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Budget Proposal - Vendor-Experience UPDATED

Solarminer

Since the project duration is VERY long (8 years) the price of Dash could theoretically go up a lot. You could end up with a big chunk of money on your hands. How will the money be managed in this context? Which one of you gets to hold the all the funds? Will we see a clear transparent breakdown of all the expenses to figure out how the money was actually spent?

I think for such a long term project you would need a $USD budget not a Dash budget.
 
I can imagine how this goes.... a couple of years down the line, a new business will appear, it will have a truck full of contacts and experience, it will be making a profit, and all thanks to financing from the dash budget.
 
Solarminer

Since the project duration is VERY long (8 years) the price of Dash could theoretically go up a lot. You could end up with a big chunk of money on your hands. How will the money be managed in this context? Which one of you gets to hold the all the funds? Will we see a clear transparent breakdown of all the expenses to figure out how the money was actually spent?

I think for such a long term project you would need a $USD budget not a Dash budget.

This is a well-thought out argument.

While these guys, proposing the “Vendor-Experience“ project do deserve a lot of kudos given the success of the Dash N Drink, such a long-term proposal almost makes no sense and leaves an underlying impression that it might even be a tad sneaky. (everyone would forget about it once there are many, many projects and the DASH is over $100.00 per unit. If this would be the case, a $72,900.00 a month for what they describe as a "not profitable undertaking.")

Well, at the end, unless you're in charity, everything revolves around profit so all these holes in the proposal leave a bit of a bitter taste in mouth. I think this could've been avoided. Maybe they just need to re-write and re-submit the proposal, not making it insanely long (yeah, we all know it can be down-voted but if the people argue against such a time-frame it is obviously an obstacle) and even, if it is longer than several months, peg it to the U.S. dollar.

As it is, I would not vote yes, no matter how much I respect both Camosoul and Solarminer and their contributions thus far.

Just my 2 cents. Shrug them at will...
 
I can imagine how this goes.... a couple of years down the line, a new business will appear, it will have a truck full of contacts and experience, it will be making a profit, and all thanks to financing from the dash budget.

I guess this is your full argument as taken from the dashwhale, assuming you're using the same username.:

Anyone voting yes is setting themselves up to be robbed. In two years time, a company will appear. It will have plenty of contacts and experience and it will be making a profit... all thanks to thanks to financing from the dash masternodes
 
Solarminer, thank you for the revised proposal. It is very thorough and well-written.

I have to be honest; I initially voted "yes" on this proposal. At the time I voted, it was 0 yes / 14 no. I literally provided the very first yes votes, since I was online when you posted the proposal and fastest on the trigger. I have to admit, however, being the type of irresponsible masternode owner that Camo dislikes; I did not check the duration of the proposal before voting. After much consideration, I changed my votes to "no."

I think this is a brilliant project and I think it's something that's necessary. I would love to fund it, but I simply cannot vote for something that will endure for 99 months.* That's too long, and too much will change by then. If we are lucky, the price of Dash could easily exceed $1000 by then...if not more. In eight years, Evolution will have been fully deployed for about 5-6 years, and the potential is endless.

Yes, we can always vote it down, but a rudimentary understanding of psychology will show that it's much more difficult to get people to vote no to something that they once approved. See my comments on the other thread about how taxes (rarely) get repealed once passed. If you don't believe me, read up on the endowment effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect). People also do not like to admit that they are (or were) wrong, and many will refuse to change their vote out of pride. Even if you yourselves eventually decide to move on and ask people to shut down the proposal, it could take months to rally enough votes for that. I'm sure you would return any monies received during that time, but to whom? How can you repay the blockchain?

Camosoul is very smart and very capable. Frankly, he's probably brilliant. But his comments over the last couple of days have been extreme. He may very well have just been trying to make a point, but when one of the proposers of a project asks me to vote it down because he won't be participating any longer, I take him at his word.

More than this, though, is my concern over the duration of the project. I could support six months, or even a year. But 99 months with the stubborn (and disingenuous) assertion that we can vote it down anytime we want--that is simply too much for me. Eight years is a long time for anything, and both of you could have long moved on to other projects by then. Look at how rare it is for people to spend eight years in the same job!

It should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway: if this proposal passes, I will stand behind you 100%. I believe in democracy and majority rule, and I believe that both of you are extremely capable people who can do a lot for our ecosystem. Best wishes!

*I realize that Core Team and Public Awareness are funded for 99 months currently. I'm not necessarily thrilled with the duration of those, but as Evan is the curator of those funds I can accept it. I realize this may not seem fair, but it is what it is.

