[DAC] Possible financial focus for the next few months

[merivercap]

I understand this 90/10 idea is meant to be some sort of compensation for the referral businesses for the lost income, in case transfer fees are no longer part of the LTM deal.
(This will effectively happen *IF* the flat transfer fee is lowered to 6 BTS, as the new fee schedule proposes)

I'm not sure this 6-BTS-transfer-fee idea is compatible with BSIP10.

If we lower the flat transfer fee to 6 BTS, and BSIP10 gets implemented, it will be hard to fit into this the minimum and maximum limit for the percentage-based fees.

The min limit is meant to be the minimum the network wants to earn to cover its costs and prevent spam.
And it also needs to be significantly lower than the 6 BTS flat fee - otherwise the %-based fee system will not be popular with issuers.

So if the flat fee becomes 6 BTS, the minimum limit for %-based fees needs to be something like 1 or 2 BTS.
Are we sure it is enough to prevent spam?

If the transfer fee is lowered to 6BTS now, later on when BSIP is implemented we can have 1% fees for Smartcoin US & Eur.  The minimum fee for that can be 2BTS if you want to make it even for the various modes, but even if it was a minimum of 6BTS that shouldn't make the referral program that much less attractive.   Remember you were talking about how the referral program can be seen as optional?  LTMs would be attractive if people want to use Smartcoin US & Eur.  I'll use 1% for the privatized Smartcoin.  It would be nice to have a 2BTS minimum for the %-based models to make it more 'even' and allow LTMs to have the lowest fee, but even if it was a 6BTS minimum I'd still use the 1% fee schedule. 

[jakub]

I understand this 90/10 idea is meant to be some sort of compensation for the referral businesses for the lost income, in case transfer fees are no longer part of the LTM deal.
(This will effectively happen *IF* the flat transfer fee is lowered to 6 BTS, as the new fee schedule proposes)

I'm not sure this 6-BTS-transfer-fee idea is compatible with BSIP10.

If we lower the flat transfer fee to 6 BTS, and BSIP10 gets implemented, it will be hard to fit into this the minimum and maximum limit for the percentage-based fees.

The min limit is meant to be the minimum the network wants to earn to cover its costs and prevent spam.
And it also needs to be significantly lower than the 6 BTS flat fee - otherwise the %-based fee system will not be popular with issuers.

So if the flat fee becomes 6 BTS, the minimum limit for %-based fees needs to be something like 1 or 2 BTS.
Are we sure it is enough to prevent spam?

[btswolf]

As participant of the referral program I am fine with 20/80.
IMHO transfer and market fees should be low as possible only set to prevent spam but other special operations should be charged a bit more and that is enough incentive for me (now).

[xeroc]

I see your point but think think the op needs discussion anyway.
I would love to demonstrate stability in the fee schedule but a) want to improve the current fee schedule while b) not putting pressure on the bsip10 dev(s).

[merivercap]

I generally support the lower network fees proposal. 

I'm not sure what 'accept the reduced transfer fee' means.  We can still maintain transfer fees for Smartcoin USD & Smartcoin Eur (either 1% or 20 cents) so most referral businesses will be unaffected.  I think all we need to do is reduce transfer fees for specific assets (specifically Smartcoin CNY/TCNY) to support the Chinese community.  Maybe I'm missing something?

The current implementation cant distinguish transfer fees for different assets .. they are the same for every asset

When you say current implementation, aren't we assuming BSIP10 is passed. (It currently has the votes.)  Also I would assume we can distinguish between assets because even Mode B (percentage-based fees) was supposed to be optional for each asset. 

It also seems that we can distinguish from this response here:
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,21080.msg275845.html#msg275845

Afaik bsip10 will take some more weeks and is (unfortunatelly) not yet approved.
Thats why i focused on 'current' implementation

Lol @xeroc!  Shouldn't we wait since this will make a huge difference?   I hope the committee is not trying to decide lower fees right now because it seems very unncessary to do it so soon.  We can just wait for BSIP10.  I guess it's not really that big a deal since we can revert back to higher transfer fees when BSIP10 arrives.

BSIP10: http://cryptofresh.com/workers  It seems to have 77% approval.  (BTW I'm assuming BSIP will allow Mode A without any additional code work.  It seems the committee just has to decide that's one of the options.)  When does it become official?

In general I think the 90/10 split is fine, but mainly to encourage even more referrals and make it easier for the committee to decide the fees between Mode A/B/C.

BTW great to hear you'll be on the committee!

[CoinHoarder]

Is the referral system built on top of the network as an additional feature to be used for *maximize and generate an *additional stream of profit, OR is the network built on top of the referral system to steal people's money from their "hard" work in making others people join a ponzi scheme?


I was pretty sure the first case was the one we were working on... But now that people seem to treat the referral system as the *real, *only, *major income for their business's revenue... I am lost.

Or maybe those people think bts can't do and offer nothing better then that?
If so, why are you here in the first place?

Good point 

[xeroc]

I generally support the lower network fees proposal. 

I'm not sure what 'accept the reduced transfer fee' means.  We can still maintain transfer fees for Smartcoin USD & Smartcoin Eur (either 1% or 20 cents) so most referral businesses will be unaffected.  I think all we need to do is reduce transfer fees for specific assets (specifically Smartcoin CNY/TCNY) to support the Chinese community.  Maybe I'm missing something?

