Yes, I have read such threads before. I can see that it makes people mad. I don't agree that that should or will stop everybody.
It's odd when "making a coin valuable" is an attack vector.
It shouldn't make people mad. For testnet to be useful, we need people to use it. For that to happen, the coins need to have some value to them.
Wait, why do we need to use testnet for anything other than testing?
TESTnet
IMHO they should run a cronjob somewhere that does whatever they need to do to reset testnet like every month or something.
For testnet to be useful, it should simulate activities that people do with bitcoin. Since the devs are terrified of making any changes that might break Bitcoin, it makes sense to have a testnet that is Bitcoin on a smaller scale to test on. The devs aren't willing to make ambitious changes to Bitcoin, and if something goes wrong, point out that it's in beta.
That's exactly the thing. At this point everything satoshi said has become sacred and no one is willing to change anything on bitcoin. Because of that it's so hard to test so many things now because so much money depends on it. People literally freak out at the mention of changing anything. So lets do it with testnet. Testnet coins need value so that people care enough to test it hard-core.
Following your logic people should test on Bitcoin because it actually has a lot of value, but then you say that because of it devs are afraid to break something. If testnet coins have value, then the devs will be afraid to break it too. IMO testnet should mimic Bitcoin, and people will have the incentive to test on it because its a valueless copycat of a system which actually holds A LOT of value.
