it is the best option later on and it’s easy to use.
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So true. I guess I’m thinking past the first couple of waves. But I believe that is the part that will lead to exponential use of Safe, and therefore, maybe the most important to start thinking about.
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Yes, PR may be required once we get the first few waves under our belts and we become a real ‘thing’, but by that point I reckon vested interests will do it for us. No need for the community to worry now imho. Better to focus on getting the word out any which way we can post-launch… by hook or by crook. 
EDIT: PR for maidsafe ‘the company’ is a different matter. I can see why they might need to think about that carefully.
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For better or for worse I’m afraid MaidSafe, the company, will be forever linked to the Safe Network. Whatever impressions the public has of one will carry over to the other.
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Certainly true, but only one of them is vulnerable. Maidsafe need to worry about their personal situation and their business. It is quite possible that SAFEnet could become huge but Maidsafe themselves get shut down or attacked and tied up in endless legal battles through the early years. I think they need to be more careful. It is very important they don’t break any laws or misbehave in any way because their freedom and livelihood is potentially on the line.
SAFE will be autonomous though, thank god. If you can’t shut it down then controversial publicity is welcome, more fuel for the fire I reckon.
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SAFEnet could be vulnerable too, by potential users electing not to use it because of some negative publicity surrounding MaidSafe, the company. This certainly wouldn’t affect the diehard converts but could slow down the overall rate of adoption and, if regulatory bodies, became involved, it would slow down even more.
Some things from my personal experience in Australia. We are also noted for adopting technology fairly quickly.
My adult children have a wide range of friends of varying background. All use one or more of the encrypted messaging systems and none are of a technical background like those here. My Daughter often laments that she cannot and will not store her photos on the cloud or dropbox because of concerns over who might gain access to them, and she was married before there was talk of security and doesn’t talk tech with me. Basically she gained this “concern” from media and her friends. So there is a perception that a secure online storage system is needed.
Basically from my interactions with my children and their friends I see a longing for securing communications and storage that is not readily available now. Even the media in Australia make note when they talk of the dark web that it is sites that don’t have their sites advertised on Google, so the people are getting used to the dark web just being areas of the web that are not advertised.
People don’t use the “dark web” simply because they have no need of those things it offers.
But SAFE will be offering in a easy and simple automatic way secure communications and storage that they can and want to use. Obviously not everyone, but a lot of the younger generation do want it, even if they give out a lot of personal info on facebook. As my daughter explained it to me, they do this because they have no other suitable way to keep up with their friends, now SAFE can offer a method where the user decides what happens to their info. Many give up their privacy because they don’t have any other method, no way out mentality.
Basically unlike the “dark” web which is relatively difficult to use, SAFE will be offering an easy way to have all the security that people have given up hope on having. Advertising that baddies can store their vile files on a network that even the cops cannot penetrate will awaking the desire to have personal security and privacy that they once thought unobtainable. As @Jabba says this will not happen overnight, but will happen if SAFE can deliver the network and keep it simple as click to install and click to setup an account.
About the only thing regulatory bodies can do that will significantly slow down the adoption of SAFE is to make it outright illegal or demand licensing of nodes.
I think if we stand back a little and look at other major crypto projects (I realise SAFE isn’t actually a crypto project as such) we can see that they are doing OK. Bitcoin is known by a majority of non-rural western people in the last couple of years. Etherium is even being looked at by banks and large companies. Bittorrent is even adopted by Microsoft to help distribute updates, and bittorrent was labelled as the primary tool of the pirates. Tor the haven of the “Dark” web is supported by the 5 eyes governments.
tl;dr
I can see a longing for privacy and security in the younger generation even though they have given up on having it. Introduce SAFE, advertise as the “dark” web that the police cannot penetrate and the baddies communications are secure and unreadable and you will awaken the desire for privacy that is a part of human nature.
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Hi Neo,
I feel somewhat concerned that A.) SAFE could be made outright illegal or B.) forced to give up licensing of nodes. What are your thoughts on this? Based on the history of Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies, I feel as though innovation like SAFE SHOULD survive the long hall and be widely adopted. But I’m still very new. So I don’t think my opinion matters too much. Since you have a wealth of knowledge, can you give a guess on a percentage that SAFE could run into one of these two issues? Anyone else willing to give their thoughts on this?
Doubtful except for perhaps the worse of dictatorships/communist. Its more like that like TOR and these governments will want it to run for their own use. Look at TOR, its not outlawed at all
Its more like they demand licensing of the nodes to regulate its usage and make money from the fees imposed by the government. Just like TV licenses used to be. Also very doubtful to ever happen
Australia is about to get the broadband tax where every home with the NBN will be charged. And the NBN will be the only fixed line internet soon in Australia.
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You guys are missing the forest.
Yes, it is a perfect dark web, but it is also a practical dark web.
