[Fees][Referrals] Incentivize users to pay a higher fee

[xeroc]

Ah, I was thinking basic/LTM fees were separate for some reason.. Then you could set the basic fee to some huge number to "disable" the feature (like what Muse did with asset creation fees)

LTM only pay 20% and the other 80% go into cashback instead of referral program

[Xeldal]

I like the idea of using a positive incentive, but I still don't understand how you can pay people to make transactions.

It wouldn't be a direct pay, and it wouldn't be guaranteed.  The pay would come from future transactions, so you'd have to wait.  Because the FBA issuance would degrade over 30 years those paying higher fees today would stand to gain more than those paying higher fees next year, etc.  Until after 20 - 30 years there is no reason to pay higher fees.  Its cramming access to a lifetime of income from fees into a short period of time as incentive to refer users and spend money now on fees.   

Depending on the speed of growth in collected transaction fees, it may take longer to earn back the higher fees payed, but you would still earn on upgrades and everyone else paying high fees trying to collect the FBA for the prospect of future gains. 

I'll have to do some actual numbers to see how it plays out, what it looks like, what to expect.

If it works like a FBA/dividend on tx fees, why not just sell it on the open market instead of buying small fractions when you overpay?

You could do that also, or instead, I suppose.  It seems like the same thing.  Unless you were to limit the max fee you can pay on a trx, or make a threshold or set amount.  Say 1BTS is base fee, or pay 20 BTS to receive FBA bonus.  By having a max cap you could prevent someone just buying a ton on the market and only paying 2 BTS to the network fee.  Breaking it out in trx's, They would lose some percentage to network fee for each trx.  I think the FBA holders should be able to freely trade their asset on the market though, and others could then obviously buy it, but the premium would reflect the cost to acquire it through rate limited transactions.   

[roadscape]

how about we restrict most "advanced operations" to require LTM and only have the basic stuff in the basic membership included:
- transfers (also blind)
- trading

require LTM:
- proposals
- bond market (eventually)
- withdraw permissions
- creating assets
- creating accounts (already implemented that way)

This is a very interesting idea, and wouldn't require any code changes..

They do require code changes and they do require a hardfork (if you ask
me) simply because those if/not checks are currently hard coded in the
graphene code .. Having them a blockchain parameter would be awesome!

Ah, I was thinking basic/LTM fees were separate for some reason.. Then you could set the basic fee to some huge number to "disable" the feature (like what Muse did with asset creation fees)

[xeroc]

how about we restrict most "advanced operations" to require LTM and only have the basic stuff in the basic membership included:
- transfers (also blind)
- trading

require LTM:
- proposals
- bond market (eventually)
- withdraw permissions
- creating assets
- creating accounts (already implemented that way)

This is a very interesting idea, and wouldn't require any code changes..

They do require code changes and they do require a hardfork (if you ask
me) simply because those if/not checks are currently hard coded in the
graphene code .. Having them a blockchain parameter would be awesome!

[roadscape]

IMO not buying a membership is making the choice to pay higher fees.

If someone makes a faucet that returns 100% of collected fees back to the referred user, this is effectively making the referral system optional, right?

got me thinking.  Along my same line but clearer benefits perhaps.
+ 5 .  I think replicating the numbers for this in a different way would have a positive psychological effect.   

As an experiment, what happens if we shift everything to the left? 
for the non-LTM(basic acct) instead of paying 20 BTS fee pays only 1 BTS.  (no friction)
and for LTM instead of paying effectively 1 BTS fee(with friction), now earns 18 BTS (optionally pays 20 BTS and earns 38 BTS future profits)

The effect is that a new user starts at a place with zero friction, and later discovers how to optimize their experience by adding a positive.  Rather then immediately hitting (mostly psychological) barriers and inconveniences, with options to improve their experience by removing a negative.

Rather than squeezing non-LTM and potential users for pennies, we're collecting from the total increased user base and transactions of the future, and incentivizing paying higher fees now.

If the basic account has the minimum fee(almost free).  Then you have the option to pay for a membership and get paid on all transactions.  Getting paid the rough equivalent of what you would have saved as a LTM now. 

So the basic member still loses out by not upgrading, and the LTM still benefits by upgrading and referring.

I like the idea of using a positive incentive, but I still don't understand how you can pay people to make transactions. If it works like a FBA/dividend on tx fees, why not just sell it on the open market instead of buying small fractions when you overpay? Random thought: if all our existing operations were converted to FBA's and dropped to BTS holders 1:1.. then we could trade them & bet on the individual growth of any of our 40+ operations.

how about we restrict most "advanced operations" to require LTM and only have the basic stuff in the basic membership included:
- transfers (also blind)
- trading

require LTM:
- proposals
- bond market (eventually)
- withdraw permissions
- creating assets
- creating accounts (already implemented that way)

This is a very interesting idea, and wouldn't require any code changes..

