Author Topic: 2016 Vision Blog Post  (Read 26747 times)

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Offline btswolf

I`m here to support a new financial freedom and I agree MAS "may" be a part of it.
But seriously why do you want to focus on MAS any time soon when the DEX is still not ready?
Our primary goal was all the time a piece of the 700 Trillion derivatives markets (and not 2% of the market targeted by gofundme.com) and this we can only reach with a world-class DEXchange, striking features and a endless amount of cool "working" financial instruments.
But as long as we can`t compete with the simplest Forex trading platform we are not ready for the next big steps.

I thought together we want to build the unbreakable best Exchange and Bank in the world?!

Offline mf-tzo

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I like the OP's vision but I don't think you can have a successful MAS without first having a profitable DAC but this is just my opinion..

I don't like very much the new approach of @bytemaster about philosophizing and  not "build it and they will come" but anyone is entitled to do and say as he please..

I wish that we build a community that everyone is jealous about it and want to join. There was a time that we had a community like this before numerous mistakes and failed over promises. We are by far a community that other communities are jealous anymore..

I am a very very optimistic person and most of the times I live "in my own small clouds" so I still believe that bitshares will be something great eventually and much much bigger than what bitcoin is. I really hope that we become a strong community again, but unless we manage to somehow attract new business, new investors, rise our market cap to respectable levels and hold there for sometime, I think people will continue to complain and a mutual aid society will not happen easily. So my conclusion is make people some serious profits, make them happy and then MAS will be more easy. Not vice versa..



 

Offline Buck Fankers

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Offline xeroc

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Here are two sentences worth reading:
It means that the MAS will have thousands of members on "day one" because I won't even build it out if I cannot attract thousands of people to a concept.

My approach for 2016 and beyond is very different from my "build it and they will come" approach. 

38PTSWarrior

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I didn't read anything longer than 2 sentences and only want to say: good blog post, gives me good feeling, great ideas, I already pitch the “GDP bigger than California“ idea.

Offline bytemaster

http://bytemaster.github.io/update/2015/12/29/Why-Vision-Matters/

@Samupaha I appreciate your comments and feedback.

I know I can be good at whatever I set my mind to, I just cannot do everything at once. My own success depends upon my ability to grow and adapt.

Over the past couple of months I have been reading several books and have taken many lessons.  For starters, my intent is to focus mostly on marketing, community building rather than technology. The technology can take care of itself if you have the right ideas and messages that resonate.

I have made a conscious decision to not invest more of my own money in unproven ideas. This means that I will take steps to prove an idea has traction and figure out how to market the idea before building it out. It means that the MAS will have thousands of members on "day one" because I won't even build it out if I cannot attract thousands of people to a concept.

My approach for 2016 and beyond is very different from my "build it and they will come" approach. 


For the latest updates checkout my blog: http://bytemaster.bitshares.org
Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract between myself and anyone else.   These are merely my opinions and I reserve the right to change them at any time.

jakub

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If documentation and education is what you would like to see.. tell us how you envision that being executed besides what Dan hopes to do in 2016? Who do you think could do that work? Would you vote for a worker proposal offering such things? Or do you think the community would side swipe it with setting other things as priorities?

If there is a worker proposal aimed at creating robust coding environment around BitShares, I would fully support it and would be very generous with the financial incentive.
I assume here that the ultimate goal would be to create solid ground for 2 or 3 companies like CNX able to implement solutions that involve changes to BitShares protocol.

Current situation:
- lots of good ideas & BitShares funding available for spending
- not a single worker proposal bidding for this money (except one major project "Stealth" and one minor project "Market Order Refund")

Desired situation: lots of worker proposals bidding for BitShares funding.

Offline Samupaha

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I'm very libertarian and for a long time have been looking into alternative ways to create thriving societies and communities. I've seen lots of attempts but usually they all fail. This is really difficult subject to master, especially when the ultimate target is to make traditional government obsolete.

Based on this I suspect that Bytemaster haven't really understood how much work this will require. We are still lacking pretty much all tools to govern a community reliably and safely. We don't have that many communities that could transform themselves into MAS right now. I think this will require years of full time work. It really isn't easy when you have to build a working and useful community from scratch.

