PtP, PtD, and/or Pt* Megathread - Pros and Cons

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The topic of network rewards for more than just the provision of storage space has been discussed many times on the forum. This thread is to debate the merits of various reward mechanisms to spur network growth or any unintended consequences that might arise from their implementation. This thread questions if it should be done, not how it would be done. For now, just presume that any chunk that is PUT or GET to/from the network could potentially lead to a reward for a network user such as a farmer (PtF), an app developer (PtD), a content provider (PtP) or some other network promoter (Pt*). Obviously, PtF is a resounding yes, it’s the other types of rewards we are concerned with. For example, what about “pay the client” (PtC)?

See https://forum.autonomi.community/t/pay-the-developer-ptd-reward-amount-discussion for addition talk on this subject.

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Brain dumping:

  1. Money is a second order concern.

  2. Utility is first order.

  3. If it works, then it rewards.

Money is a measure of utility then and as a motivator is corrupting because in inverts that natural balance… preferring a certain interest over another. The question of who gets paid, how much for what, is a stressor… and liable to manipulation unless done in a non binding way that is just a second order to encouraging other activity. Limited pools of money can be thrown at what the owners consider is important.

Point being that as second order there is a feedback that keeps money in check. The analogy to what is broke with Western economics is strong, for the same… and the cascade from finance then to economics, politics, and society evidences the same… that feedback matters.

The question perhaps missing what gets paid and why.

Storing the data and having it available, is a service and as such should be rewarded.
Anything bound to the simple making use of utility, surely should be driven by the utility… people pay what it is worth… and don’t use it because they are being paid to!.. PtC is odd then.

Paying the content provider - PtP, if you must acronym, makes little sense for the same. Content providers are motivated wanting to get their message out. That is an important feedback for the network being effective utility and should not be paid.

What’s lacking from PtP description perhaps is what are services… so, pay the services provider is again something that finds a natural balance… provide a mechanism and users will pay what they consider the services is worth.

Then there are pay the developer PtD and promoters Pt* , which is I wonder an out of network action of gifting or rewards relative to perception and not a direct feedback loop.

If the opinion is strong and those bidding are persuasive, then indulge that where its affordable, relative to the anticipated effect - prefer force multipliers and fund in a limited way… not big splurge of money to individuals, might help limit the greed motivator… the more money the more chatter without delivery. If people want big money, they can appeal to the crowd with an ICO.

So, two classes:

  • One with a natural feedback loop, relative to utility.

  • One out of network gifting relative to perception, at risk of opinion and greed.

If you have to pay people to use it something is wrong!

So, the more contentious PtD and Pt*…

PtD is hard speculative and I wonder for the most part developers will be motivated by the prospect of a network that can support their interest and invest time and energy because they are setting up a service as application OR they may see option for a tool, that is basic and useful to all. That we maybe keen to see everything now, doesn’t suggest that it will not happen in time… and app development is done best by those not motivated by money?

Pt* is easier to wonder that promotion is relative to timing; so, a small amount goes a long way, when you have a product. Again, there’s a small company called Tesla, that it was suggested had no marketing budget. Still, when the time is ripe, low hanging fruit and other message amplifiers are worthwhile… whatever gets the message out to everyone.

Also, there’s a risk of timing. Those who do not have out interests at heart would love holders of coin to sell and suck out what value is there… that’s part of the corrupt that is taxing crypto and stifling innovation. So, consider where from the funding comes, if it’s MAID, then the time is wrong for that and only later when the market reflects a product and the inflow of interest to counterbalance spend out into P.activity.

Too long but you did title as a mega thread.

tldr; timing’s off and little need atm :thinking:

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Just gonna nitpick and disagree with this first point. Honest money is a system of accounting - it insures that people are trading fairly. We don’t have this with State-controlled central banks that can counterfeit, but it is the ideal situation. Barter is hell as you can’t manage the thousands (millions? billions?) of trades required to have a highly specialized and hence advanced economy … so we need money if we want technology. We need honest money if we want that economy to be sustainable.

