Best Selling Option

[Empirical1.2]

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.

[emailtooaj]

I'm reminded of something Vitalik Buterin once said: "network effect follows developers". It's something that really stuck with me because it's so true. When you look at all the major platforms out there like iOS, Windows, Wordpress, etc, etc, you realize they're popular because it was easy for entrepreneurs and hobbyists to build stuff on top of them. I think the core team of developers should focus on making bitshares/graphene a platform that's easy to build on.  End of the day, chains that have lots of 3rd party development (and thus utility), will win.

 

BitShares- The Financial OS

[topcandle]

I'm reminded of something Vitalik Buterin once said: "network effect follows developers". It's something that really stuck with me because it's so true.

This is completely true and be foremost for the most sucessful crypto.  BM claims in a mumble session that Bitshares is going to be easy to develop on, or at least they are thinking about this everyday and are working towards this goal.

[Method-X]

I'm reminded of something Vitalik Buterin once said: "network effect follows developers". It's something that really stuck with me because it's so true. When you look at all the major platforms out there like iOS, Windows, Wordpress, etc, etc, you realize they're popular because it was easy for entrepreneurs and hobbyists to build stuff on top of them. I think the core team of developers should focus on making bitshares/graphene a platform that's easy to build on.  End of the day, chains that have lots of 3rd party development (and thus utility), will win.

[MJK]

Businesses are the key and i thought our focus already ?!

[38PTSWarrior]

If the security is as good with 17 as with 100 then we just have to explain this to the buyer and that's it.

[tbone]

@bytemaster:

I have confidence in your assessment a) of what it takes to secure the network and b) that there are points of diminishing returns (or worse) when it comes to bringing on additional witnesses that don't meet a minimum standard.  So for me that just leaves the very important issue of perception.  Having said that, how foolhardy would it be to diminish security in order to maintain the perception of greater security?  So the question is, how do we satisfy a) those in this community who are better informed about the actual security needs of the Bitshares network AND b) crypto fans not in this community who might perceive a lack of security if we have less than 101 witnesses (or our detractors who would use the issue against us)? 

I may have an idea.  You mentioned today on another thread that full (non witness) nodes do play a role in securing the network, albeit not the primary role of producing blocks.  With that in mind, I think having the right number of full nodes (hopefully at least 101 minus the number of witnesses), geographically dispersed and displayed on the network stats map along with the witnesses, could help with the perception issue and give us the cover we need to have the right number of witnesses (the "right number" meaning as many qualified witnesses as possible, with starting pay being not much more than enough to cover costs ~100-ish? but with prospects of much greater pay as BTS appreciates).  Obviously it would still be ideal if we could maximize the number, and hopefully something closer to 31 would be feasible when you consider it's not that much more than 17, and that the software upgrades with 2.0 should lower the barrier to entry for some folks who are qualified but haven't had the patience to deal with the current software. 

Finally, I think if we could also add SMS-based 2FA from the start (which is extremely user friendly and also easy to implement), we would be in VERY good shape from day 1 in terms of actual security, the perception of security, not to mention user-friendliness. 

Thoughts?

[Ander]

We need to sell to businesses imo.
Getting a business on board brings many customers.

[monsterer]

If you're not targeting the altcoin market and want to break out into the real world - how will you convince banks and the establishment in general to put their trust and financing behind a system in which 8 'adversaries' working together can bring the entire thing to a grinding halt?

edit: and in the worst case at 0 cost

[emailtooaj]

But perhaps a bigger issue we face is WHO are we selling to.   Altcoin fanatics or the general public.   

My opinion, they're one in the same.  At one point we were all considered the general public before becoming an Alt-fan.
WHY we became Alt-fans is the subject that should be reviewed for marketing purposes and/or FORM design. 

BM, I'd be curious to know what FORM means in your mind and what you'd suggest to the public? (plus this may keep this thread from being derailed) 

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?*


It's a tried and true cliche, but First Impressions Are Everything!
BTS has a second shot for this, so let's take advantage of it while it's hot!  No need for gimmicks or "special" functions to market.

If we need to market anything in specific that BTS offers,
1) Regional Specific and Stable Digital Currencies
2) Decentralized Marketplace/Exchange
3) 1-3 Second Transfer Times

[Ander]

When I read the title I thought bytemaster was asking us where to sell his bitshares.

[MJK]

I agree, 21 seems like a good number to me. I just dont agree with being wasteful at this critical time.
It needs to just work, be intuitive and user friendly.

[fav]

I don't think it's a big marketing issue. average user does not care about this technical stuff, and non-crypto users don't care at all as long as it works.

[donkeypong]

If the product works well, is easy to use, solves problems that people face (or does something they need better than the alternatives), and the barriers to entry are easily overcome (on/off-ramps), then it will sell. We just don't want it to seem overly centralized because that is our edge over Ripple. But I agree most of the money in the system should be left for more important things rather than paying a bunch of unneeded extra witnesses. I think 21 would be a good number. See what others think.

[bytemaster]

The only relevant question imo is whether the 'best-selling' option, significantly adds to costs or security concerns.

BitShares is attempting to sell itself in the market and the "Customer is Always Right" so all technical concerns aside we have to market it well.

I think I have made a entirely defendable case that we do not need a large number of "witnesses" for the network to be secure... just like large speakers are not required to produce good sound.   For a very long time people would buy the larger speakers even if they were technically inferior and more expensive.

So rationality is not the most important thing when figuring out how to build something that will sell.

This means we have two options:

1. Figure out how to sell the best technical approach
2. Adopt an inferior technical approach as a marketing gimmick. 

So in the spirit of marketing gimmicks we need to identify the fallacy that others BELIEVE is good, and get them to accept BTS as equally good.

People LOVE the idea of having 10000 potential block producers with no barrier to entry.  But what this really means is that people love having the ILLUSION of direct control.

But perhaps a bigger issue we face is WHO are we selling to.   Altcoin fanatics or the general public.   

If the requirement is to build a FUNCTIONAL system then we have that and have already optimized all of the security conserns. 
If the requirement is FORM over FUNCTION for sales reasons then we should debate what FORM sells the best independent of any security concern.   

Perhaps all we need to do is add a nice FORM over our best FUNCTION in order to sell the best.