I can’t say for sure but they aren’t free if they cost one cent. And why one cent? It will soon all depend on price / supply / demand.
The fact that disk space and negligible computation just sits there unused and it can enhance the security, privacy and control of the network you’re using (assuming you value those things or end up just using it passively because of your favorite apps) AND there is potential for financial gain, why wouldn’t the everyday person?
As long as we prioritize the little nodes I think we’ll be golden. The big boys can use it to whatever extent they can get away with because it’s their business to do what is more profitable than nothing.
That’s just for running nodes. The demand portion is important and must be a driving focus as that lever has the most leverage, imo.
I think the inherent network features and powerful apps they enable will easily draw in users. There is a feature for almost everyone!
I really dislike the idea of multiple Autonomi networks, especially if the data and tokens weren’t interoperable. I get the appeal of competition and the strongest surviving but I think that could be a slippery slope where none of them get the traction they deserve, are fragmented, less data on each, lacking the benefit of a single networks deduplication, etc. All of that leads to less privacy, security, slower native token speeds etc.
Since this is a truly decentralized network, I don’t think it needs ‘further’ decentralization, if that is what anyone would call it.
Growing this decentralized network only makes it better with scale because it basically already is a bunch of constantly changing small groups that are only mathematically close, multiplying the fundamental benefits for each group.
I know I don’t need to explain that to you but maybe for any uninitiated.
Well, we’re just talking here, no one is Baba Vanga, but as the number of nodes increases, the yield of tokens per node drops.
My assumption is that the one who is currently speculating with mining is not an exception and in the future we will see other such people.
If this happens, we will see mining per node on the order of a thousandth of a cent in a month, and then the smallest devices will hardly even earn 1 cent worth of tokens per month.
Regarding multiple networks, it doesn’t matter what we like or think is best, every successful thing finds a way to occupy every free niche, and human brains are different niches, and that’s why we have different peoples, languages and borders, not a common country, a common language or a common people.
Which is why price and more importantly demand matter more than supply. The need for places to store data are greater than people initially realize.
What I mean is people create data without thought, and abundantly, but need to be educated that they could be making money by storing their data and hosting others with Autonomi, just on a spare device. Again, data (demand) should be what is our driving force, then storage. That will be best for growth, price, and small node profitability imo.
I won’t deny that I think the carriage is in front of the horse right now but once we get usage trending and outperforming supply, that’s when we will see serious price movement and incentives kick in for anyone and everyone to run a node and it be worth it.
It only gets better once data starts flowing in.
Respect @Dimitar. Not trying to knock you for that!
I just personally think it would be counter productive and not actually benefit anyone for there to be multiple networks and I don’t think that is what you are advocating for by any means, just predicting like you mention.
Such a beautiful thing is, on a network such as this, everyone is free to be whoever they are, in any way they want, with zero restriction but all together. Just like the planet.
I just realized that the value of having large amounts of nodes is actually larger than the monetary value of ANT tokens collected. It enables large scale data mining, and the information collected has some value. Much like Maidsafe is doing now, when having a number of nodes up and analyzing the performance of them in order to make guided decisions in the developement work.
For example, I could see a situation, where a private company developes closed-source nodes and clients, that are somehow more desirable to a portion of users than open source ones. They could have a vast number of nodes in order to know how the network behaves.
Or another company might record IP’s of uploads and make business by selling that information.
These kinds of business models might justify using large scale datacenter operations even if the direct profit from selling ANTs might not.
Another thought: Wouldn’t it be a great joke, if we would find out that actually Maidsafe is running 3 million nodes right now, collecting their own rewards!
To be clear, I’m not suggeting this is the case. Just a hilarious thought.
Rewards, at least for people running fewer nodes, has dropped off a cliff, why then so many new nodes and so quickly being added? Who is earning the ANT right now?
I’m sure this is excellent data for the team to ponder. This sudden growth is a treasure trove of information going forward. It will allow them to fine tune the economics, I suspect. Exciting times.
All the more reason to reduce the RandomRewards to the merest trickle. We would seem to have a critical mass of nodes – with incentives. Surely now is the time to see what happens when the (totally artificial) incentives are reduced/eliminated? And use the funds that would otherwise be removed from the overall project economy to incentivise up/downloading and app development
Paging @Bux@JimCollinson
Well for starters I think its hard to exacerbate a problem that is already a 100% stopper for most and then I would be looking for Maidsafe/autonomi (still not used to name change!) to be uploading like crazy to get some chunks into the system.
For our original - and what will be our sustaining market, the run what you brung home user,it is a few more days of the same poor /non-existent rewards until the nodes move from 0.0001% capacity to 0.1% capacity
And never forget - you get somewhat excused as a n00b, our REAL market is the spare capacity on all these HDDs and SSDs sitting in consumer machines.
What attracted me to this project all these years ago was the use of otherwise redundant resoures worldwide.
We are assured that the upload issues are being looked at - thats obv a short term issue - I hope!!!
Not that surprising in scale; supply will grow until the average cost of running a node is equal to or lower than the earnings from running a node. Some operators may also be planning to hold for a while, so are making decisions based on their expected future price of ANT vs the current price.
Though, it is interesting to see that even at this early stage there are people involved with Autonomi with the computing resources available to scale this quickly.
It’s exciting imagining similar growth, but based on real demand and virally growing usage.
I look forward to seeing the proper growth of the network when all is working smoothly & awesome apps are popping up left, right, and centre
