The easiest thing to sell is simply a product that just works! A product with a simple, easy to use interface and rock solid performance! This alone will sell the product and create buzz. *Now I think of it, would it be a good idea to have a "customer testimonial' page with 5 star user rating?*
For those of you that really believe that there is a big mythical market of people that don't care how it works but that it works. Why don't we just run BitShares 3.0 from one computer in a safe haven jurisdiction with a great website and a couple of customer testimonials?
Chances are we won't be shut down for years and can surely become pretty big because the main market doesn't care how it works right?
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If you look at Bitcoin demographics
Yes there are some people that don't care how it works but that it works but I believe most users have some concept that Bitcoin is decentralised by thousands of computers worldwide mining for Bitcoin & processing transactions.
Then there is a smaller group of people who know Bitcoin centralizes into pools but believe hashers will switch if needed/incentives are there/6 years proven model. While there are only very few who understand the Bitcoin security model is very weak.
With 17 witnesses you would be creating the reverse, only the small group at the very centre would believe it's secure & adequately decentralised. We know some in this community and definitely the alt-coin market would believe it's not sufficiently decentralised for a variety of reasons. (While I believe the referral programme and partnerships are strong but I don't think BTS is going to expand so rapidly in the next 6 months that you can ignore the alt-coin market.)
I also believe while the mainstream market can be convinced to put their money in a widely decentralised system, they would view one processed by 17 people as too centralised too.
"Instead of using a centralized trading exchange, that offers great customer service, is insured by Lloyds of London and fully regulated, you can instead use BitShares which has none of those benefits and is run by 10 guys in the US, 5 in Europe and 2 in China."
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So though I understand we only have so many qualified witnesses, can only afford so many, voters can't vet too many, and at a certain level it decreases performance and even impacts security. I'm definitely in favour of pushing it to the highest reasonable threshold.
Geographical diversity is also a powerful marketing tool for decentralisation if our witness number is limited.
If you can say BitShares is processed from 20-30 countries, including many that hate each other. Then you can sell a decentralised global company and exchange that is resistant to interference or attack despite technically having a small amount of witnesses.