poll for the "1 BTS for transfer" proposal

[jakub]

I hope you do not announce it in recent days,  if you announce it today I can only reject it, no other choice.

@bitcrab
And what is the reason for you having no choice?

[alt]

a boss open a store and sell product A.
normally in the market the price of A is $1.
for marketing the boss raise the price to $20, and broadcast to everyone: "if you can introduce another guy to buy, each time he pay $20, you will get $16 as cashback."
and he also tell everyone:"if you prepay $20000, then you can get $16 cashback 9 months later each time you buy one A."
someone called this referral program.

good point
we need to ask ourselves a question: what's the fee if we don't have this referral program?
and another question: should the fee change much because of the referral program? why?
In my opinion, transfer fees and trade fees should as low as posible,
because  we need more active users, and good liquility.
the value of users/liquility is much more valuable than the poor transfer fees
and I guess referral program can work even more better with low transfer/trade fee,
we can got more fees for special service, such as issue an asset, active asset's market, upgrade account ....

[tbone]

a boss open a store and sell product A.
normally in the market the price of A is $1.
for marketing the boss raise the price to $20, and broadcast to everyone: "if you can introduce another guy to buy, each time he pay $20, you will get $16 as cashback."
and he also tell everyone:"if you prepay $20000, then you can get $16 cashback 9 months later each time you buy one A."
someone called this referral program.

Most companies have marketing costs that must be included in the price of the product.  So building the cost of our referral program into the transaction fee is perfectly normal.  However, I can see why the tiers might be viewed negatively since it gives a bit of a ponzi-ish impression, even though that is false.  The other problem, as I've been arguing, is the tiers cause unnecessary complexity that confuses users and clouds the debate on percentage-based fees.  But a basic, single-tiered referral program make sense and your arguments against it are not reasonable.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

a boss open a store and sell product A.
normally in the market the price of A is $1.
for marketing the boss raise the price to $20, and broadcast to everyone: "if you can introduce another guy to buy, each time he pay $20, you will get $16 as cashback."
and he also tell everyone:"if you prepay $20000, then you can get $16 cashback 9 months later each time you buy one A."
someone called this referral program.

While not quite the same.. we have this little chain of stores across North America that does just this.. they call themselves Costco. They only did $116 Billion in revenues last year. You prepay for membership in order to get discounts on your purchases. You don't even get a refer of all the future shopping those you refer.. but you do get something: http://www.costco.ca/refer-a-friend.html ... http://www.costco.com/join-costco.html

someone called this successful.

Paypal also used a refer program in order to grow its user base to what it is today. They moved $228 billion last year. How do you think they were doing in month 4 when they first launched the very first version of their service?

We have percentage based option coming in to handle this sort of thing. However he (bitcrab) won't support it because he knows that % means higher fees. Everyone seems to forget the hangout where BM did the math on flat fee vs. % and concluded that flat was far less. It was also concluded that all the % is going to do is fulfill a perception of less, not actually be less overall. Unless you set maximums. For a network implementing % fees so we can be more like other exchange rates though, we sure seem to have trouble doing anything that makes money.. ie. we can make more, but we are setting caps where nobody else is.

I like to at this time share with you some insights from someone who worked at Uber for 4 years. There are some important aspects to his story in relation to this whole debate that people should really take into consideration. Particularly how Uber had to deal with supply/demand issue and had to NOT listen to their customers in order to solve it. This could be really helpful in all the discussion surrounding our Smartcoin supply/demand issues too:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/three-things-i-learned-during-4-years-uber-michael-pao

Hope this helps.

[bitcrab]

try to replace "$" with "BTS".

[Ben Mason]

a boss open a store and sell product A.
normally in the market the price of A is $1.
for marketing the boss raise the price to $20, and broadcast to everyone: "if you can introduce another guy to buy, each time he pay $20, you will get $16 as cashback."
and he also tell everyone:"if you prepay $20000, then you can get $16 cashback 9 months later each time you buy one A."
someone called this referral program.

Isn't the $20 representative of a lifetime of product A where product A is a transaction fee?  sorry if I've misunderstood.

[bitcrab]

I think the percentage-based fee solution is a sensible compromise.
We can keep low transfer fees where they are needed the most (i.e. for small transfers) and at the same time preserve the referral program in areas where it makes most sense (i.e. for bigger amounts).

We'll be announcing the actual worker proposal very soon, most probably today.

I hope you do not announce it in recent days,  if you announce it today I can only reject it, no other choice. 

[Ben Mason]

I think the percentage-based fee solution is a sensible compromise.
We can keep low transfer fees where they are needed the most (i.e. for small transfers) and at the same time preserve the referral program in areas where it makes most sense (i.e. for bigger amounts).

We'll be announcing the actual worker proposal very soon, most probably today.

Perhaps you are right jakub. I really appreciate everyone's efforts to get this right. The passion is truely inspirational. It gives me a great deal of confidence that we'll find the right balance.  I just Want to avoid damage to an existing business model that is utilising existing parameters and is responsible for really great productivity before results have a chance to bed in.

Thank you.

[sudo]

a boss open a store and sell product A.
normally in the market the price of A is $1.
for marketing the boss raise the price to $20, and broadcast to everyone: "if you can introduce another guy to buy, each time he pay $20, you will get $16 as cashback."
and he also tell everyone:"if you prepay $20000, then you can get $16 cashback 9 months later each time you buy one A."
someone called this referral program.