P.S. I categorically despise any accusations or implications of malfeasance that may have been directed at you. I think that both of you are among the most trustworthy members of the community, and I realize how hard it is to budget for complex projects. I have no doubt that you lost money on the soda machine. I have no doubt you would spend any money you get from this proposal wisely. Anyone who says otherwise is either naive, misguided, or a fool. Anyone who impugns your integrity is simply a fool.
 
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Every word ddink7 (David, above) wrote is spot on.

This is a great, needed project but simply does not inspire trust in people, the way how it's been outlined, which is really said, given that both of you seem trustworthy and the community really owes you gratitude, if for nothing else, for the Dash N Drink. I wish I was smarter and able to provide an idea for a way out of what seems like an impasse.

Can't you just break the project down in phases and ask it to be funded a phase by a phase? After the Dash N Drink and say Phase 1 you'd have a great track record and the people will be happy to support you.
 
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I guess this is your full argument as taken from the dashwhale, assuming you're using the same username.:

Anyone voting yes is setting themselves up to be robbed. In two years time, a company will appear. It will have plenty of contacts and experience and it will be making a profit... all thanks to thanks to financing from the dash masternodes

Yes, because I saw the yes vote rising and I suspect they've either been bullied into it or they're not all reading this particular thread.
 
Every word ddink7 (David, above) wrote is perfectly lied down.

This is a great, needed project but simply does not inspire trust in people, the way how it's been outlined, which is really said, given that both of you seem trustworthy and the community really owes you gratitude, if for nothing else, for the Dash N Drink. I wish I was smarter and able to provide an idea for a way out of what seems like an impasse.

Can't you just break the project down in phases and ask it to be funded a phase by a phase? After the Dash N Drink and say Phase 1 you'd have a great track record and the people will be happy to support you.

3 to 6 month long phases should do the trick. Enough time for people to get a sense of how things are going and for the project to show some results.
 
Imo, the bullying was a distraction. Effectively, they want to be paid to build contacts and experience into a pretty much untapped market. I don't expect them to do that for free, but then I don't expect them to keep all the profits once they've figured it out at our expense. Unfortunately, I don't think many people here have the experience to see this.
 
Quoting aigeezer from BCT here because he put it so well, why I feel we need to do this, and do it as a CORE project:

I have come to the conclusion that adding Bitpay or other intermediaries is a toxic step in crypto-evolution, partly because it extends the life/utility/appeal of fiat indefinitely and - despite first impressions - it actually works against crypto progress.

My moment of enlightenment(?) came when I tried to renew a VPN contract and pay with crypto. The VPN provider's payment button redirected to Bitpay. A glitch resulted in Bitpay acceptiing my crypto payment, and the VPN provider (merchant) saying they did not receive it from Bitpay, that they had no leverage with Bitpay but that I should "reach out" to Bitpay to try and claw my payment back (so I could pay it again). Grumpiness aside, my takeaway was that if you value crypto as a privacy-enabler, then such privacy is at risk if you have to engage with the intermediary in a transaction, Bitpay in my example.

Bitpay and its various equivalents have genuine appeal, especially for merchants, but they subvert the peer-to-peer essence of crypto transactions and, in effect, become one more PayPal overhead.

That said, I take no position on the vending-machine++ funding proposal. My comments are about the general case of intermediaries in crypto transactions and my suggestion is that crypto design structure should always thwart the use of intermediaries, despite arguments from ease (I get it) or the temptation to grow markets (I get it).

Put another way, I value DASH over [btc] partly because it more closely embodies the peer-to-peer model that was once normal in fiat. Adding an intermediary to any crypto subverts that peer-to-peer model, as I just learned the hard way when a transaction went awry - up to then, I was fairly pleased with the one-click convenience of intermediaries such as Bitpay. I had lost sight of my goals, blinded by ease of use.
 
Solarminer

Since the project duration is VERY long (8 years) the price of Dash could theoretically go up a lot. You could end up with a big chunk of money on your hands. How will the money be managed in this context? Which one of you gets to hold the all the funds? Will we see a clear transparent breakdown of all the expenses to figure out how the money was actually spent?

I think for such a long term project you would need a $USD budget not a Dash budget.

Honestly, this is a non-issue, and as a core project, it is long term and should be thought of as the same as the proposal that pays our developers over many years. Not only that, but this corner foundation of Dash is likely to expand. Even so, I see all long term budgets being re-evaluated as need be.
 
Honestly, this is a non-issue, and as a core project, it is long term and should be thought of as the same as the proposal that pays our developers over many years. Not only that, but this corner foundation of Dash is likely to expand. Even so, I see all long term budgets being re-evaluated as need be.