That's why I think this is more like a vision for 2018 or 2019 when we hopefully have more matured blockchain technology and more other tools for community governance (protip: if you don't want to use the word "government" in this context, use "community governance" instead).

Another reason why I'm skeptical of this vision is Bytemaster's ability to market new features. One of the biggest challenges for this kind of project is persuading others to join in. Bytemaster is a genius but unfortunately his persuasion skills are far from perfect. This includes all kind of marketing. I'm afraid this will be a flop because not enough people will get the idea and become convinced about it.

If Bytemaster can get some well known libertarian activists like Jeffrey Tucker, Adam Kokesh or Stephan Molyneux to do the promotion of MAS then it might have some possibilities for success.

And from a bigger perspective: while MAS is a cool idea, I don't think that is the most important right now. It doesn't create new wealth, it just redistributes already existing wealth. I would rather see projects that will enable people to work and create business. It's much better to help people to earn their own living than provide charity for them. There is massive unemployment all over the world and helping all those people would be far more worthwhile (although I might be biased here, just lost my job).

Guess what's a really great tool for enabling business? The Bitshares blockchain. I'd like to see focus on developing more tools that people can use profitably. It is much more easier to form communities when at least some of the people are actually making something profitable. Stealth tranfers is obviously nice tool, and market pegged assets too. Mobile wallets, point of sale systems, etc...

To make a DEX successful you need market depth.  To get that you need users.  There are many potential ways to get users and effort expended in any of them is potentially productive.  We look for ways that we can afford and that are likely to pay off sooner than later.

How exactly you are going to do this? So far we have just a vision. I really think this isn't going to be an easy way. It will require lots of time and money.

And those suggestions "if you don't like BM's ideas just build your own stuff on BitShares" are just false.
With the current poor documentation and no real efforts to attract third-party developers, it is just not possible.
Even if you have an idea you are left alone with it.
Not sure why people blame "poor documentation". Have you read into the source
code already? It is well documented and very easy to read!
I know that for a fact because I tried to get into it even though I am not a
coder and yet here I am, knowing about the tech and the implementation.

It's not a very good elevator pitch to say "hey, just go look the source code for a few days and try to come up with good ideas how to use it". We need better explanations on the web page and more blog posts on new features as they come.

There is nothing on the website about fee backed assets even though it is really super important. There is no mention about the first privatized MPA on the blog to inspire others to make their own.

If I pitch Bitshares to someone and they ask "where I can learn more" there is very few good resources that I can point them to. Most of the best information is here on the forum, where the search function doesn't even work very well.

Other people have to have a simple way to learn about Bitshares. Well documented source code is great when they have decided to build something on Bitshares. But before that we have to have also something to attract them to make the decision to build on Bitshares. We have great product here but we are not making any sales.

Besides the technical source code documentation, we need "ELI5" and "full and clear" explanations for all features and lots of examples.

Offline BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode

CNX being a knowledge bottleneck is a legitimate concern but not one for them to solve alone. One could think of this as a marshmallow bus test.

I agree. We cannot just sit back and wait for CNX to offer us perfect tutorials and teach us everything.
However, for me personally, a clear declaration of CNX's intention to put effort into this educational area in 2016, would be much more uplifting than a new grand vision like MAS.

I have nothing against MAS, actually I quite like the concept, but it would be much more encouraging for me to be able to build something similar to MAS on my own than sit back and wait for CNX to realize their grand vision on my behalf.

CNX, please don't give us one more thing on the horizon and make us hope that this time the magic will happen.
Just give us tools and good tutorials how to utilize what we already have.


I think it was mentioned in the writeup that by making something like this, it does the job of educating on the possibilities of what can be done with Bitshares.

I understand your concerns.. we can certainly use more diversity in 2016... Dan is doing it the best way he knows how.

We need to be inspired no longer by what CNX does though.. but by what everybody can do now.

