On Tx Fees and Business Viability.

[kuro112]

Keep in mind that it only costs 30k BTS to send to 5,000 users if you're a lifetime member.

It would be nice to have a batch send operation tho.. e.g. it could have a base cost of 100 BTS plus 2 BTS per recipient. To send to 5k users would then cost just over 10k BTS.. very reasonable IMO.

exactly 

[roadscape]

Keep in mind that it only costs 30k BTS to send to 5,000 users if you're a lifetime member.

It would be nice to have a batch send operation tho.. e.g. it could have a base cost of 100 BTS plus 2 BTS per recipient. To send to 5k users would then cost just over 10k BTS.. very reasonable IMO.

[Xypher]

For any business to be sustainable, it needs to focus on two main things

1. Customer acquisition
2. Profitability.

Bytemaster has truly pioneered a wonderful system with the tx fee backed project funding system that we have going on here. However, from my understanding this is repeatedly shooting ourselves in the foot. There are a number of reasons for my belief.

1. The high BTS fee involved in transactions limits platforms from truly working in the field of Micro-tx's. Just today we had an individual wanting to send out small amount of BTS  to 5000 people and they couldn't do so because it'd cost 150k BTS, just in fees. The same applies to our marketing campaigns - we are spending cash on each wallet opened and from there, our users will still pay a high amount to tx BTS. Due to this, we've had to stick to UIA's.

2. User cases are actually very little for Bitshares in its current form. Given the high fees, there is virtually noone using the system for transactions beyond exchanges, which is a dangerous place to put ourselves in. I understand the system is turning profitable, but when there are so many problems to solve, it becomes imminent that the number of transactions done each day increase rampantly.

It is my honest opinion that going forward we will need to emphasis on finding the fine balance between tx fee and the number of transactions . In terms of technology the product may or may not be great but when you look at it in terms of economics, it makes no sense whatsoever to me personally.  If the tx fee is lowered, the number of tx's might increase rampantly and thereby help us fund more projects. Think about Amazon for instance.
Amazon works on very meagre profit margins, but where it wins is in terms of volume. How does it get its volume ? It makes multiple user cases for people from a broad spectrum of fields. How does it further increase its volume ? It works across countries and works towards being inclusive of various backgrounds and nations.

I believe it is important we focus on creating user cases with a high number of transactions.
onceuponatime's investment of 45,000 into stealth transactions is one of the examples. Gambling related ventures or any venture with a high number of transactions is another good example of the same. Unless this occurs,we can all sit here , patting our back  hoping developers do something amazing and turns us all rich by sheer luck.

My 2.00 bts, which btw , I can't transact because.. tx fee. That's why.
Never mind.. my 32 bts, of which 30 bts wont reach you.