whether maidsafe will deliver on it’s promises
To properly answer this, I think some clarification on the promises needs to be made. Let’s take the goals as stated by safenetwork.org:
####decentralized data storage and communications network that provides a secure, efficient and low-cost infrastructure for everyone
They will deliver this no questions asked. Secure will be delivered because the crypto is already shown to be secure. Efficient will be delivered because there is no clear metric for this (cheeky!). Low cost I think will be delivered but I’m the least confident of because the incentive structure has not yet been finalized.
On the efficiency point - high efficiency is defined as lots of output for little input. The inputs for a user are ‘data’ and ‘cost per data unit’. The outputs for the user are ‘security’, ‘privacy’, ‘durability’, ‘availability’. The cost of data on the safe network is not known, so comparison can’t be made. But I’m confident the safe network will provide the most output for the least input compared to any other system. It was designed to do exactly that!
####Secure Access For Everyone
I consider the SAFE network ecosystem to be the most user-friendly in the p2p network arena by far. Torrenting included. Everyone will be able to use the SAFE network. I am completely confident of this promise being delivered.
This includes the maidsafe apps, documentation, community… the whole lot. It may change in the future, but for now, it’s at the top of the list for me.
####[reduce] data theft and surveillance [due to data centers and servers]
The redundant nature of the network, the way it handles churn, the way it does self-encryption and chunks; all these things mean the promise is already delivered. Surveillance will be improved, but I think a lot of people in this community overstate the improvement - I think tracking will still happen in some form (but to a much lesser degree than the current www).
####uses advanced peer-to-peer technology that joins together the spare computing capacity of all SAFE users, creating a global network
I’m not confident this goal will be delivered. I think the efficiency of data centers means most spare computing resources will be unfeasible for the network. Performance is an issue due to the decentralized nature, however I do think it will always be possible to join the safe network as a farmer and contribute resources (just not spare resources). In the short term I do believe spare resources will be useful to the network, but longer term, I doubt it. Many people on this forum disagree with me on this point!
the biggest risk I see is obviously the team not being able to solve the problems that it will take to create a working Safe Network
The team (from what I’ve experienced anyhow) is absolutely first class. It’s hard to really get a feel for this unless you look at the code repositories or technical documentation, but I am confident a) the problems are solvable and b) the team can navigate those problems.
The main reason I’m confident the problems can be solved is they mainly boil down to a few very specific communication and messaging problems. Bitcoin has shown you can measure and communicate value very specifically (in their case through proof-of-work) and reach a definite conclusion about which communications to utilise (ie the ones which represents the most cumulative value). So I feel the problems are largely solved and are now ‘mere implementation details’ (easy to say!).
The biggest risk I see is the performance being too low which may lead to users not being willing to prioritise security / privacy over performance. I think the market size of people who value security / privacy over performance is still large enough that the safe network will be a huge success. Sort of like how there are enough people who are looking for alternatives to the existing financial system to make bitcoin a huge success (even though it’s only a relatively small portion of the global population).
What if there is a roadblock in the future and a solution just can’t be found to get past it?
I guess some shifting of the goals will be required. That’s the only pragmatic thing I can imagine could be done. A non-global safe network is still very valuable for a lot of people, and that road is already completely cleared.
Is there a high chance we run into a roadblock that kills the project in the future?
No. There may be hiccups, but I don’t see there being any technical roadblocks that would kill the project. There will be political or social difficulties along the way, there may be some goalpost shifting, but I’m confident there won’t be technical roadblocks.
have you looked deeply enough into the code and done enough due diligence to be confident in this project succeeding?
Absolutely yes, I’ve done a fair bit of work with the code particularly in the name of due diligence and I have extremely high confidence in this project succeeding. The two main pieces of due diligence I’ve presented publicly are Profiling Vault Performance and The SAFE network explained using bitcoin terminology. There’s other unpresented work I’ve done behind the scenes, and my confidence in the SAFE network has continued to grow since I first looked into it.
For sure there are difficult challenges ahead, but I am completely confident they will be met.