Being a “dark web” is just a side effect, a feature and a nice cherry on the top.
The actual product here is the “new internet”. The myriad of functionalities that the SafeNetwork is bringing to the masses is freaking incredible.
Every single user and company out there would be able to lower their IT and insurance costs drastically, every information can be “leak proof” and “failure proof” with 100% uptime guaranteed (if objectives are met).
That by itself makes this network a no-brainer for anyone on this planet, for both “natural” and “legal” persons.
If the popular first impression of the SafeNetwork is that it is just a “dark web” it will make an immediate association with illegal markets, and no one will be willing to associate their brands with the SafeNetwork or MaidSafe in the first place.
It would take really a long time to get rid of this negative “priming”, fix that first impression and get the people to see objectively for what it is.
On the other hand, if the SafeNetwork is adopted by the masses FIRST and then dark markets start sprouting around it would be totally fine, as it would be catalogued as a “misuse” or “abuse” of the network, and not its primary function.
Just like kitchen knives may be used for killing, no one would doubt to keep calling it kitchen knives because that is its primary function.
But if kitchen knives were initially marketed as “killer knives” I doubt any housewife would have bought it for their kitchens.
Yes, the emergence of dark markets will be inevitable, but limiting to think about illegal businesses is reducing the scope of this project. (focusing about illegal businesses is a bad idea anyways, not because of morals but because its growth is self-defeating. As an investor it would be a suicide to think about investing in an endeavor where it is more likely to become a catastrophic failure the more successful it becomes, think about that for a moment)
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I believe it is you who is missing the forest. The ruminations on this subject have been about perceptions, perceptions of the uninitiated public especially, not the businesses and savvy users you speak of. If global acceptance is your goal, perception is a genuine concern. It is debatable what politicians can do to stem the flow of SAFE once it gets started (assuming they will even want to) but it is best to try and avert any negative movement in the beginning. You can never tell which way the political winds are going to blow.
On another level, the mere mention of autonomous electric vehicles, for example, scares the hell out of the Mom and Pop’s of the world. SAFE might be as daunting for them. We don’t want to have to fight those kinds of battle if we don’t have to. We should also keep in mind the concerns of non-profits, public-supported institutions and the like who must keep public perception in mind when they choose their business associations.
Presenting SAFE in a “safe” 
way is of paramount importance. The PR people of MaidSafe are going to have a very interesting, and critical, job.
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It is, but it is practicality what drive massive adoption, not the other way around.
Strong encryption existed since the 90’s, tell me who has been more successful in securing the general public from eavesdropping: Signal (and Whatsapp by extension) or PGP.
It is funny that you consider that it is me who lacks the vision.
But you keep missing the point. You keep trying to prove something to me about the greatness of SAFE. I KNOW THAT. It is the billions of uninitiated (many don’t even use or maybe even heard of Signal and PGP) that I am concerned with. I want them to take to SAFE like they take to the phone, without trepidation. I know it will take them longer to test the waters, I just want to remove as many barriers as possible.
On a side note: I wouldn’t be surprised if the MaidSafe team had very specific plans for this core group of the “uninitiated”.
We don’t want Safe to be used by a minority.
Who is this we you talk of?
I hope many minorities flock to safe.
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Nope, u are missing my point. And I am not trying to prove about the greatness about SAFE either.
And I think you are thinking exactly what I am, but somehow I fail to convey to you the mechanism to reach to the billions of unitiated.
And my example flew over your head.
Signal (ergo, Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger) brought strong encryption to the masses because of how practical and fun it is to the user.
PGP has been around for more than a decade, the same as XMPP and OTR, but none of them really is used by the general public.
It is through UX that you can bring security through the masses, not through promotion of security.
Also, the stain of a brand linking it to illegal activities will hinder the efforts of popularizing SAFE to the public, especially if the first use case are the “dark webs” and illegal markets.
The first impression is the one that lasts, that is a maxim in sales and in any (social) networking activity. In psychology we call it priming.
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“Uninitiated” does not equal “minority”. It is just another term for, what you might call, technically unsophisticated late-adopters. And, when I use the word “we” it is in reference to something that could be assumed by all readers of this forum to be desirable, usually relating to the widespread usage of MAID.
(Hopefully) This is where the alphas/betas will be good in that socially good APPs are being developed now while SAFE is still a way off being at a release candidate stage. So we can be introducing SAFE with feet running on socially good and acceptable APPs semi polished before the lesser acceptable applications have time to adopt SAFE as their platform. By the looks of it we will even have a viable youtube replacement.
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Very good point! Hard to criticize a good citizen of the world, possible, but difficult.
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Don’t you think if so many people are running nodes it would be impossible for any government to enforce any law against it? I suppose a few examples could be made. I don’t think it would be possible to “shut down” maidsafe once it gets going.