If documentation and education is what you would like to see.. tell us how you envision that being executed besides what Dan hopes to do in 2016? Who do you think could do that work? Would you vote for a worker proposal offering such things? Or do you think the community would side swipe it with setting other things as priorities?
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Offline lil_jay890

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I solved the map:



Yea sorry, that's not how life works for 99.9999999 percent of the world.

That was Alexander the "Great's" way of solving puzzles. But then again, he wasn't big on the Non Aggression Principle (NAP).

It takes a little more ooomph when viewed from ground level...


Alright Stan, just answer this for me...

What is bitshares and in what direction does CNX want to see bitshares go?  What does CNX want to focus on?

-Are we an exchange?
-Are we a merchant tool?
-Are we a swiss bank?
-Are we a US style bank?
-Are we a anonymous money transmitter?
-Are we an Insurance company?
-Are we a social welfare group?
-Are we a prediction market / gambling company?
-Are we a token of exchange?
-Are we a company devoted to profit/shareholders?

Because right now it seems like we are trying to be all of those things.  What is the problem with just picking 1 or 2 to focus on right now?  Picking something to focus on will help "bootstrap" the community for finding partners in that particular area.  Right now our energy is dwindling and is being expelled in too many directions.


Offline BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode

Even the migration process seems to be still unfinished.
I think the migration process is now finished after @jcalfee1 integrated a bloom filter into GUI, which has been released in November.
Is there more issues reported?

I think the only migration issue is people holding out on actually migrating until Stealth is enabled because of privacy concerns. I think that might be what he was referring to. Otherwise you are right. Anybody from 1.0 can migrate with relative ease to 2.0 now if those choose to.
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Offline abit

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Even the migration process seems to be still unfinished.
I think the migration process is now finished after @jcalfee1 integrated a bloom filter into GUI, which has been released in November.
Is there more issues reported?
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Offline Stan

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I solved the map:



Yea sorry, that's not how life works for 99.9999999 percent of the world.

That was Alexander the "Great's" way of solving puzzles. But then again, he wasn't big on the Non Aggression Principle (NAP).

It takes a little more ooomph when viewed from ground level...

Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract of any kind.   These are merely my opinions which I reserve the right to change at any time.

Offline mike623317

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I see frustration here. I think we should focus on what others have suggested and compile a list of what needs to be finished and tackle these one by one as quickly as possible. Jakub deserves a lot of credit here with the UI.

I think we need that to try regain some traction and shake off the feeling of never quite being out of development. Then move on with the innovation.

My 2 cents

Offline Stan

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Lots of good ideas for stuff to do in this thread.
Most of them can be done by someone other than CNX.
There are plenty of things only CNX can do.
So we tend to focus on those.

CNX is NOT the bottleneck.  Lack of more talent working in parallel is the bottleneck.
Talent is attracted to other talent, a strong platform for their application, and lots of potential users.

We have opened everything up to enable all that talent to pitch in
And have even provided diverse ways for them to make money doing it.
All that's left is attracting that talent.

We can polish and document the existing features forever and not help that.
True talent is not deterred by lack of spoon-feeding and hand-holding services.

BitShares is a high performance general purpose platform for talent to build on.
It is not something that the average user needs to understand in detail.
Complaining that BitShares is too complicated is like complaining that an aircraft cockpit is too complicated.
You don't need to look in the cockpit to fly to Shanghai.


Shoppers don't need to understand the infrastructure of a mall.
That's the job of stores that decide to locate in the mall.
Stores just want to know that there will be customers.
And that means there need to be other stores.
Mall developers know they need a critical mass of anchor stores to attract smaller stores.
So we are working to develop and/or attract talent to develop those anchor "stores".

Polishing the windows on empty storefronts is not what it takes to attract businesses and customers.

So we are focused on the chicken and egg problem of attracting more businesses and customers to the platform.
And a compelling vision is one way to help break down the inevitable "you go first" attitude that is always the real roadblock.

So all you armchair quarterbacks - get out there and take some hits with the rest of us.  :)


« Last Edit: December 29, 2015, 03:41:31 pm by Stan »
Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract of any kind.   These are merely my opinions which I reserve the right to change at any time.