Your strong attitude when there are so many greater issues leads me to be skeptical of your perspective.
Lastly the referral program like so many other aspects of the entire BTS ecosystem is a grand experiment. Don't be too hasty to presume it won't work without adequate data.
I would say you are right about that one. I could try to explain my attitude.
We are not talking here about peanuts but about basic revenue stream distribution. I think the OP has that in mind when open this thread.
This revenue stream is meant for covering basic expenses aka witness pay and further development aka workers. Excessive could be distributed as X% to share holders, referral rewards and etc..
Reserve fund here serves only as a buffer pool that could compensate for iliquidity during development and user acceptance faze but if not properly managed could become insolvent.
This is basically situation we currently have. Current model is unsustainable. We are spending more then we earn.
It is not critical at this point I would say, if we maintain current level of spending RF could last about 30 years. But the spending is increasing not decreasing. I could go one with further elaboration but this is going way out of this topic.
Now how could we talk about profit distribution, when we are basically working at a loss. I didn't involve in this discussion from the very beginning, but tried to contribute to already elaborated idea to decrease referral spending. Speaking about the devil I have questioned very essence of referral system which drains 80% of revenue stream from a new client. In such a huge cut that is given, there could be no value to support that.
No one seams to be able to explain that. I am afraid there is no deeper understanding behind that attitude neither. Only proclamations such as speed, flash, clash, turbo, xyz million etc.. Sorry but I cant buy that. I could further speculate on interests behind such approach but it goes way beyond scope of this discussion.
So I was against that idea back then in Max Wright days, and I am obviously now, but who cares anyway.
If properly managed this revenue stream could provide profit distribution model OP describes and provide way,way better marketing then current referral system does.