So IMO, utility is the second order and honest, sound money is first order … otherwise we live in caves and trade furs for wheat.

As for PtD and PtP … opening question for me is whether or not these are even on the table now with the DBC work. DBC’s mean the network is probably not going to hold tokens anymore - they are likely going to be distributed in advance to existing holders of MAID. That’s my take away - as otherwise there is a huge attack vector there.

If this is the case and we are still giving Access For Everyone - the AFE of SAFE … then where do the funds come from for PTP and PTD?

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The reason I support at least trialling both PtP and PtD are:

  • they offer a no-brainer way for the creator/publisher to obtain rewards. Literally just having a checkbox, and that is it. This makes it available to everyone regardless of skill level or available time to set-up etc. (the ‘E’ in Safe).

  • they provide a trivially simple alternative to gatekeepers and all the alternative revenue generators that might be created by others. So freedom from intermediaries without putting in any extra work.

  • they provide small rewards, not likely to make many people a living, but at least a minimum level which any alternative gatekeeper scheme will have to compete with making it harder for reward based services to exploit their users.

  • they provide alternatives to other low revenue income schemes such as advertising. (Especially advertising which is by it’s nature exploitative of the target because it is designed to reduce autonomy and manipulate behaviour in ways that are often detrimental or harmful.)

  • they leave open all the other possible ways that Safe Network can be used to generate revenue (subscriptions, micropayments, donation etc.)

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I think you took that meaning to be too literal. The ‘*’ in Pt* is just a placeholder for any other reward mechanism to increase/promote network growth. For example, PtC for ‘Pay the Client’. In your example above you might be talking about PtM for ‘Pay the Marketer’? If anyone has an idea for an interesting reward mechanism not mentioned before, then tell.

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for future: There is an odd trend atm of buying social influencers… apparently captive audience sat in front of computer… get them to do something productive, rather than just play games… or get them to play games on this new wonder that is SN…

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Linking this great post by @neo here…

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Placing this list here for brainstorming. Anyone who has any other ideas should list them and I will edit as needed.

Below is a list of possible network reward mechanisms and their commonly used acronym on the forum. Rewards are presumed to be “chunk based” meaning that a reward could be triggered on the PUT or GET of a chunk

  1. Pay the Farmer/Operator (PtF/PtO) - A reward for node operators who successfully manage and provide resources to the network in the form of storage, memory, computation, and bandwidth. Increases storage/memory/computation/bandwidth resource supply.

  2. Pay the Team (PtT) - A reward to support the core network development team for past, present, and future work to yield new features and functionality in the Safe Network API and core protocols. Increases network efficiency, security, privacy, freedom and other capabilities to yield increased PUT and GET demand.

  3. Pay the Developer (PtD) - A reward for those who have developed software apps/services that are network resident or interact with the network api to store, retrieve, and process data . Increases PUT and GET demand.

  4. Pay the content Provider (PtP) - A reward for those who have uploaded (PUT) public immutable data content on the network. Increases PUT demand.

  5. Pay the Client (PtC) - A reward for clients to browse the network, analogous in some way to the Brave BAT or a crypto “faucet”. Note: this would be a small reward relative to all others that would allow clients to earn a small amount while browsing the network. This would be minimal and enough to pay for a new account signup and have the basic capability to send mail/text messages or comment on a blog/forum. Ideally the fiat cost in bandwidth would be more than what could be accumulated to stop scammers/bots. An alternative might be that clients can opt to run a minimal service for the network that is not as intensive as a full node and earn lesser rewards for doing so. Increases GET demand.

  6. Pay the Supporter (PtS) - A mechanism to support activities that promote the network growth in the real world, on the clear web, or on the safe network itself. Consider it like the network paying to advertise or market itself in a distributed grassroots manner. @Dimitars boots on the ground poster campaign and proof of work metrics might be an interesting model to look at here. Better methods? Increases resource supply in addition to PUT and GET demand.

