Title: Monetization Idea for Electrum Post by: RealBitcoin on January 04, 2017, 04:19:47 AM I don't know what is the income of the Electrum developers, but I think Electrum can develope an income source for itself so that the developers can work full-time on it (because I observed that development nowadays is quite slow, and only Thomas is doing most of the work). Besides more developers and experts can be hired if Electrum has a fund to pay people from it.
I know that Electrum is very sensitive, and it doesn't want to compromise on security. However I think my ideas won't compromise security and would have little or no drawback. Monetization for Developers
It's all optional, so if people don't want to use this, they can turn it all off and use Electrum as it is now. But if people do want to use it, they would contribute to the development fund. Monetization for Servers This one is quite simple, but it requires a little bit of redesigning the Server system.
Look the donation system is not sustainable. The altruism of humans is not that good, so certain things have to be monetized with the condition to not lower security. I just connected to a random server: Code: Welcome to VPS.hsmiths.com! This guy is running a pretty high quality server with a very generous address limit, all for free. And he only got 2 donations of barely 11$: https://blockchain.info/address/16w8pyLbV2cJsVDkNgSAEL2uJv55ZECuGS And I don't think the other Servers are more lucky than him. So I think, we need to add a little bit of commercial element to this too, to make the Electrum system more self-sustainable. Title: Re: Monetization Idea for Electrum Post by: pooya87 on January 04, 2017, 05:09:54 AM other bitcoin thin wallet clients have tried monetizing and failed (drove users away from using that client because it stopped being completely free bitcoin wallet)
Title: Re: Monetization Idea for Electrum Post by: ThomasV on January 04, 2017, 10:36:47 AM Thank you for your post. Although I mostly disagree with your ideas, it gives me a good opportunity to explain what I think.
Electrum is both an open source project and a company (Electrum Technologies). I created the company in order to: - distribute the software through a legal entity. - provide support for corporate users. - accelerate development. The monetization ideas you listed in your post are not original, and have been considered already. The company is currently earning money on consulting, and on the Trustedcoin plugin. A few other monetization ideas are in development. I have been contacted several times by VCs who wanted to invest in Electrum (the company). After several inquiries, I have decided not to follow that path, for the following reasons: - I believe that software quality is generally better when people write it for fun, than when they are getting paid for it. (it is not a question of competence, it has to do with long-term commitment to fix the things you do wrong.) - I would not be having fun if I was working for VCs. - I believe that the Silicon Valley model of development (grow fast, pay investors later or die) does not suit well Bitcoin. - As far as the company is concerned, I prefer organic growth. (maybe it has to do with your typical Bitcoiner's debt aversion syndrome). What's wrong with the Silicon Valley model applied to Bitcoin? Well, despite what you can read in various Bitcoin media, Bitcoin's growth is comparatively slow. (I mean, slower than companies like Ebay, Facebook, Amazon, etc.), because its userbase grows slower. I believe this is because people are generally more conservative with money and savings, than with signing up on a social network. As a result, the competition between Bitcoin companies is more a marathon than a sprint race. What Bitcoin needs is long-term commitment, and not companies that go bust when they are out of VC money. When it comes to using funds, there are 3 things where Electrum could benefit from money: development, servers, distribution. 1. Development: First, your observation that development is slower today is wrong. You are not seeing the whole picture; development effort is not proportional to the number of commits or visible features. Most of the Electrum software has been developed by myself and developers doing this on their free time. Other parts of the code have been developed by external companies, or paid developers. I believe paid development should be funnelled to the aspects of the code that are not handled well by developers working on their free time. 2. Servers: Currently there is no shortage of free servers. The new server code (ElectrumX by kyuupichian) has made it much less resource intensive to run an Electrum server. Paying servers have already been discussed. So far nobody has been running a paying server successfully, because of the competition of free servers. I think it will be possible to have paying servers once we have support for payment channels in the client. 3. Distribution & packaging. This is something where money can be useful, because it is typically not very exciting for developers working on their free time. This is the primary reason why the company was created. I hope to be able to hire someone this year, btw. Title: Re: Monetization Idea for Electrum Post by: davout on January 04, 2017, 11:49:20 AM Electrum simply is the best wallet out there.
Title: Re: Monetization Idea for Electrum Post by: kolloh on January 04, 2017, 02:33:23 PM Good response from ThomasV and glad to see he feels the way he does. I am definitely not a fan of adding banner ads or the other recommended monetization strategies referenced in the initial post. The addition of those would likely cause me (and probably a number of other users) to look into switch to another bitcoin client.