What do you mean by core project? I agree it's an important project but I don't like the format.

Just because the idea is good doesn't mean the execution has to be neglected.
 
Imo, the bullying was a distraction. Effectively, they want to be paid to build contacts and experience into a pretty much untapped market. I don't expect them to do that for free, but then I don't expect them to keep all the profits once they've figured it out at our expense. Unfortunately, I don't think many people here have the experience to see this.

I can see why you are untrusting. However, the Foundation can be used to sue them if they don't open-source their work. We would be paying for this, thus, the agreement is to open-source what they create, which benefits the entire Dash ecosystem.
 
Imo, the bullying was a distraction. Effectively, they want to be paid to build contacts and experience into a pretty much untapped market. I don't expect them to do that for free, but then I don't expect them to keep all the profits once they've figured it out at our expense. Unfortunately, I don't think many people here have the experience to see this.

I really don't see this being a profitable enterprise. In theory they could produce the machines and software and "close source" them and sell them at a profit, but that would require them to be fundamentally dishonest. I believe that they are both honest people and don't see them doing such a thing.

TanteStefana I think it is very important to note that, at least at present, there are only two people on this project. The other eight year projects (Core Team and Public Awareness) have an entire team behind them. It would be difficult for two people to efficiently spend what could end up being a $70,000+ monthly budget.
 
Oh god, I don't want to re-write all that but I don't know where I wrote it, LOL... I have to take out the garbage, brb, sorry!
 
I can see why you are untrusting. However, the Foundation can be used to sue them if they don't open-source their work. We would be paying for this, thus, the agreement is to open-source what they create, which benefits the entire Dash ecosystem.
The proposers won't be signing a written contract with anybody, and even if they were inclined to, the counterparty would be the entire network itself (a DAC, which is not a legal entity at present). The Foundation would have no standing to sue.
 
OK, I'm back. My view is that this is the missing pillar of the Dash structure. You can't have a structure with 2 pillars. You need a minimum of 3, and to me, this seems to be obviously true for a virtual structure. So far, we have 2 core teams. Software Development and Marketing. There is an absolute need (read aigeezer's quote above) for Merchant support services. Without actively getting Merchants on board, nothing will happen. Although we're going to make Dash easier to use, especially online, with Evolution, Dash is MORE than ready for mass adoption.

Camosoul has been advocating that we start work on this already more than 6 months ago. Nothing has been started. So he STARTED along with Solar, moocowmoo and oaxaca and others. That soda machine was only the beginning of their ideas. In my opinion, these guys have more than proven themselves capable with vision and ability, and shown that they are motivated for the RIGHT reasons.

We are still a start up project. With startups like this, we need to GO FOR IT. I don't see anyone else filling this need. I know Evan wants to integrate small individual businesses to do things on top of Dash, but I agree with aigeezer, that we should NOT allow it to go as far as financial access to Dash. That should ALWAYS be direct, and if we do this and provide the full infrastructure and free access to merchants, then no big financial institution will ever get control over this part of the worlds money again. Not unless they provide completely different types of services that are ultimately user's choice.
 
The proposers won't be signing a written contract with anybody, and even if they were inclined to, the counterparty would be the entire network itself (a DAC, which is not a legal entity at present). The Foundation would have no standing to sue.
The proposition written out on DashWhale IS a contract. And they said their work will be open sourced as much as possible. The "as much as possible" can only mean that if they integrate with existing proprietary payment systems that merchants still need, that interface may require agreements to the proprietors of it, and that may not be open-sourced. But anything that can "as much as possible" therefore anything they make that belongs to their work, is required to be open-sourced. Perfectly binding.
 
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I can see why you are untrusting. However, the Foundation can be used to sue them if they don't open-source their work. We would be paying for this, thus, the agreement is to open-source what they create, which benefits the entire Dash ecosystem.

It's not just the source code, they'd have to disclose all hardware details, publish all contacts, meetings, negotiations and contracts.

They say it's not intended to be profitable... well that's true right now, but that's the end goal, right? I mean, we want this to work and for people to see the benefits and go "wow". We're not funding this to fail. In two years time, who's going to be in the ideal position to benefit from this? Who will have the contacts and experience to go it alone? So effectively they get free money to fail now and once it's profitable we have nothing to stop them keeping all the profits.

That's why I think they should either agree a 40% stake to the Dash Foundation, or let them go it alone and keep all of the profits. They've already said they have the funds to do this themselves - what was it, "a six figure income"? - so how much faith that they come to us for funding?
 
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