[xeroc]

The referrers don't want their referred people to upgrade to LTM indeed..

Depends. Referrers certainly want to have a fraction of the high upgrade fee. Isn't $80 (or even more) enough for one upgraded customer?

[abit]

how about we restrict most "advanced operations" to require LTM and only have the basic stuff in the basic membership included:
- transfers (also blind)
- trading

require LTM:
- proposals
- bond market (eventually)
- withdraw permissions
- creating assets
- creating accounts (already implemented that way)

The referrers don't want their referred people to upgrade to LTM indeed..
More features require LTM, more likely users will upgrade or leave.

[xeroc]

how about we restrict most "advanced operations" to require LTM and only have the basic stuff in the basic membership included:
- transfers (also blind)
- trading

require LTM:
- proposals
- bond market (eventually)
- withdraw permissions
- creating assets
- creating accounts (already implemented that way)

[Xeldal]

IMO not buying a membership is making the choice to pay higher fees.

If someone makes a faucet that returns 100% of collected fees back to the referred user, this is effectively making the referral system optional, right?

got me thinking.  Along my same line but clearer benefits perhaps.
+ 5 .  I think replicating the numbers for this in a different way would have a positive psychological effect.   

As an experiment, what happens if we shift everything to the left? 
for the non-LTM(basic acct) instead of paying 20 BTS fee pays only 1 BTS.  (no friction)
and for LTM instead of paying effectively 1 BTS fee(with friction), now earns 18 BTS (optionally pays 20 BTS and earns 38 BTS future profits)

The effect is that a new user starts at a place with zero friction, and later discovers how to optimize their experience by adding a positive.  Rather then immediately hitting (mostly psychological) barriers and inconveniences, with options to improve their experience by removing a negative.

Rather than squeezing non-LTM and potential users for pennies, we're collecting from the total increased user base and transactions of the future, and incentivizing paying higher fees now.

If the basic account has the minimum fee(almost free).  Then you have the option to pay for a membership and get paid on all transactions.  Getting paid the rough equivalent of what you would have saved as a LTM now. 

So the basic member still loses out by not upgrading, and the LTM still benefits by upgrading and referring. 

[roadscape]

What ways are there for bitshares to incentivize users to pay a higher fee by choice?

Can the referral system be an option for some benefit, but not mandatory? what benefit?

IMO not buying a membership is making the choice to pay higher fees.

If someone makes a faucet that returns 100% of collected fees back to the referred user, this is effectively making the referral system optional, right?

I think you could still incentivize people to use a normal faucet (and pay the higher fees) by offering them rewards: cashback, signup bonus, bonus features, etc. OL has a signup bonus using QBITS and I think it's an interesting model.. curious where they take it.

Also, the fee pool can be used as a profit generator by lowering the CER of a token and at the same time offer an incentive to use it.. e.g. some form of cashback, rewards, or savings program. It wouldn't be "decentralized" but simpler than FBA.

[Pheonike]

1) ability to have numbers in name.
2) Access to stealth transfers (too late for this)
3) Access to more trading tools
4) Have themes or templates to wallet.

[Xeldal]

What ways are there for bitshares to incentivize users to pay a higher fee by choice?

Can the referral system be an option for some benefit, but not mandatory? what benefit?

I would pay a higher then necessary fee, if ...

Here is one idea:
If paying extra issued an asset(FBA), to myself and my referrer, that earns a dividend from all fees paid forever.   
The rate of issuance for the asset could slowly degrade, so paying higher fees today has a bigger effect then paying higher fees in 4 years.
If we expect a much larger user base in 4 years, and a portion of all those future collected fees are paid as a dividend to the holder of this asset.  It may be good incentive to pay a higher fee now.

The collected fee now would be very small if everyone chose not to pay this higher fee, but it would still be something.  With a much larger user base it would be obviously more significant.  Anyone who did pay higher fees and got the special asset, would collect the dividend forever.

No one has to participate and just pays 1 BTS fee (or whatever)
Anyone who believes the userbase will be much bigger might consider paying higher fees, in hopes of collecting on that future fee generation.

After market saturation of bitshares(30 years) the referral system isn't really needed.  So the decay on the issuance of this special asset would hopefully align with that growth, until at some point there is no reason to pay higher fee because there is no more asset to issue.  Those who did manage to get ahold of the asset would continue to earn dividends on fees forever or perhaps trade it on the exchange. 


Some numbers:
minimum fee: 1 BTS
maximum fee: none
FBA issuance rate: 1 FBA/BTS above minimum
FBA decay: less .08% every 28 days
Length of issuance: appox 30 years
Referral split: same as now
fee to pool from minimum fee: .2 BTS
fee to pool above minimum fee: 80%, (20% to the network)
% from pooled fees to dividend: 25% every month


I'd appreciate any and all feedback.  Thanks.