I don’t go on those boards as I feel it wastes time. To me the frenzied focus on currency is a bit weird, we are building a secured private data network. I see no mention of privacy security or freedom in these statements and this is surely the crux of what I personally wish for. I want a network of information and education for everyone on the planet to participate freely and without borders.
Anyone who does not want secure non public ledger based currency will be turned off. I doubt the person on the street will though.
As for the last point we are obsessed building a system that secures people and their data. This is the concrete foundation of all else. I do not see this being something we can avoid. The safecoin part helps this a lot for rewarding participants and reduces the codebase. A read of the systemdocs shows a proof of resource without currency and using a quid pro quo measurement so it’s possible and was in the code, but is being replaced with a reward system that amortises across the network anonymously.
If we are reinventing a wheel, I would like to see that wheel as I would launch it this afternoon and declare project SAFE fully launched. Where is there a rUDP that works, or accurate DHT that is fast and secured via crypto, or a serverless login to a decentralised network? or a system where data is physically secured beyond the reach of any party except the owner? These wheels we would grab with open arms and use them.
Perhaps a design of the mentioned maidsafe V1 would be nice, I would like to see that 
particularly how farmers etc get rewarded by the network (does the network have its own btc wallet?). Strange ideas, but everyone is entitled to opinion, I wish it were better thought out and described, throwing words into sentences does not mean they are sensible or coherent.
I agree with David, the post is ill informed to some extent, and the guy is saying he won’t trust MaidSafe unless it decides to change course and do something that is not new, has known problems and limitations, and different goals. That’s OK with me.
We have to focus energy where it is most useful. This guy is going to take a lot of convincing, and frankly doesn’t seem savvy enough to be worth the effort.
I only speak for myself.
My “knee jerk” reaction would be to defend Project SAFE and offer a whole list of passionate reasons. Obviously, I’m biased. If I removed my emotion and “try” to be objective, I would say I am here for the opposite reason.
I am with Project SAFE because we are trying to make a BETTER wheel. Project SAFE is not starting from scratch. We are taking existing tech and advancing it with new tech to make the Internet 2.0 decentralized.
Drawingthesun’s concern is valid. We should all be cautious when innovating new technology. But that doesn’t mean we should stop innovating. Not everyone has the stomach for innovation into unknown territory. I understand if people prefer to stay with “known” tech. Most of the population will be in this category, and rightly so. It was the same way with Bitcoin in 2009.
We could all stay with horses… never know gas cars.
We could all stay with gas cars… never know electric cars.
I still remember the FUD regarding microwaves, saying my privates would fall off if I used it. I can happily report today, that it’s still intact and healthy.
My point is, if you and others reading it are here. You are either an early adopter, or a curious spectator. I am an early adopter. I understand, a lot of unknown negatives could happen. Others should consider this as well. That last thing we need is blind followers.
At the same time, I am truly excited about what we can accomplish. Every individual will have to make their own choice when to adopt, based on their comfort level. Their lives are precious and most need stability. Others like me, can handle a lab exploding every now and then.
He’s treating “the blockchain” as an ancient solution, and Maidsafe as chosing to “depart” from the proven, everybody-knows necessity. But the safecoin model to be implemented predates the blockchain model in its origins and, as @dirvine says, was evolved more as a lubricant for the network rather than a solution to currency as the initial goal. The fact that safecoin functions the way it does makes it valuable mostly because it supports the far-reaching goals of the network, not because it starts with the limited view of reforming currency.
Transparency is probably the most important thing. If a critic says, “The foundation of your idea is wrong and I don’t like the way you’re going about your solutions to things” then that’s a difference of opinion. Bad territory is if developers make claims that are false or evasive. As long as no one here says “we have the technology here to do this, we’re just implementing it” vs “We don’t have the technology and we’re still researching it.” That’s huge and most important, IMO.
Keep shooting straight, convince the people that matter that your solution is the right one, and never claim (or imply) to have something you don’t.
It seems like you guys have been totally transparent so far.
Blockchains as Bitcoin have implemented don’t scale past city sized population levels. As soon as you start sharding the blockchain over multiple machines to keep individual shards reasonably sized you end up doing pretty much what SAFE does. End of discussion I think.
