[Come on guys!] Rant on underfunding of viable projects

[Kluge]

Dwarf Fortress, a very niche, free video game, is able to pay its devs enough for them to make it their full-time jobs without corporate subsidies/dev-leasing. They consistently raise $thousands each month, even though it sometimes takes over a year to release an update. They've been at it for far longer than Bitcoin's been out and enable a ~$0 economy.

[FrozenBit]

Dwarf Fortress, a very niche, free video game, is able to pay its devs enough for them to make it their full-time jobs without corporate subsidies/dev-leasing. They consistently raise $thousands each month, even though it sometimes takes over a year to release an update. They've been at it for far longer than Bitcoin's been out and enable a ~$0 economy.

 That's a story based on a different enviornment. They still have to come up with some money to pay their servers, coders, etc. So do companies like trezor, armory, dark wallet etc.

[ABitNut]

Dwarf Fortress, a very niche, free video game, is able to pay its devs enough for them to make it their full-time jobs without corporate subsidies/dev-leasing. They consistently raise $thousands each month, even though it sometimes takes over a year to release an update. They've been at it for far longer than Bitcoin's been out and enable a ~$0 economy.

Wow, I forgot all about Dwarf Fortress... Thanks for reminding me.... Hours will be wasted once again

[franky1]

talking about gaming..

dragons tales is a bitcoin only game, they are making profits that are not done via donating, but by players paying to play for the mini-games inside the main game. they even have faucets as a give-back to the community and to help noobs get some satoshi dust to play with.

so some great projects can work and generate revenue fairly without IPO's or money grabs before anything is even gets coded.

[evanito]

Im glad to see someone else speaking out for underfunding of some extremely promising campaigns.

[CoinHoarder]

I would like to hear some project managers and core devs. opinions on this issue.

 This is something more than just dark-wallet. This issue affects everything from core projects, qt, armory, trezor, etc.

 
 Take that into account.

The reason is greed. No one wants to spend precious Bitcoins. The people that offer equity in their projects are raising millions. Those that don't, or their project is not apparently/directly possible to be monetized, are suffering to raise money.

It's not really that shocking to me.. It just makes sense. If you have a good idea that requires a lot of development you pretty much have to monetize it and offer equity to make it a reality.

That why I don't get all the hate for the newer ALT coins/app coins. You gotta do what you gotta do to get a good complicated idea developed. In a perfect world they would all use Bitcoin, but this is not a perfect world and they would never raise enough money. People don't generally like to work for free.

[franky1]

The reason is greed. No one wants to spend precious Bitcoins. The people that offer equity in their projects are raising millions. Those that don't, or their project is not apparently/directly possible to be monetized, are suffering to raise money.

It's not really that shocking to me.. It just makes sense. If you have a good idea that requires a lot of development you pretty much have to monetize it and offer equity to make it a reality.

That why I don't get all the hate for the newer ALT coins/app coins. You gotta do what you gotta do to get a good complicated idea developed. In a perfect world they would all use Bitcoin, but this is not a perfect world and they would never raise enough money. People don't generally like to work for free.

your right its greed. but to explain the hate for newer ALT coins is very simple.. their development is not complicated, doesnt require a team and it is even automated due to a couple websites that script out your coin for you with just a couple selection buttons..

its a script kiddies wet dream, definitely not worth investing into.

you can usually spot the scammy ones by having two aliases. use one to send the dev team an idea that could be incorporated into their plan, and use another alias to talk about finances.. if they ignore the idea completely and dont even respond, yet are really quick to respond to a money grab, you can instantly see their motives and know which is more important priority for them (i done this many times to test businesses)

[CoinHoarder]

The reason is greed. No one wants to spend precious Bitcoins. The people that offer equity in their projects are raising millions. Those that don't, or their project is not apparently/directly possible to be monetized, are suffering to raise money.

It's not really that shocking to me.. It just makes sense. If you have a good idea that requires a lot of development you pretty much have to monetize it and offer equity to make it a reality.

That why I don't get all the hate for the newer ALT coins/app coins. You gotta do what you gotta do to get a good complicated idea developed. In a perfect world they would all use Bitcoin, but this is not a perfect world and they would never raise enough money. People don't generally like to work for free.

your right its greed. but to explain the hate for newer ALT coins is very simple.. their development is not complicated, doesnt require a team and it is even automated due to a couple websites that script out your coin for you with just a couple selection buttons..

its a script kiddies wet dream, definitely not worth investing into.

you can usually spot the scammy ones by having two aliases. use one to send the dev team an idea that could be incorporated into their plan, and use another alias to talk about finances.. if they ignore the idea completely and dont even respond, yet are really quick to respond to a money grab, you can instantly see their motives and know which is more important priority for them (i done this many times to test businesses)

You are referring to scam coins, I am referring to Alt coins. There is a big difference and people don't seem to be able to tell the difference. They lump them all together as all being scam coins.

[TheAccountant]

There are mechanisms for getting funding that some of these projects should consider (e.g., kickstarted, angel list).  I'm an investor on angel list and the only bitcoin related company to come through there recently was crowdcurity (yes, I invested).

The right way to get funding involves building a good team, formalizing the organization, having a solid development path, and demonstrated tech.  If they have this, then it is all about networking.  Build a good kickstarted campaign, or find a solid syndicate leader on angel list and good projects will become funded tech companies.

[FrozenBit]

There are mechanisms for getting funding that some of these projects should consider (e.g., kickstarted, angel list).  I'm an investor on angel list and the only bitcoin related company to come through there recently was crowdcurity (yes, I invested).