The current implementation cant distinguish transfer fees for different assets .. they are the same for every asset

When you say current implementation, aren't we assuming BSIP10 is passed. (It currently has the votes.)  Also I would assume we can distinguish between assets because even Mode B (percentage-based fees) was supposed to be optional for each asset. 

It also seems that we can distinguish from this response here:
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,21080.msg275845.html#msg275845

Afaik bsip10 will take some more weeks and is (unfortunatelly) not yet approved.
Thats why i focused on 'current' implementation

[Bhuz]

Is the referral system built on top of the network as an additional feature to be used for *maximize and generate an *additional stream of profit, OR is the network built on top of the referral system to steal people's money from their "hard" work in making others people join a ponzi scheme?


I was pretty sure the first case was the one we were working on... But now that people seem to treat the referral system as the *real, *only, *major income for their business's revenue... I am lost.

Or maybe those people think bts can't do and offer nothing better then that?
If so, why are you here in the first place?

[santaclause102]

A very simple argument that makes sense independent of to which content it is applied:

90/10 (as compared to 80/20) would reduce the second parameter (in our case the network income) by 100% for a mere 12.5% increase in referral income. These numbers speak for themselves I guess.

Hmm .. that argument is mathematically valid but IMHO misleading .. the profit in absolute amounts that is removed from the network is added to the referral system ...

Of course but it's about the decision which function within the system should get what. You could always say that the greater system both parties/functions are part of maintains the 100%... If it doesnt matter how the 100% are alloacted the initial question about 80/20 vs 90/10 also is obsolete.

[merivercap]

I generally support the lower network fees proposal. 

I'm not sure what 'accept the reduced transfer fee' means.  We can still maintain transfer fees for Smartcoin USD & Smartcoin Eur (either 1% or 20 cents) so most referral businesses will be unaffected.  I think all we need to do is reduce transfer fees for specific assets (specifically Smartcoin CNY/TCNY) to support the Chinese community.  Maybe I'm missing something?

The current implementation cant distinguish transfer fees for different assets .. they are the same for every asset

When you say current implementation, aren't we assuming BSIP10 is passed. (It currently has the votes.)  Also I would assume we can distinguish between assets because even Mode B (percentage-based fees) was supposed to be optional for each asset. 

It also seems that we can distinguish from this response here:
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,21080.msg275845.html#msg275845

[xeroc]

A very simple argument that makes sense independent of to which content it is applied:

90/10 (as compared to 80/20) would reduce the second parameter (in our case the network income) by 100% for a mere 12.5% increase in referral income. These numbers speak for themselves I guess.

Hmm .. that argument is mathematically valid but IMHO misleading .. the profit in absolute amounts that is removed from the network is added to the referral system ...

[xeroc]

I generally support the lower network fees proposal. 

I'm not sure what 'accept the reduced transfer fee' means.  We can still maintain transfer fees for Smartcoin USD & Smartcoin Eur (either 1% or 20 cents) so most referral businesses will be unaffected.  I think all we need to do is reduce transfer fees for specific assets (specifically Smartcoin CNY/TCNY) to support the Chinese community.  Maybe I'm missing something?

The current implementation cant distinguish transfer fees for different assets .. they are the same for every asset

[santaclause102]

A very simple argument that makes sense independent of to which content it is applied:

90/10 (as compared to 80/20) would reduce the second parameter (in our case the network income) by 100% for a mere 12.5% increase in referral income. These numbers speak for themselves I guess.

[merivercap]

I generally support the lower network fees proposal. 

I'm not sure what 'accept the reduced transfer fee' means.  We can still maintain transfer fees for Smartcoin USD & Smartcoin Eur (either 1% or 20 cents) so most referral businesses will be unaffected.  I think all we need to do is reduce transfer fees for specific assets (specifically Smartcoin CNY/TCNY) to support the Chinese community.  Maybe I'm missing something?

[Xeldal]

I think the whole referral implementation is flawed and we're trying to tweak the wrong things.
I think the problem is we're trying to build a public mandatory referral system and tax, when it should be left to private business, private interest to offer these thing if they are useful.

I am interested in exploring options that completely reduce the friction for users, reducing the fees, reducing the tax.  Where you've got a wide open ridiculously efficient platform with little to no cost at the core and offering innumerable optional features with many incentives to participate or utilize, like a variety of optional referral programs, built into privately created assets like FBAs or smart contracts, or just webservices etc. that might be completely separate from bitshares core. 

Could we not have many different (optional)referral programs built on top of bitshares?  User can choose the one they like, or none at all. 
Does the referral program need to be centralized as a core universal unavoidable feature/tax?
Couldn't businesses develop their own referral programs, incentives for using their wallet, their service, etc that don't rely on a core design mechanism that has a significant measurable effect on every user and every use case?

If a referral system has merit people will voluntarily use it.  I think business should design their own programs with their own source of income from their own services and not rely on a core tax on bitshares system wide.  It's a burden and inefficient.

A business might create a bitshares smart contract or a new type of transaction or feature or process or game or service etc that they design to collect a tax/fee that feeds their particular referral program.  But they would be subject to competition from competing services or competing referral programs and no one would be forced to fund them or participate in them while using the bitshares platform.

I don't like that this referral tax is unavoidable.  I think referral programs are a great idea but they should be built on top of, and in addition to bitshares, maybe not baked in the core.

Anyway, that is the direction of my thoughts lately.  I could be wrong.