A very interesting technical problem is implementing a self-retiring blockchain, so one that automatically deletes parts of itself no longer needed by anybody. But designing one of those would be extremely challenging, and totally incompatible with Bitcoin.
Niall
Since a lot of people keep applying blockchain thinking to safecoin and maidsafe why not explain it like you just did. There is no blockchain, but if you think of it as a self-retiring blockchain where each transaction balance is sharded over the entire network (with 4ish distributed copies of each). And yeah, it self-retires everything but the last transaction 
wow these bitcoin people really seem to have trouble understanding what maidsafe truly is
I think we increasingly live in a “headline is the whole story” society and people want all the info in a sentence, if its more than that then it seems what happens is assume you know more and criticise from a distance (the more personally offensive the better). I think its endemic of the faster pace of life. I know I also suffer from this to.
So a problem with a large change or proposition is just that. We cannot summarise in a sentence, I have tried many times. You then get smart asses who want more detail and accuse you of being a scam or similar. That in itself is another headline and we are back at the headline is the story, people believe it and the circle keeps going around, this is why the personal offence works, more people read it.
Those strong critics who ask for detail, nearly to a person, claim to have read everything there is and there is no mention of part X. I think now though, that this is just how we are structured and it may damage innovation, certainly it makes being open significantly more difficult, but the effort is well worth it. It is unbelievably draining though.
As an innovator it is good to be positive and face the hard challenges, you also need critique, but unfounded and uninformed criticism is the very antithesis of keeping you going. It is like a champion 100M runner having to stop and answer all the people in the crowd who say, do you think you will win, you may not even finish etc… They need to know they will win and be determined and driven. So it is vicious out there and I try and keep a reasonable distance, where possible. I can read some horrible thing (not only about me, but worse, about people I know) and lose a whole nights work wondering why people say what they do. That weakness is my weakness though, I analyse everything from all angles, like a curse 
I did get drawn into huge debates and discussions explaining parts over and over (and over …) again, but email is terrible, some public forums are worse and explaining hard things to people is probably best done in person. Interestingly if you bent truth and lied then it would be considerable easier?
Amazingly so if we released a paper with maths that people could barely read then they would be happy, so being clear in communications also has a potential downside. We do have a ton of math proofs, but this is beside the point.
It is a very weird situation, I know we will never change the way we work though, completely open and without lies or ego, I just underestimated the strength required in doing so To me though we are building a very strong community and a lot is based on trust of us and more so on trust of the math we have employed (to be continually improved). I think this is better than a bunch of folk trying to be smarter than the next person (which is impossible anyway).
This forum is an exemplar of genuine debate and striving for the optimum solution. So a tiny minority of the wider community as a whole, have surprised me in negative ways I had not thought would happen, but the closer community surprise you on the complete opposite. It is like this is a nice safe place with real thought and decent people with radically differing views on many topics.
So yes surprises all round from many sectors, some great and some less so. This forum tends to feed my quest for info with more thought out and differing opinions and debate. It to me is a place of learning and expanding your knowledge. I want project SAFE to spread this out to everyone, but the challenges will be the very challenges I have seen plus more. I know we will get there though, that part does not even cause me a tiny fraction of concern.
All in all it is a hugely interesting thing to observe. There you go a rant on a Sunday afternoon, ye canny beat it, no even wi a big stick as we would say here.
We know we don’t want a down load only internet. We know that even if they had all of our data they wouldn’t really know anything about us. Its keeping the rate of genuine interpersonal communication high that matters above all else. Its top down silencing vs dialog and its not about balancing, we can possibly replace all top down with dialog. That’s how it was in the bush and that’s likely the better way for innovation.
Thanks for the “rant”, David. It’s a pleasure and a priviledge to share in the process.
No point. For a lot of people involved in Bitcoin it’s a belief system, not a technical system - understandable when they have their wealth tied up in it. Arguing with them about its scalability, especially as Moore’s law is grinding to a stop right at this very moment, isn’t worth the time.
Niall
I think satoshi nakamoto took a good approach; one quality whitepaper and let the technology speak for itself.