For me the 10/90 or 20/80 choice is a bit artificial and only hides the underlying problem.
And the underlying problem is this: if we reduce the transfer fees to something like 6 BTS, businesses like @kenCode or @merivercap get this:
- their customers are pleased because the default transfer fee becomes really low - so their mobile apps become more useful for small payments
- on the other hand the motivation to upgrade to LTM drops drastically for most of their customers - so their referral income is likely to drop
Therefore, if I put myself in kenCode's shoes, the switch from 20/80 to 10/90 split is less important than maintaining a healthy balance between the low transfer fee and the expected drop in LTM sales.
I guess it's a little consolation for kenCode to be on 10/90 split if there is a general drop in his referral income and this drop in LTM sales is much bigger than the benefits from the 10/90 split.
I'm not saying it's such a bad idea to rebrand LTM from a product for *frequent* users to a product for *advanced* users, and thus offer low transfer fees by default as a non-advanced feature.
But I think 6 BTS is too low, it should be more like 10 or 12 BTS to leave some space for LTM.
Paying 10 BTS per transfer is still very cheap but if I'm a frequent user I might still be tempted to lower it to 2 BTS by buying LTM.
Whereas if I pay 6 BTS by default, the temptation to reduce it further is almost non-existent.
I think the referral system is bringing confusion and false certainties.
First, I would like to underline that the referral system
is not the backbone of bts, it
is not the product of bts, it
is not a core or even a main feature of this platform.
A DEX without a referral program built-in,
still is a DEX.
A product that offers Bond Market, Prediction Market, payment system etc without a referral program
still is a product that offers BM, PM, payment etc.
A product that offers something usefull can bring and attract users.
On the other hand, referral system without any other product to sell,
is nothing at all, and "nothing at all" can not bring and attract users.
Well, it could probably be a ponzy scheme actually and so capture a lot of naive/gullible pleople... but no one here want that, right?
So, can we finally come to the conclusion that the referral system is just a "bonus feature"?
A bonus feature that private users and business's owners can utilize as an *
additional stream of revenue* and as an *
additional way to attract even more people*!
Everyone should be very grateful and thankful for this basic referral program.
Everyone should thanks the network for cutting his potential revenue by 80%. 80% is huge!
And still someone here want to see it even higher, at the expenses of the entire platform?!
IMO all this related discussion is absurd and ridiculous. And I would rather argue for a reduction of the referral cut to help and meet the needs of network profitability.
Businesses should
never found their success, win, and revenue
merely on referral system. It can be a plus for sure, but not the backbone.
It seems that finally even KenCode realized this! Finally he stated that he sees the POS rewards as the main income for their revenue!
AFAIK every purchase done with the mobile wallet will actually charge a little % fee. 50% of these revenues will be distributed to OPENPOS's owners.
They (as kencode and the team/business behind him) probably should:
1) invest to OPENPOS and
2) reserve for themselves another cut on the other 50% side.
This is the right way to build a business, not just hoping to survive by getting something out of a basic and already built-in referral program.
About the fees... I am not sure you guys realize how the fees can actually affect business.
Your example on how a lower transfer fee would/could negatively affect business is not true. I will try to explain what I mean.
IF the network charge an
high fee, the business will be forced to charge *at least* that fee to their users.
This could have as result
1) oodles disgruntled users that do not want to pay such an high fee
2) business blaming the need of such an high fee to the referral system that overcharges the network fee by an additional 80%
3) preventing business to be built in the first place (e.g business on micro-tx)
On the other side, IF the network charge a
very low fee:
1) no one prevents businesses to charge, on their side, an higher fee on top of the one that the network ask.
2) no one prevents businesses to create an additional and "private" referral system for their product, on top of the one given by bts platform.
High fees prevent and hamper diversity and business ability to choose what they think is best for them and their users.Low fees give a lot more freedom to business without stopping them to buid a more profitable referral program or charge higher fees to their users if they want to.An easy example about KenCode business:
Right now, for every transaction, he have to charge the users 30 BTS. Even If he would like to make it cheaper he would need to pay the difference and would actually lose money to satisfy customers.
Instead, IF the network charge only 1 BTS:
-he could charge an additional fee on top of that
-he would have the *freedom* to chose the total fee his users should pay
-he could temp and encourage users to upgrade to LTM thanks to that freedom.
e.g. -normal users pay an additional fee of 9 BTS -> 10 BTS for transaction.
-LTM users pay a lower additional fee of 4 BTS -> 5 BTS total
-users that upgraded to LTM *thanks to his wallet* pay no additional fee!
All of this could also work on top of % based fee (bsip#10) since all works from the business/application side that is built on top of bts platform
As you can see, low fees do not kill business or the possibility of referral programs.Low fees only enhance business's ability and freedom on how to build those things.Edit: I also fully agree on
@Xeldal posts