[bitcrab]

a boss open a store and sell product A.
normally in the market the price of A is $1.
for marketing the boss raise the price to $20, and broadcast to everyone: "if you can introduce another guy to buy, each time he pay $20, you will get $16 as cashback."
and he also tell everyone:"if you prepay $20000, then you can get $16 cashback 9 months later each time you buy one A."
someone called this referral program.

[jakub]

I think the percentage-based fee solution is a sensible compromise.
We can keep low transfer fees where they are needed the most (i.e. for small transfers) and at the same time preserve the referral program in areas where it makes most sense (i.e. for bigger amounts).

We'll be announcing the actual worker proposal very soon, most probably today.

[Ben Mason]

Once again you don't actually backup your opinion on why we should change fees. Instead you argue it's because "If any referrer has a business model that depends on upfront fees (instead of residuals) for survival, then I think their model is flawed"

This is still young, why so quick to change you're not even giving it an opportunity. What's worse is that there's really nothing backing up the arguments that volume will grow and compensate for this lack of fees... And it doesn't make sense to change something that's working just because of a whim, with no foundation behind it while jeopardizing other projects at the same time.

Plus the volume seems to be growing a little because of these pumps, it will only take that initial flow to get things rolling. Isn't a chicken and egg problem? Well, we're having the volume because of the pumps, it's just a matter of using that to get more or at least, not to let it decrease below our previous average.

It seems we're creating a problem where it doesn't exist instead of focusing on the real problems.

I guess you don't pay attention.  I have always been a proponent of the referral program.  In my last post I said we NEED the referral program.  And I did NOT say it isn't working.  In fact, I'm pretty sure it IS working.  I just said that the tiered structure is complicated and counterproductive on MULTIPLE levels, which it is.  And there's no reason for that.  As Ronny said, it's about the residuals anyway.  We would lose nothing, and only gain, if we switched to a residual only referral model.  Let's wise up here.

And to the other side (@clayop, @bitcrab, etc.), I'll say this: Common sense dictates that if you incentivize a behavior, you will likely get more of it.  Of course nothing is guaranteed.  But it should be obvious that you simply CANNOT judge the effectiveness of the referral program after such a short amount of time, especially considering that we don't even have liquid BitAssets yet.  You are NOT being reasonable by trying to remove the referral program. 

Guys, we need to compromise here.  I have VERY high hopes for Bitshares and have invested a LARGE sum of money.  But I'm losing patience with the inability to compromise, and my shit load of BTS will move on to greener pastures if we can't figure this out and get on to the business of creating liquidity for BitAssets.  Seriously, this is ridiculous.

Compromise is certainly possible.....a well considered approach to refinement of the referral structure that takes into consideration the impact on existing efforts/businesses I would support.....but I'm not seeing the magic formula here yet.

Ronny, what would you consider to be a sensible compromise, assuming that was possible for OL?

[Musewhale]

you guys are very impatient.

[tbone]

@tbone I guess you don't pay attention. Where did I mention the flaw you pointed was towards the referral system or that you didn't support it?

I'm talking about all this sudden "need" to change what we have now. The quote from you is not even from the referral program but from the Lifetime membership part, which I disagree with you. It sets a commitment to the network and it's good to have that. Everyone is free to pay it or not.

Huh?  What sets a commitment to the network?  The option for a user to pay the LTM?  That makes no sense.  Please explain the actual benefit of the lifetime membership.  Does the referrer get screwed when the user opts NOT to purchase LTM?  In other words, are the residuals insufficient?  If so, then let's force everyone to purchase LTM.  If the residuals are NOT insufficient, then having a tiered system with the LTM adds complexity on multiple levels for no good reason.  Again, as Ronny said, it's all about the residuals anyway.   

By the way, I am not suddenly realizing that the LTM is problematic.  This has been crystallizing for me for quite some time.  What I'm only now starting to figure out is that having a built in governance model IS POINTLESS thanks to the inability of people to compromise.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

@bitcrab
Your idea is destructive.

This is what we know for sure that will happen if we go through with your concept:
- it will be the end of the referral program (including the concept of LTM) and all businesses that have based their business plans on this program will be screwed
- it will be the end of OpenLeger and its fiat gateway
- it will be the end of our percentage-based fee initiative
And once again BitShares will confirm its lack of respect for stable rules.

You offer no argument whatsoever why lowering the transfer fee to 1 BTS will help anything.
Your only argument is your belief. So you want to sacrifice all the above just because you believe it will help.

Your "reasoning" is based on this unproved hypothesis:
There are potential users who would like to transfer amounts above the equivalent of $5 but are not doing so because "the fees are too high".

I think this hypothesis of yours is worth exactly this: 1 BTS.

 

We need to keep developing and improving the UX. The refer program is only as good as the conversion from the experience that is delivered.

The race to zero will do nothing but devalue our network and cause our market cap to plummet even further by pushing operations further into red.

People invest in companies that profit their shareholders. Not companies that lose in order for other companies to profit.

If this direction were to take place it would be the perfect staging ground to create a fork of Bitshares that competes because all prospects of future value for the network would be gone.

Speaking of staging.. how about this poll? This is a great showing of pre-planning. I wish the same organized effort could be put into building Bitshares, instead of taking it to zero.