…the most successful anonymization network currently used by everyone worldwide you mean? How does their rating system work?
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that’s the thing… if people were like wow this is the best because I can do good things with more anonymity then they would have a brand image where like my mom would want to use it. If she researched it though all she would hear about is drug dealing and child porn and not be interested. Sure maybe she COULD use it but not for those purposes, but that’s a hard pitch when the media is telling her its evil. I propose we don’t get cornered like that.
If branding is your only concern, you should make that abundantly clear. If the network works properly, white supremacists and terrorists will be “included” and they will not be “eliminated” what so ever. Not totally or even a little. It’s naive to expect the media to play nice with the network regardless of what kind of marketing is attempted simply because of the network’s nature (assuming it works as described).
Expect demonization once it gets off the ground. Leave marketing and popularizing to third parties, who definitely will see a use for the network. Don’t let perfect, or what’s perfect to you, get in the way of good. I also highly doubt SAFE will actually “replace” the clearnet. Unrealistic, utopian ideals aren’t relevant.
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I have tried to be clear branding is my objective but I think we keep getting pulled down this rabbit hole of filters. That’s a great solution once you are already in the door. But we need the PR that tells people there is a safe place on SAFE for them.
ok sounds good and since I don’t work for maidsafe that would make me a third party 
There’s many groups whose interest is in keeping people “unsafe”. I don’t doubt that these groups can pull strings and get the media to say whatever they want. For most people, convenience and inertia are king, not freedom or privacy or security. If people prioritized security above convenience, nobody would be using windows on their desktop. If they valued privacy, they would not use social media or smart phones. Some people even have apps that let their friends track where they are.
Even if they find the data collection google does unnerving, they appreciate the convenience given to them by google and wont be willing to give it up. They don’t care if Netflix records what they watch. I bet most people also would actually like “the internet” to have less freedom than it does now to make it fit their definition of “safe” more. People like centralization. The number websites which most traffic comes from has been rapidly shrinking over the years.
Unless SAFE is actually more convenient than the clearnet, the vast majority wont transition. If it’s not just as fast, or if the media demonizes it, or if all of the apps they usually use aren’t on it, or if it requires any research at all, SAFE will just not become mainstream. Even then, there’s social and corporate inertia. Individuals trying to convince their mom are insignificant.
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I don’t think there is some conspiracy at play. Tor is now branded as for criminals and it attracts them more then normal friendly people that could also gain benefit from it. I don’t think the media was like oh we benefit somehow from blackballing Tor… no they were like we benefit from telling a story about this kid that made a huge drug empire online.
So what I am saying is lets play on this. Lets give them the really good headlines like @Dimitar was saying right from the get go in this thread. I mean its all about the hype. If it gets hyped as a great place for criminals/general assholes to hang out that’s the direction its gonna grow.
I am not saying we change the fundamentals to make it more centralized. I am saying lets do a better job of selling decentralization to the whitehat players better then Tor did.
and no I am not expecting my mom to use it on day one. I am hoping more like 5 years in she (and lots of other moms to) find it serves them in ways the regular internet cannot. If by that time all she has heard is “here is a free for all of the most scummy people on earth” well she just won’t be interested. Even if I agree with you that only companies matter they also won’t be interested in using a “criminal network.” Only criminals will and that is what we will get.
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Might be an opportunity to do historical market research on how tor became that way and perhaps highlight the points along the path of history that if they had gone differently could have resulted in tor having a different perception…?
And in a similar vein, a history of bitcoin perception could be worthwhile since it was for a long time seen only as money-to-buy-drugs-online but I feel like the perception is slowly changing.
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Look folks, you never convolute the mixture of technology and politics. Even if you like it or not, all laws, ideals, perceptions and acts in life boil down to our society. Building a stable consistent technological platform has to ignore all of that. This is why Bitcoin is successful - its building from a scientific point of view where the best solution wins - no matter if it pisses of some political group (as we seen over and over, more to come folks).
Any talk of anything like appeasing certain groups before the network is even live is completely pointless. All that will happen is it will fork and people will go for the libre option.
Im not sure if you realise this but, on the internet, anyone can be a 01100010 01111001 01110100 01100101
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Quite right…
However, there is merit in considering iteratively that SAFE is for everyone, necessarily suggests that applications allows for different perspectives… not necessarily each app for all but that there are applications that can cater/pander to conservatives and allow/enable more liberal types to act. So, understanding what is possible and where the limits of the tech are is important… if only for ensuring the base is not artificially and unecessarily limited… point being that assumptions come from all kinds of traditional thought and we need to avoid burdening others with our errors.
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Comparing the history of Tor and what can potentially happen with SAFE is pointless in my opinion because the landscape of popularized technology is so different. When Tor was first released, smart phones weren’t a thing and even the internet wasn’t nearly as ubiquitous as it is today. One thing I think never changes though is the type of people who are early adopters of esoteric technology and the people who aren’t. If somebody popularizes SAFE, they will be somebody with deep pockets.
I’ve actually asked people in real life and on tech boards what they think about SAFE. Almost nobody i’ve come across were comfortable with it for one reason or another. Whether because it’s just too different, or it involves cryptocurrency, or they’re not convinced of its feasibility. Again, these were people who actually knew something about technology.