  7. Pay the Hacker (PtH) - a reward for anyone that identifies a network vulnerability. They do not necessarily need to offer a solution. A good analogy for this is a CVE bulletin where people get rewarded for verified exploits. Increases PUT demand.

  8. Pay the Analyst (PtA) - a reward for nodes that offer computation, data processing, simulation, visualization, and data analysis services. Increases demand for resourses, PUT demand, and GET demand.

What else?

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AFAIK there’s a separate application for core, it’s not part of PtD.

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As @happybeing said the core developer rewards are a separate reward. There was 5% of farming rate on each get (not removed from farming rewards) in the initial plan. And 10% of the farming rate was for gets associated with applications for PtD

Now that the mechanism for triggering a farming reward has moved from each GET to a type of averaging then the mechanism for paying the core developers will likely change to the averaging system and the total amount divided between the different rewards.

If the averaging system is finally used and there is no 85% pool at the start then the more rewards paid for PtD/PtP/core devs will reduce the farming rewards. In the long run this will make little difference to what the farmer actually receives. More a perception that the devs are taking some of my farming rewards. LOL

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Edits made to reward list:

-I’ve edited the list to include “Pay the Team” rewards.

-I also changed “Pay the Promoter” to “Pay the Supporter” (PtS).

-“Pay the Analyst” (PtA) was added to describe computation services, and PtF was generalized to include more than just storage resources.

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I prefer “reward (or Pay) the core developer” as there is unlikely to be a team as such, but rather contributors and it is clear as to who it is for.

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Are we on to four letter acronyms then? PtCD? Confusing.

On the forum we often hear “Great work team!” or “Nice job Team Maidsafe” to refer to core development. Its already a team of core developers and contributors.

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GOMT +chars for FLA

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What do you guys think of this concept?

Pay the Manufacturer (PtM) : Manufacturers and hardware developers that offer audited or open source node hardware that is tailored for exclusive use on the safe network, or customized in some other way to improve network operations and support network principles could qualify for this reward.

Think of it like an analogous reward to PtD for hardware development. Maybe it could just be lumped in as part of PtD?

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That’s a new angle. The internet supporting open source and secure hardware? Seems like a lofty feet but what a cool idea!

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I think there is a point where we need to ask if it is a direct benefit to adoption and usability of the network. I still hold to the original concept that the network directly rewarding things that have that direct benefit. Farmers, App Devs, desirable content uploaders (creators/provider/uploader), & core devs obviously show a direct benefit.

But since the network is supposed to be hardware agnostic, apart from being able to run the node and/or client, then not only is PtM not a direct benefit but actually goes against the network being hardware agnostic. Have to check but wasn’t that one of the goals of the network to be hardware agnostic so people could access their account from *any* computer.

Now to create an APP or site for people rewarding open source hardware is a good idea, especially if it can be made easy, fun and people see benefits to it.

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I hope that PtD is set in stone as it was one of the biggest factors in convincing me to dedicate such resources to building on SN.

Being able to subvert ad based models, pay walls, subscriptions and lower barriers to monetization of any application so that users can get premium experiences, without becoming the product feels essential to this revolution.

PtP would be great but was never promised or officially part of the plan so no hurt feelings there but PtD is essential to me.

Also makes me wonder where the total SN Token supply mint lands. That was an interesting discussion and since then quite a bit has changed for the better but I wonder if the total supply is minted at genesis and held across sections, or if supply was to be proportionally split amongst all investors/network funding (farmers, developers, etc), or if there are more options.

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Realistically, could you have both in SAFE, PtD and PtP? Would we be paying too many then, given the commitment to paying farmers (and, maybe, others)?

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I’d have @neo answer that. He has explained it best in the past.