A comment to hopefully help put the Maidsafe restructure in context …To call the challenge in design, develop, funding & build initially by a single entity of what is essentially a global public utility network which cannot be owned as extraordinary is an understatement to say the least!!
IMHO the difficult (from a human capital perspective) restructure is
i. an inevitable reflection of this challenge and the fundamental need to focus on the product delivery of a working network to protect contributions so far and create true (future) value
ii. the probably inevitable
a. transition of Maidsafe to a member of an (Im)possible network “organisation” with other complimentary partners/services and a common vision as you previously described “to rebuild a new network of interlinked communities of trust” enabled by the safenetwork utility capability. The network organisation objective being to minimise duplication of resources and maximise/optimise effectiveness and efficiency/benefits for all members (care capacity demand management).
b. Safenetwork community evolution as “Community of Practice” (COP) to harness/formalise the collective energy/capability as evidenced by the proposal for the community takeover of Maidsafe social channels
This begs a number questions … Who has a mutual interest to participate in such an (Im)possible network organisation & COP mission? What would Maidsafe Ltd and the Maidsafe Foundations role be in this? Where to from here?..
These questions get to the heart of the underlying dynamic which probably made the recent changes inevitable. Maidsafe has essentially been carrying the associated business burden/costs of an traditional entity which is building and taking a proprietal product to market … which Maidsafe is clearly not doing!!
As an aside I agree with your comment marketing needs to be “product” not crypto focused as (sustainable not speculative/connected to real world serves) “price” naturally will follow a successful product path which improves the human condition and our individual role as planetary stewards not destroyers. This to me reflects hopefully our and other aligned communities real commons/sense vision, objective and shared values, combined with a non extractive exchange capability which reflects this value to support our interaction.
Put frankly Maidsafe has carried burden enough…and the “value is in the Community!”. It’s worth saying that again **…… “the value is in the Community”… what else could it be?
: A recent Outlier venture “Communities as moats” piece described it as follows…
“A decentralised protocol’s moat in terms of community is what’s left behind when you take away its founding team and its marketing spend. Bitcoin, for instance, has worked perfectly well long after Satoshi and the number of initial developers stopped proactively contributing to it. The ability of a project to sustain without the kind of hierarchies that sustain corporations are what could make it recession-proof. That can happen only if individuals find their “tribe” in a community. …. Similarly, founders that build a strong community stand to be better than their peers due to the proactive feedback they receive from their community early on in their product iterations.”
With Maidsafe as part of a complimentary project group and community of practice, what would be its best role to support the commons community and reward its initiative/effort? As described in 2017 Maidsafe Business Overview a key Maidsafe objective is to focus on develop of application (and transition away from day to day responsibility of the network) …… a role it is ideally suited for/to. So as Maidsafe delivers the network and progressively hands over network governance and other operational functions to a commons/community of practice project group this will enable Maidsafe Ltd to focus its business model as a highly specialised product development entity with a unique expertise and heritage! That is … working with various groups, entities, individuals to enhance “access” to the network organisation and create interlinked Communities of practices/trust. A Maidsafe Foundation discussion with other network organisation Access Foundations re roles/interrelationship will also become essential. The last “Where to from here?” question… needs many other conversations…