Title: Re: Monetization Idea for Electrum Post by: Cereberus on January 04, 2017, 05:26:46 PM I would love that Electrum developers get supported the same way server holders are getting quite some lengthy donations as you can see in the picture below which is an address used for receiving donation from electrum users. I am a fan of banner ad too below the last part of the window of the electrum wallet but I see it's not welcome by the electrum developer so I respect him and his idea.
https://i.imgur.com/kbtH0Ep.png Title: Re: Monetization Idea for Electrum Post by: tnkflx on January 04, 2017, 06:12:04 PM I would love that Electrum developers get supported the same way server holders are getting quite some lengthy donations as you can see in the picture below which is an address used for receiving donation from electrum users. I am a fan of banner ad too below the last part of the window of the electrum wallet but I see it's not welcome by the electrum developer so I respect him and his idea. https://i.imgur.com/kbtH0Ep.png Which server is that? Title: Re: Monetization Idea for Electrum Post by: Cereberus on January 04, 2017, 07:38:51 PM electrum2.villocq.com
Also if you want to donate to a specific server you can go to the console to see at which server you are connected or alternatively you can click the green button and select a server which you think is doing a good job for you and donate. I always donate 0.001 btc (well I know it's not much but better than nothing) to my most used server. For the moment I am sticking with this as is working flawlessly from more than 2 months now. Here is what the server person is saying if you click the console in electrum >> >> Welcome to this Electrum server! Donation address: 1JL8K1Bh1EQpBUk41WBPvdjwn5vbjp55bv >> Title: Re: Monetization Idea for Electrum Post by: tnkflx on January 04, 2017, 07:49:31 PM electrum2.villocq.com That's what I thought. Be aware that the donation of 5.8999 BTC was actually a mistake... In general, running an Electrum server is not profitable. I think only a couple of people actually break even, I don't. Title: Re: Monetization Idea for Electrum Post by: Cereberus on January 04, 2017, 07:53:22 PM electrum2.villocq.com That's what I thought. Be aware that the donation of 5.8999 BTC was actually a mistake... In general, running an Electrum server is not profitable. I think only a couple of people actually break even, I don't. Maybe it's an error at this one but I have seen other servers with 4.67 BTC as donations so I think running electrum servers can be profitable in the long term. Beside that the people who run electrum servers mainly do it for the community and not for the money in the first place. So hats off to them and to you of course. Title: Re: Monetization Idea for Electrum Post by: RealBitcoin on January 04, 2017, 07:57:29 PM Thank you for your post. Although I mostly disagree with your ideas, it gives me a good opportunity to explain what I think. Electrum is both an open source project and a company (Electrum Technologies). I created the company in order to: - distribute the software through a legal entity. - provide support for corporate users. - accelerate development. The monetization ideas you listed in your post are not original, and have been considered already. The company is currently earning money on consulting, and on the Trustedcoin plugin. A few other monetization ideas are in development. I have been contacted several times by VCs who wanted to invest in Electrum (the company). After several inquiries, I have decided not to follow that path, for the following reasons: - I believe that software quality is generally better when people write it for fun, than when they are getting paid for it. (it is not a question of competence, it has to do with long-term commitment to fix the things you do wrong.) - I would not be having fun if I was working for VCs. - I believe that the Silicon Valley model of development (grow fast, pay investors later or die) does not suit well Bitcoin. - As far as the company is concerned, I prefer organic growth. (maybe it has to do with your typical Bitcoiner's debt aversion syndrome). What's wrong with the Silicon Valley model applied to Bitcoin? Well, despite what you can read in various Bitcoin media, Bitcoin's growth is comparatively slow. (I mean, slower than companies like Ebay, Facebook, Amazon, etc.), because its userbase grows slower. I believe this is because people are generally more conservative with money and savings, than with signing up on a social network. As a result, the competition between Bitcoin companies is more a marathon than a sprint race. What Bitcoin needs is long-term commitment, and not companies that go bust when they are out of VC money. When it comes to using funds, there are 3 things where Electrum could benefit from money: development, servers, distribution. 1. Development: First, your observation that development is slower today is wrong. You are not seeing the whole picture; development effort is not proportional to the number of commits or visible features. Most of the Electrum software has been developed by myself and developers doing this on their free time. Other parts of the code have been developed by external companies, or paid developers. I believe paid development should be funnelled to the aspects of the code that are not handled well by developers working on their free time. 2. Servers: Currently there is no shortage of free servers. The new server code (ElectrumX by kyuupichian) has made it much less resource intensive to run an Electrum server. Paying servers have already been discussed. So far nobody has been running a paying server successfully, because of the competition of free servers. I think it will be possible to have paying servers once we have support for payment channels in the client. 3. Distribution & packaging. This is something where money can be useful, because it is typically not very exciting for developers working on their free time. This is the primary reason why the company was created. I hope to be able to hire someone this year, btw. I see, well good luck with the job, so far Electrum has been an amazing wallet, and I hope it keep being the same way. |