There’s no reason to expect they would be enthusiastic about something that is not proven… of course they throw difference. If you’ve ever witnessed consideration of new products you get the same reaction… aside from the lazy that want to see that others have used it successfully first.
So, there’s a difference between something that works and something that doesn’t yet; just as there is a difference between something that is easy to integrate and something that is a pina bespoke requires expert to use.
There are too few surprises just a way to go and obviously the MVP will help break down a lot of problems. If there was an equation, then the larger part of it would be the utility that SAFE tempts. If we see the UI and presentation done right, then it’ll magnify that utility.
People will use tools that fit the problems that they have. The world for alsorts of reasons has problems with privacy; security; and freedom. Those opposed to privacy; security; and freedom - or any mix of those, have rather outdone themselves… compounded with the systemic issue of the unSAFE internet not providing for them.
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@mav If I think of the history of bitcoin… first it was a scientific experiment nerds got so excited it could be used to buy a pizza (I think that’s where we are now with SAFE.) Then in its “teenage” phase it was more of a means to subvert authority. I do agree that now it’s becoming more “adult” and moving back towards not just being for the rebels. Does SAFE also just need to go though these growing pains to develop or is there a way to skip the teenage years?
@MaxSan so are you going to tell me bitcoin became popular strictly for the technology and it had nothing to do with the media hype and branding that people did? I mean it could never have got so big without crypto twitter IMO. That’s not just the tech speaking objectively. It’s the rhetoric that really counted when it moved into being popular by many that don’t really understand all the technical details.
@davidpbrown I totally agree it’s just going to have to be available for everyone. We can’t help that some of them win be cons, some libs, and some anarchists. My concern is that we see so much momentum in the latter that non-anarchists think it’s just not for them and you get a bit of a feedback cycle going. So yes lets make sure its for EVERYONE and not just fringe groups that are highly over-represented.
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Some great discussion going on here, many good points raised across all contributors. What sticks out for me is @Sotros25 assertion that we need to be pro-active, get out there and get Good Things done with what we have and spread the word about these Good Things. So hackathons, coding challenges etc need to be getting planned ASAP. lockdowns permitting…
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Yes, yes, and yes!! All of these things can be done virtually too! So, if you’re technical or marketing savvy and want to connect on how we could make these things happen join the conversation on the Marketing Initiatives thread and/or DM me.
What would be really helpful is a list of coding challenges and hackathon project ideas/inspiration.
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I’m up to my eyes right now with the first sniff for months of something that might actually mean money. But @happybeing has some interesting stuff going on with github/rsync/ that I feel could unlock a lot more potential projects.
Once that is done and we get safe-nodejs - or whatever it will be called this time round -then I think we could get a lot more coders involved. Folk who do not necessarily have to have the depth of background knowledge that is required for now.
So perhaps this should make coming up with ideas for hackathons etc easier.
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Not actually sure if you are joking or not but silkroad is what made bitcoin. As a general rule of thumb the public should be watching what technology criminals use and copy them, which is what they have done and continue to do for the likes of communication platforms (Signal etal) and finance (Bitcoin).
To paraphrase John Oliver… It makes me feel safe knowing that a platform I use to send my dick picks on are full of illegal snuff videos, gives me a sense of security…
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I know I’m from the rich part of the world, but still my income of 1000 euros per month is not deep pockets 
The world is always, always changing from the bottom up. Those at the top have no reason to want change, friend…
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lol you are simplifying it too much and giving too much relevance to Silkroad. I disagree that it was because of Silkroad, but it was despite Silkroad. It is actually Bitcoin’s design flaw what allowed it to even reach mainstream: being pseudonymous and traceable instead of being truly anonymous, that’s what made the case for bitcoins for legitimate uses.
Lets see how long it takes Monero and Zcash reach true mainstream adoption, if ever. The most probable thing is that it will just stay in its niche, because no compliance officer would ever dream to touch it.
it is funny that both its detractors and supporters had this false belief that it would be useful for actual laundering.
Silk road was a nice proof of concept for a tokenized market, but it was because Bitcoin was able to outgrow its sophomoric stage that reached this level of adoption by traditional players.
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It just doesn’t seem enough to me. If we aren’t careful the SAFE network will just become a haven for terrorists and criminals. We need to design in walled gardens or exclusion methods. As well as the filters you suggest we should have a way of pushing back. Perhaps a method, like for example, if we are part of the ‘proof of resources’ provision we could say that our resources are not to be used for content that is (a) from unrated sources or (b) has a rating greater than 2. Ethically if you have given over half the disk on your home/work server for SAFE use you don’t want (however sharded and encrypted) your storage to hold data from criminal sources (and however laissez-faire you are there are going to be things that we all disaprove of). If we are not carefull we will just end up getting rid of the Surveillance capitalism and end up as the new Silk Road.
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Hey friend, criminals use the public roads you paid for with your taxes. Can you say: “You criminals will not rob banks on my road!”
The road is a blunt piece of stone. The SAFE network is a blunt piece of pipe…
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