founder of /cryptoart-school 🐇 creator of Gigatura / crypto since 2016 / artist, writer 
https://linktr.ee/stellabelle / opensource & cc0

I hear you, don’t worry! We always planned to work on it, we are just still trying to get off the ground. It’s early days. I’d rather give creators 30% of 1000 subscribers than 70% of 10. Hope you can bear with us while we navigate the early growth phase 🙏

At last the debate arrives at our hidden presuppositions!

@vijay believes that a 70% cashback parameter will promote more participation in AF than an e.g. 30% cashback parameter, and therefore will produce more revenue overall for *some* channels.

I believe the number of subscribers in my channel is a result of *my* hard work, not $ALFA games. I don't need the gamification - my game is delivering cold, hard content 👊

So this is why I'm annoyed that my work is being potentially discounted down 70%, and why @vijay is annoyed *his* work to build an active subscriber base is being discounted by me in turn.

Specifically, the 70% parameter would need to consistently bring in 2.6x more subscribers with the e.g. 30% parameter for @vijay's argument to hold. Who's correct?

I think he and I are on the same page here -- it needs to be a configurable parameter which each channel can play with and discover what works best for themselves.

head of product @superfluid @alfafrens @superboring

vijay.info

Husband, dad, dev. @dune.eth wizard.

⭐ DEGEN Tips FAQ: https://paragraph.xyz/@rjs/degen-tips-ultimate-faq-v8 ⭐

Not financial advice. Not a KOL.

when i first looked at alfafriends mechanics, it felt like there was only one real way to be a winner - get in early, farm alfa and stake in your own channel, cancel subs when you feel like you have enough alfa and then extract value - the whole system is built on needing constant new users to come in and as soon as that stops, the only people with +ve cash flow are the ones who farmed alfa early and cancelled all subs

then for stage 2 of value extraction (where we’re at currently), it just requires moving the staked alfa out your channel when your sub count diminishes and you have no active channels subbed to (so the alfa penalties no longer matter) and staking into another channel with subscribers until you’ve extracted wealth there 

to me this was always gonna go one way, it was just a matter of when the ponzi music stopped playing - until they change the % split between staking and direct subs, i can’t see this not being the ‘optimal’ strategy

[be firm with your beliefs, let your opinions change] | reformed lurker | fledgling web dev | /pokemon ens enjoyer | seemore.tv/free/fc/whimsicott.eth

I'd say zero sum, rather than ponzi, but yeah -- the cashback parameters guarantees what you describe. But they are working on making it configurable, then it'll become a viable alternative to e.g HyperSub

but isn’t a ponzi scheme by nature zero sum? new blood pays old blood, with the only difference in this situation being technically new blood could ‘p2w’ their alfa allocation by investing more into subs - the alfa earning mechanics only really worked while inflow > outflow, which makes it pretty much the same as a memetoken with ‘utility’ in my eyes

yeah i did see about the configuration thing - unfortunately i think it may be one of those things where it’s a little too late though, like no man sky updates post release 🥲 would love to be proved otherwise tho!

realising i’m coming across as an AF hater - i hate to come across so negatively talking about projects within the space but i was always scared of how AF was going to achieve sustainability and now it feels like the answer was what i was expecting - ‘it wasn’t going to’

i mean if we're talking semantics, then yeah 🥲 but i was referring to ponzi as we talk about it colloquially - basically using it to describe the fact that cash inflow must be equal or greater than cash outflow for the structure to stay upright - i understand that by that definition, everything in the world can be defined as a ponzi but the difference is people don't buy consumer goods as speculative investments with no real use case, monetary value or purpose (referring to $ALFA - if $ALFA was tradeable, i would be less inclined to call it a ponzi)

agree mechanics were published since day 1 and i'm not debating on the fact it wasn't transparent, just that it was an unsustainable model long term

there are many ponzis in the world but i don't think the whole world is, i'm not that sceptical 😭 

would definitely say that businesses that provide products that generate revenue from sales can't possibly be zero sum since everybody from the business to the consumer and everywhere in between benefits

By this definition the whole world is a ponzi, which you are welcome to believe if you like 😄  A ponzi scheme is a *fraud* where you are told one thing (that your deposits will be invested and returns from those ventures will be used to pay you dividends) and another thing happens in practice that is materially different in risk structure (they take money from newcomers and pay that to you). That's not happening in AF - the exact mechanics have been published since almost day 1, it's all onchain, the code is there, the event logs can be studied, etc.