A single level referral system would also reward those doing the work, without screaming "scam" to everyone.  Or alienating half of the current Bitshares community.

 

Just to note, I've seen no arguement about the amount of reward that a referral attracts.. just the natural reaction to MLM. Fair reward for fair work. Rewards for referrals are very attractive.. MLM is not. I get where the OP et al are coming from, forcing change and progress but let's do it right and remember that BitShares is the product to be valued, not the marketing method.

Also anyone using the term Ponzi to describe the OP does not really seem to understand ponzi schemes IMO, and maybe they just don't see how MLM works with value-creating products

I think you're missing the reality of why people do not like marketing of whatever flavour that is:[MLM/ponzi/pyramid/scams/etc]. Only marketeers like MLM because it's a lazy way to a quick profit. Such an approach considers the product as fodder.. single level marketing reward makes more sense here where the product is its own reward. MLM I suspect also fails because people resent earning money for chumps further up the chain. Flat reward is perceived as 100% of the reward to the one who earned it.


I'd suggest that we keep this simple.

There is nothing wrong with a referral fee as reward but that should be a straightforward and time limited - the big long term reward follows from real growth in the value of BitShares. So you could approach it from that direction too.. reward those who do best after the fact.

X% of fees for a year, seems to me really generous as a long standing commitment and if the delegates are widely happy with that, I'd support it.. getting those involve who can create excitement is worth the cost, if it sees a big uptick in userbase.

If X% of fees is not considered enough in the first year, then you could enhance that with a reward based on a league table.. pay to top 10 promoters and celebrate their success each month. There could be a pool account for that or a delegate.. your chance to grab a fraction of a 100% delegate would motivate more than 10 people.

Certainly such an approach as OP, makes more sense than gifting 100% delegates to those who don't deliver. Not having any referral fee, makes no sense.. the more generous that is the more seductive the idea of promoting BitShares.

 

It's a good idea but elements of it could be mistaken as being close to pyramid/ponzi, where the promoter is considered to suck value from the fresh blood. New users might resent being bound for 20 years? If the fee was not within the usual transaction fee, they might feel they were being scammed and just create a new wallet to bypass the overhead?

I would be tempted to limit it to something significant to the promoter and trivia to the new user - 20% of the fees for a year.. or better the cost should come out of what the transaction fee would be anyway; so the delegates lose out and pay the promoter; that lower payment would encourage promoters to find really valuable new accounts.

So, the cost of this should come from what delegates are willing to pay promoters - and not from the new users. 20 years loss in fees seems like a lot.. I guess the advantage is it binds those people in but the period could be shorter for that too. My instinct is to avoid complexity and long term binding commitments that you might regret later for reasons that might include that the balance of those payments are considered off target relative to their real value.

It's certainly a good idea to push marketing's focus towards real actual change in the userbase and avoid the payments through dilution. The only worry might be that real useful PR and marketing that cannot claim the benefits might miss out but if those involved are rewards in other ways, perhaps they won't mind?

So, that is: pay from the transaction fee and not any overhead on new users; avoid the pyramid sharing of those fees for several generations or tiers; and pay a short term burst of real reward, rather than a long term commitment. 

Is DevShares still expected to be useful?.. I wonder it's something that is expected to be useful rather than something that is being useful. I don't mind but if it's not worthwhile that would be useful to know for those us running DVS without any real income from a BTS delegate to compensate.

Perhaps off topic but the Preview of Recent Posts disappeared from the forum in January and there's not been a clear reply who actioned that or why. I don't know if that's part of PR making communication harder but would be great to have it back as it's time consuming seeing what is current in subforums beyond /general.

While many people expect overnight success and get frustrated, I tend to prefer the inverse approach and plan for worst case and enjoy the difference. Given the PR approach now, it would be great to have a roadmap and milestones set out in the way that MaidSafe do eg http://maidsafe.net/roadmap#/testnet2 and to see BitShares learn from their experience and the way they can communicate a clear vision (see https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=15217.0 ). In the event that BitShares takes another couple of years to take off, it will be important to have solid steps documented and visible in order to maintain support. Little bits of positive news over a long period have a big effect and such a roadmap might be a quick win. My sense is that it'll take another year for the likes of uk.gov to unblock complications like banks frustrating blockchian technology and for businesses then to feel confident to invest in a big way. That said challenging whoever is now in charge of PR to raise the public profile of BitShares, might be important.. excuses that the product is not 1.0 and perfect are not really good enough where other projects that are less developed are catching people's imagination widely. We cannot rely on the marketcap alone to catch new users.. what is being done to get new users on board??

If no time on the hangout, perhaps a run of FAQs can be answered directly in the forum?.. rubber stamped and endorsed of course by the real power that is PR!?

Bump!

404 options for different cointypes and BitShares not there.. I don't know if it's harder to integrate but perhaps should be an option?

Votes appear to cost 0.0004 BTC which given they are asking for 35000 for guarantee looks a bit rich. The background to them isn't overwhelming but perhaps worth a shot??
https://gourl.io/coin-voting.html

 

I'm playing devil's advocate again.. 

I do not know who is doing the marketing and PR now; it seems opaque but I wonder there is a lot of money thrown to marketing delegates and we should expect equivalent quality output to what we see from the devs.


A couple of points as I see them today..

The 25 most exciting bitcoin startups
23. Coinapult: Pegging bitcoin to commodity prices
and where is BitShares?

Then a simple test. The profile of BitShares on Google news looks really weak.. https://www.google.com/search?q=bitshares&tbm=nws 

For all the efforts to chatter among ourselves and the usual cryptocurrency crowd, perhaps we should be reaching out in the way that those other 25 startups are doing. Surely more could be done than our relying on marketcap being a curiousity for those looking for opportunity?

With the damage done to the marketcap recently, I am frustrated to not see marketing to compensate. Regular press releases might help?..

Lots of useful discussion in this thread, thank you David P. and Globally Distributed. Could it be that in order to find the early adopters BitShares needs right now, we need to appeal to the why? I think we need to target early adopters before we target the main stream at this point in time. We want the idealists, the entrepreneurs, promoters, and the makers to join in on the action.

Maybe you are right that most people do not care why, but is that also true of most early adopters?

There is a case to be made that BitShares ambition appears too complex. Making clear the devs focus can help with that. Making it clear what support they are lacking might also help attract the right developers.

As I see it, the benefits of blockchain technology follow from what are five distinct classes of usage:
Class 1: Money
Class 2: Money transport
Class 3: Tokens with value pegged to match other assets
Class 4: Tokens that are explicitly linked to real world assets
Class 5: Zero value applications, such as private key signing

The 'Why' of BitShares should be obvious following from the opportunity that Class 3 offers for markets and financial toolkits. It's the 'how' and 'what' of BitShares that will attract new devs and early adopters. If they do not understand the why that follows from Blockchain technology, then what use will they be?

I wonder you also need to consider who you want to attract.. are you wanting individuals or institutions engaged?.. Financial institutions will be starting to look more seriously at what options are available now that the BoE and UK.gov are getting involved. You will not attract the big fish by underestimating their ability to already see the bleeding obvious.. the why is there for everyone to understand.. it is what makes BitShares unique that needs selling.