Guys, let's be smart about this.
Transfer feesHigh transfer fees will not help profitability very much, but WILL hurt perception, may create a barrier to use (especially in some parts of the world), and will hurt the business models of some who are currently building on top of the Bitshares platform (as some known business builders here have attested). So let's make sure to set transfer rates to very reasonable levels.
Trading feesOn the other hand, trading fees can make up a substantial portion of profitable fees, and at the same time it's unlikely that lowering them will substantially increase trading. However, the order cancellation fee will cause major perception problems and it should be lowered to spam prevention levels for ALL users.
Trading fees / LiquidityAlso, perhaps our biggest problem right now is liquidity. We need to incentivize liquidity providers, therefore I think we should consider using a maker/taker model where makers get a
substantial discount on fees, especially if they do high volume.
Liquidity / fragmented marketsBut more importantly, we need to solve the problem of fragmented markets negating the pooled liquidity effect. I realize there are reasons why each participating exchange has their own tokens. But from the user's perspective, this multiple token system causes nothing but confusion in addition to the inferior trading experience due to the fragmented liquidity. If this does not get fixed, we all lose including the OpenLedger participant exchanges. Fortunately, I'm pretty sure they can put their heads together and find a way to use unified tokens that satisfies all parties. We need to push for this. CCEDK, MetaExchange, BlockTradesUS, BunkerDEX, have any of you discussed this?
GUI Issues (favorite markets management)Also, although the trading GUI has been improving, it still needs work. Right now the management of favorite markets is a huge mess. I'm pretty sure this can be improved dramatically without much dev time at all, someone just needs to specify what it should look like. This issue may seem trivial, but we MUST make it so people can focus on the markets they are interested in, easily switch between them, and hide the rest. Otherwise there's just too much noise and clutter, and people feel lost. Perhaps by default only the most liquid markets should be visible. Then people can customize as they see fit.
GUI Issues (privacy features)Finally, I think not having the privacy features is a big barrier right now. We need that in the GUI ASAP. Does anyone have an ETA for that? Actually, we need a more comprehensive roadmap. Not necessarily precise timelines for everything. But at least a list of all planned features and their current order of priority. Perhaps estimated time to completion for the highest priority items. And we should know what is currently already in the works.
@bytemaster - can you provide this information ASAP?