UPDATEWe are separating Wetube from Bitcloud, which is the protocol.
The economic model is here:
https://github.com/wetube/bitcloud/blob/master/economic-model.orgThe protocol is here:
https://github.com/wetube/bitcloud/blob/master/bitcloud.org#introductionOur forum is here:
http://talk.bitcloudproject.org/Programmers - the great initial winnersIn you have read something about economics of Bitcoins, DACs and the approach of Invictus Innovations, all of them are based in the concept of mining. This has some advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages of mining:
• You attract a lot of investors and other people interested in your idea. You only have to see the impressive success of Protoshares and how thousands of people got involved into it the first week.
• People worry about your project and encourage the adoption of it.
However, it has also serious disadvantages:
• Real workers are not motivated to do any programming, so you must centralize this task and put money of your own to overcome it in the form of bounties. This is ironic, as you pursue decentralization but you obtain the contrary: centralization of human resources, at great cost.
• Many criminals mine virtually for free, using botnets, a form of virus that steal computer power from infected computers of innocents. They obtain at least 1000 more shares this way than an individual. And solutions to end up this are not clear nor efficient.
It is my opinion that a DAC of this characteristics should not be driven by the greed of eventual hackers. It is also my opinion that the persons who do most of the efforts should be the initial shareholders of this company, just like it happens in the real world. Do you imagine Steve Jobs doing what he did knowing that he had only 0.0001% of the company he just created? No, he had a good share because he took the risks and has the ideas (it is irrelevant if after some years he sold them).
So I propose something that would not like very much to speculators, but certainly will motivate programmers and serious investors to do serious work here.
My proposition is to centralize the capital in a group of programmers EXACTLY ONLY for the INITIAL phase of the project until we have the first alpha released to the world. I mean: the initial shares of the company are equally distributed to the programmers, only in function of the amount of code/art/documentation they write manually. We can debate how amounts are measured. And, after the release of the software, the company becomes COMPLETELY, without exception, DECENTRALIZED. This is the equivalent of the actual way in which most companies start: first it comes the idea, then comes the partners who do the initial work, and then, if the company has succeed, it goes to the stock market.
This way, the programmers will obtain their part with justice, their work will be rapidly rewarded once the system if fully functional, in the form of dividends. And because they obtain a good part of it, this project should become very primordial in their minds. They should be very motivated to maintain the source code in the future because they have a proper share that they don't want to drop in value.
Compare this with a programmer who has been paid a simple bounty. S/he would have no further motivation to maintain it.
My proposition is to form a democratic virtual cooperative of programmers in which everybody who contributes can share her/his ideas, with the compromise to obtain their shares one day before the launch and then become investors. After that moment, WeTube DAC will be maintained by its workers (artists, moderators, clients and servers), but the programmers will still have the important role and motivation of maintaining the software itself.
Because I know that there are people who want to invest but don't have any skills to contribute, we can also create a ProtoMediaShares, similar to what Protoshares is, that could be converted to WeTube DAC's shares at the launch, at some proportion. We are open to this proposition if we still give programmers something like 3/4 of the total initial shares. But some shares could be given to miners-only with a moral condition: please promote WeTube!
Our intention to develop this initial political system is precisely to encourage the initial decentralization of human resources, which are the most valuable of them all, and without them we can only fail and give power to people who don't really want to get involved but just get rich without having to do nothing. Think about this question: would you give shares of your company to someone who steals money from someone else? He will steal from you when he find the proper moment, too.
After the initial share partition upon programmers (and probably some miners that act as promoters), people can invest in the usual ways for WeTube: by serving, by uploading content, by moderating, or just by buying shares in the Bitshares market.
How do we know when to do the partition for the programmers and become fully decentralized? Very simple: when we start to operate and receive the first clients, so we are forced to become a BitAsset and operate on Bitshares market. This comes exactly at the same time that the first alpha release happens, the same time at which the original block of our block-chain is released. From there on, WeTube DAC is fully decentralized an it is on its own.
And what part of the stock do we reserve for programmers and miners? I propose 10% for programmers and 2.5% for miners. The 87.5% left is reserved for workers to be earn slowly once the system starts running. 10% is really a lot if we consider that this DAC could become the next YouTube. Imagine you do about 10% of the programming, that would give you 1% of the total shares that WeTube will ever have, which would convert you in a millionaire in some years.
So please consider yourself all this matter. This is a serious business we have here, and a real opportunity.
UPDATE FROM HEREManagers / marketers / modelersA project of this size/repercussion, cannot go far without thinkers. Every single area of this DAC needs delicate analysis and modeling.
In the traditional structure of a company, you normally have departments and directors. Directors mandate a way of working and ensure that everybody is working in the correct direction. This imposes a hierarchy. And we don't want that. We want freedom, voluntarism, and a way to compensate everybody only in function of their work. We would like this DAC to be flat and auto managed.
But, let me be very clear on this: while we want full freedom, we also need proper analysis and direction. So, how to achieve both?
I have this idea, that I hope everybody can agree with. I call it distributed management, where everybody can become a manager, and where real experts can obtain their proper retribution with their thinking. They will not receive more or less money than programmers, instead they will work together to model the necessary political details. Many times, but not all the times, one will be both a manager and a programmer, which is fantastic!
Every manager has the important task to model the details of the protocols and characteristics of the system. Some examples of different areas that require management:
• p2p protocol modelers, to ensure privacy and performance. This is the core of WeTube, and the most important task.
• Marketing, or how to encourage adoption of the system, while maintaining the delicate balance between profit and user enthusiasm. This department is mainly about the business model.
• Economists and currency experts in charge of MediaCoin, working together with marketing guys.
• Legal advisers. Their analysis are vital to avoid legal issues.
• Social thinkers, whose task is to think about the interface behavior and net-inter-relations between users and/or moderators.
• Programmer's coordinators. Very important to ensure communication and the application of ideas.
• Spokesmen, doing conferences/videos to promote the system.
• Moderators, to avoid abuses (for example, someone tries to write very redundantly or write code in an unnatural way to augment the number of lines).
• And general coordination, in charge of the original idea, trying to put everything together. I will assume this task, but will obtain the shares in the same proportion and conditions as the rest.
Every area may require several managers/thinkers.
So I propose that managers can get their shares in the system by writing papers, and their retribution will be in proportion on how much they need to write. Every manager should write one or more papers with a detailed analysis of the needs, and a suggested model to achieve the objectives. Then, this paper is passed to programmers and they implement the ideas. At the same time, a programmer can work with the manager to propose changes, or the programmer him/herself can become a manager if that area is empty or the actual manager is not competent/open minded enough. In case of severe conflict, a meeting will take place with the rest of the team, and we'll decide together by consensus.
Shares will be paid in the moment of the launch, so rejected writings of previous modifications will not count. I suggest that everybody will obtain their shares in proportion to the number of lines s/he wrote, the same that happens with programmers. In case of graphics/drawings, we could agree that they cost something like 20 lines each. More if they are logos.
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