Not sure which scenario will come first. To create an account in safenet we will need safecoin. To buy safecoin we will need an account in the Safenet. For us who owns Maidsafecoin already no issue. How about new users in the future? How would it work? 
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This has been asked often.
- People will lend/give others a coin
- Maybe a voucher system where a coin is stored in a wallet and the wallet ID is sent to the other person via the internet. This would be a throwaway wallet since at least 2 people will know it.
- People set up a vault first with a wallet ID then use the coin they earn to open the account
- Maybe during the first release accounts can be opened via some invite system to prevent other gaming account creation.
- someone will think of other ways
- EDIT: purchase safecoins from exchange or off others.
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How will this work? Why dont maidsafe just allow people to purchase safecoins and join the network?
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That is also a valid option. You will be able to buy coins off other people or from an exchange or from a market place etc.
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Thanks. That would be great
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All these solutions are either cumbersome or require extra steps by a novice. Both will retard the acceptance of SAFE in the beginning. Best just to figure out a way to give some coins to the first x (thousand,hundred thousand, million?) users.
The issue is to balance protecting the network by creating some barrier to spamming (eg somebody creating millions of accounts) and making it easy for somebody legit to create an account.
So to speed adoption, you want to make it easy / free, but that opens you up to sabotage.
The ideal would be to make it easy to create one account, and at the same time prevent one person creating many accounts, but that’s a very hard problem. Over to you! 
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Yes, a hard problem, for sure, but not insurmountable, I believe. The goal, as you said, is to protect against attempted sabotage or misuse, while at the same time giving new users an easy on-ramp to SAFE. If the amount of free coins given to new users is very small but enough to do some useful things on the network for a short period of time, that would be enough, in my opinion. Now, how do you stop someone from opening a gazillion accounts and reap the benefits of new accounts a gazillion-fold? That is the tricky part. Maybe two coins, safecoin and tempsafecoin? Tempsafecoin would allow you to only peek into the network to see if it interests you and would point you to a location where you could easily purchase safecoin?
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From a marketing and network-building standpoint, I think it would make a lot of sense for Maidsafe to give away free or discounted coins to developers that would build apps that would grow the ecosystem. It could be positioned as some kind of competition where developers pitch ideas, the community and/or Maidsafe leadership votes, and coins are distributed as reward to winners to both facilitate and fund app development.
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Sounds like a good idea but new users need to have some kind of free coin as well.
Another approach is to leverage exclusivity by having early adopters receive and/or earn invitations which they can give out to their networks. This makes a virtue out of a problem - it’s hard to get an invitation to SAFEnetwork, but hey, here’s one from David so I better use it!
This can work well up to a point, and it’s social nature has some benefits - tapping into “word of mouth” networks, selectivity by the donor helps direct invitations to those likely to want them and able to use them. It leverages people’s desire to share, the feeling of wanting to receive, and increased chance that somebody will make use of something given in good faith. It also provides a way to help jump start the initial social networks on SAFE itself.
For example, an invitation can include not just the ability to sign up, but also the public ID of the donor friend, and once signed up access to the donor’s profile and assist enrolment in the donor’s network/contact list, and possibly access to the public IDs of their friends in a “group invitation” etc.
Lots of ways to roll this. I think there is no single solution such as it must be easy or it won’t take off. More like several ways (coin fawcets, referrals/invitations, promotions etc) that all work together to build the network, more exclusive/difficult in the early days, and less exclusive/easier over time. Because as the network grows it becomes more resilient, meaning that restrictions can be eased until it becomes so hard to attack it can be made very easy to join by the time the masses get to hear of it.
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Yeah I remember people fighting for a google plus invite. Lol.
I agree it’s a nice way to create a feeling of exclusivity though
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Could one not receive 1 (one, singular) free coin? Somehow tie it to one’s IP or something so one couldn’t get multiple starter coins. Sort of a “SAFE network starter kit.” kind of thing. So you download the SAFE browser, it installs, it scan your IP, did you get the starter kit yes/no. If no, your IP is hashed, sent to a database and sends you a starter kit. Or something like that. Insert self authentication + hashed IP address and out pops 1 safecoin to start your account with. Network records this hash so if you try and make another account + the same IP they’ll say “uh oh, same guy, no starter kit for you.” Does any of that make sense?
It may help but I’m not sure how effective. It would make attacks harder but sophisticated attackers can access or spoof multiple IP addresses by various means. It would also be problematic for legit users many of whom share IP addresses.
Well find a unique ID besides an IP. I’m not saying it’s THE answer but something along those lines might work.
What if the marketing team has an extended email campaign (I know, I know, some will call it a spam campaign) and include ten safecoins to each recipient. The recipient could only use one, though, he/she would have to send the other 9 to 9 contacts. How would that be done? I don’t know, I’m not in the marketing business.
You guys are saying just find a way to prevent spam rather than offering solutions. I told you it was a very hard problem
What else would the new marketing team be working on?
Excellent work, but maybe not cost effective in beginning? Might work, though, after MAID has been publicized a little.