The right way to get funding involves building a good team, formalizing the organization, having a solid development path, and demonstrated tech.  If they have this, then it is all about networking.  Build a good kickstarted campaign, or find a solid syndicate leader on angel list and good projects will become funded tech companies.

 Those are good platforms, but alot of these bitcoin companies are niche. I often see alot of these (pitbull) go without ever getting any funding.

[iluvpie60]

We can't even fund Core or Armory development at a sustainable level. -But we're always talking about funding NEW projects by unknowns. Almost every project which is able to acquire needed funding which doesn't snag corporate or angel funding is hyped so much with 200+ page threads over a couple months' time, "boring" fundamental stuff is completely ignored. Corporate/Angel funding really muddies the waters, too. For example - when I fund Armory, am I funding development or am I funding Trace? -and why should I donate to Core development when developers are being picked up by corporations? Those points don't seem too relevant though, given this wasn't always the case for either and they took "centralized" funding because we couldn't put out enough. -And Core has a separate problem, where donation options aren't really given to user.

I'm not sure if this community just doesn't have the capacity to sustainably fund fundamental development or if projects have just been going about it the wrong way.

this community is too divided to come to a full conclusion on almost anything. the dogecoin community gets behind stuff all the time and they have fun with their stuff. i sit time we make a bitcoin meme honestly? why not? people likes memes, and people buy doge and cate merchandise.

someone might be able to come up with a clever enough meme with bitcoin that most people will use it who see it.

[Kluge]

Dwarf Fortress, a very niche, free video game, is able to pay its devs enough for them to make it their full-time jobs without corporate subsidies/dev-leasing. They consistently raise $thousands each month, even though it sometimes takes over a year to release an update. They've been at it for far longer than Bitcoin's been out and enable a ~$0 economy.

 That's a story based on a different enviornment. They still have to come up with some money to pay their servers, coders, etc. So do companies like trezor, armory, dark wallet etc.

Oops. I was making a counter-point to an argument I was having with imaginary people. Invisible Bill said major projects can't rely on user donations because there's no funding consistency. A dev will likely not leave his current post to take the new project on full-time if it's uncertain whether or not he'll be able to support his family. DF proves a widely-used product can consistently raise enough through user donations to employ multiple people even though they don't frequently update and enable no commerce.

[FrozenBit]

Dwarf Fortress, a very niche, free video game, is able to pay its devs enough for them to make it their full-time jobs without corporate subsidies/dev-leasing. They consistently raise $thousands each month, even though it sometimes takes over a year to release an update. They've been at it for far longer than Bitcoin's been out and enable a ~$0 economy.

 That's a story based on a different enviornment. They still have to come up with some money to pay their servers, coders, etc. So do companies like trezor, armory, dark wallet etc.

Oops. I was making a counter-point to an argument I was having with imaginary people. Invisible Bill said major projects can't rely on user donations because there's no funding consistency. A dev will likely not leave his current post to take the new project on full-time if it's uncertain whether or not he'll be able to support his family. DF proves a widely-used product can consistently raise enough through user donations to employ multiple people even though they don't frequently update and enable no commerce.

 Indeed, that's because the community supports their game. The same isn't true for bitcoin, and bitcoin projects. Alot of projects aren't receiving any support from the community. I do think something needs to be done about awareness and simple community support.

 My goal here is just to maybe promote a more responsive community.

[franky1]

well how about offer idea's on methods to fund them.. you know provide actual solutions, after all when community members offer you idea's of services that would help, you ignore and continue with your agenda. so i take it that you have lots of soltions to a problem that you think exists..

or

should i mention a few solutions

[FrozenBit]

well how about offer idea's on methods to fund them.. you know provide actual solutions, after all when community members offer you idea's of services that would help, you ignore and continue with your agenda. so i take it that you have lots of soltions to a problem that you think exists..

or

should i mention a few solutions

 If you think you have a solution; by all means.

[franky1]

the botcoin core dev team.

1) bitcoin dev-team for instance should add a donation address maker to a "suggestion box" (think bounties)
eg
so if i wanted the dev team to simply add a imagebox to the background of the GUI that pointed to a file in the app path(import GUI skins). id make the suggestion and donate however much i feel is needed to cover their time in doing so (its only a 2 minute job)

thus they get paid for adding features. and if more than one person wants the feature they can donate too, meaning the more thats been donated the faster the team would be incentivized to add the feature.

2) scrutinizing businesses to ensure the funds that would go to businesses is utilized properly.. as there is no point handing out alot of bitcoins to many projects that simply come up with a website and a basic wallet, that can be replicated or already is a replicant. that way funds can be hoarded for the truly useful and inspirational projects that make things easier for 'joe public'

3) offering advise on how businesses can make their service better, its not always about just offering them funds, advise is just as useful.

4) donations do not work for business services. if the business cannot become self financially sufficient, then its not likely to be around in 5 years.
after all facebook is a free service and gets paid by other businesses via adverts. not by demanding donations or charging fee's per user. this is why facebook got so famous as it was free in comparison to people making international call's and texts to friends and family that were not nearby.

5) to explain points 1 and 4 better. one time efforts like adding a single features will work for donation/bounties. but for recurring and ongoing business costs, donations and bounties do not work

6) in short businesses need to fund other long term services which will benefit them both. EG bitpay hiring the bitcoin-dev coder jgarzik, foundation paying Gavin Andressen. etc. this can also be done via paid advertising, not just hiring staff.

7) what bitcoin community also needs is a business model such as 'google ads' where businesses design their adverts and upload them to a service and put some bitcoin in to cover X views. then other websites that have adverts on this page using the 'bitcoin ad service' get paid