Bitcrab,
- Do you agree BitShares is a business?
- Do you agree a business needs marketing?
BitShares can either
1. Pay marketing delegates from dilution who we've seen are hard to manage in a decentralized business and often don't add value
2. Use a referral programme which pays marketers but only for the results they achieve.
3. Have low fees and hope volume increases, bringing in liquidity and word of mouth marketing works.
You are choosing option 3.
Atm it is actually close imo between option 2 & 3 because BitShares doesn't have a tightly pegged, liquid Smartcoin product yet, so what exactly are the referrers selling?
So I agree with you that charging a high fee when you don't have product to sell, hoping referrers are magically going to bring in business is wrong. That's why I'm in favour of the percentage fee system, it makes BTS much cheaper and possibly attracts & enables a lot more small transaction type customers and business models but should significantly increase volume thereby minimising any negative short term impact on the referral programme.
However once the Smartcoin works well it will need to be marketed otherwise competitors will just copy them and spend money marketing them & your supporters will be crying to you everyday about no marketing. However you won't be able to use the referral programme because no-one will trust BTS to honour the agreement and the businesses that are building their model around it now will be gone.
(Your strategy will also increase the burden on dilution to pay for other expenses, witnesses and development as there will be little income when business does increase with such a low fee as a result the BTS you are proposing will be very centralized, with limited development and potential. Unless you are also incredibly focused on Smartcoins and there is enormous demand for them, you may attract more users but the value of BTS will decline because you will be paying for everything out of dilution.)