Proposal: Integration With A Flagship Merchant

Publicly announcing the possibility of coordinating isn't the same thing as publicly committing to actually integrate.

If we aren't even able to get a timeline or get project specs without securing this funding, then how do we have any idea much it will cost?

I can understand a little about the catch-22 situation here, but is this how we want to tell future merchants how to secure funding from the DASH network - to privately discuss with an individual or team, and then that individual/team submits a proposal saying just trust us, we have something good? I'm not saying I don't trust you here, but it's something worth bringing up because there may be more things like this in the future.
 
Giving my token of trust to this one and will vote yes (don`t like the cat in the bag neither) as the team wants dash project to grow, I don`t think they would take a decision which would not bring positive aspects for all dash holders.
 
TroyDASH said:
Publicly announcing the possibility of coordinating isn't the same thing as publicly committing to actually integrate.

If we aren't even able to get a timeline or get project specs without securing this funding, then how do we have any idea much it will cost?

I can understand a little about the catch-22 situation here, but is this how we want to tell future merchants how to secure funding from the DASH network - to privately discuss with an individual or team, and then that individual/team submits a proposal saying just trust us, we have something good? I'm not saying I don't trust you here, but it's something worth bringing up because there may be more things like this in the future.
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I too agree...its a catch 22 and it is not an ideal situation. This is worth some further discussion because I'm sure this isn't the last time this is going to happen. Maybe there is a voted board of directors by the master node holders that is intrusted with viewing such proposals? I don't have the answer but this is something that needs addressing. Blindly trusting people is ok when we are this small...but in the future with more adoption, it will be a deal breaker. IMHO
 
bigrcanada said:
I too agree...its a catch 22 and it is not an ideal situation. This is worth some further discussion because I'm sure this isn't the last time this is going to happen. Maybe there is a voted board of directors by the master node holders that is intrusted with viewing such proposals? I don't have the answer but this is something that needs addressing. Blindly trusting people is ok when we are this small...but in the future with more adoption, it will be a deal breaker. IMHO
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Well there is an agreement with the potential partner in this case to integrate. We are trying to the best of our ability to help the Dash ecosystem grow. If the proposal were not to pass we can always go back to the merchant and say we were unable to secure funding.

Ideally we would try to have the public press releases come ahead of the budget proposals but that is not always possible. Our budget system works on a specific time cycle and negotiations and preparation for a press release dont always coincide. Also, budget planning is important and sometimes you have to propose some expenses ahead of time to have efficient allocation.

Also if the masternodes are not satisfied with the business development work over time then the team would lose credibility and could be fired.

To be honest this is a lot of work and we are forced to make decisions as other entities expect for Dash to be able to engage in standard business practices. So I guess we are all still learning the best way to adapt our model to this reality. In the end the masternodes can decide to either support this efforts or not and that in itself is a powerful differentiator to other networks.
 
Trust me...I understand the pickle our team is in. In the end there needs to be "some" trust in the team. That is why I'm voting Yes. Its in all our best interests. Thanks for the hard work team.
 
Will the code be open-source and usable by other merchants with potentially different setups? If so, I'll vote yes. If not, no way.
 
I'm just saying, it doesn't have to be a press release saying they are integrating dash, before the funding is secured. That would be unreasonable. All it needs to be is a proposal, like everybody else does when they want to secure funding. It's like people are used to their standard business practices where things are worked out behind closed doors instead of doing business directly with the network. I mean, I guess they have their reasons for not wanting it to be made known that they are even considering partnering with us, but whatever. DASH probably needs them more than they need us, so I guess they have leverage here.
 
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bigrcanada said:
Trust me...I understand the pickle our team is in. In the end there needs to be "some" trust in the team. That is why I'm voting Yes. Its in all our best interests. Thanks for the hard work team.
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Yes exactly. This ties into the whole can a fully-open/ decentralized organization compete with centralized ones.

In a commercial market that's post-bitcoin and saturated with centralized / decentralized alternatives, we need to be proactive to gain adoption and grow the Dash ecosystem by forming relationships with the best/largest services in the market we are targeting to encourage and help them to adopt Dash (especially before Evolution makes this easy for all parties).

When making agreements with centralized parties they will often have requirements where they don't want every last detail to be 'open source', ranging from info that's part of the agreement/setup process through to code that might exist within their proprietary platform through to releasing information at the right time / in the right stages as part of the promotions process to ensure maximum impact / uptake with information that is released.

It's therefore unrealistic to demand that every detail of every action/relationship/investment is exposed if we are serious about mainstream adoption. I think if information is permanently concealed from the wider community that is against the principles of an open-source decentralized organization like Dash and I would oppose it. But when it's a temporary measure to try to help a fledgling relationship incubate and grow and the proposer has a track record of delivery and something like just the business name / sector is omitted as in this case, I don't see this is a reason to turn down gaining new access to a base of over 1 million internet users as that should really be the kind of thing people in Dash at this stage are striving for every day, because they are in every other tech startup that is serious about what they are doing (but at the same time I understand why info being held is unusual and not something that's really happened before and some people might be against it).

I would go further and say we need to improve the governance system to codify this, for example have 'grey' projects that allowed certain information to be concealed for a limited time until the work/actions/relationships within the proposal are launched/formed/ready for public consumption. I've heard it voiced before and I'm not sure how that would be done and it would need to be sound with our open-source principles, but I think it would give us an advantage in the global payments market the same as it gives centralized companies who launch new products / form strategic relationships and to compete with them we need a way to do that to.

In this particular case, everything will be open-source, except for maybe some code within the merchant's PHP server behind their API to us, which is a small job we would fund but I don't expect we would gain/need access to the exact implementation.

I have already written ~20 pages of documentation for that over 3 revisions with the merchant and we've had calls / on-site meetings with them too, because we really want to setup a process that makes their service better and delivers more value to Dash users (which I strongly believe it will), and secondly this ties into Evolution because one of the main objectives is to make Dash friendly to Merchants and not just users and this is a 'real-world' case of a business with a large user base so this process is a great learning experience for us to learn their processes, needs and what they really want out of a payment solution that we can take to a much larger audience all in an open-source way.

I would urge all network operators to:

  1. Vote for this proposal even with the business name omitted temporarily (and as several people have said we need a way to be able to do this in future or it makes us less competitive)
  2. Offer to contribute independently or as part of our team - we have invested a few weeks in this already internally, if anyone in the community wants to help or feels synergy with this kind of initiative, email me [email protected] or another team member and help us, if you work within the group that has formed of like-minded people focused on growing Dash adoption, you can easily find out this kind of information, and it's very easy to do, you just need to come and contribute.
  3. Help us promote this when it is launched - posting on social media, youtube, explaining the value to people and spreading the word.
  4. Use the service when it's launched!!! success of this integration won't be the just the implementation, it will be use of the service and that means traffic / subscriptions. This one is something i think is really useful and already moved over my existing provider. When it comes out, please help us drive users, friends, colleagues, businesses to adopt this and pay in Dash. That helps both parties to be able to grow together

So please support this proposal, if we can get 5 of these in the next 12 months before Evolution, that means 5 million users see "Dash (Digital Cash)" as a payment option when they subscribe / buy and a lot of those users will come and check us out, and once Evolution is live, we don't have to be so proactive, the system itself will promote and make this easier.

This is exactly the kind of thing a young tech project like Dash aiming for a mainstream audience should be doing if we want to actually reach that audience, therefore I urge everyone to support this proposal.

Thank you for your support!
 
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...and I think voting yes will demonstrate that we can learn to vote for project managers rather than individual proposals
 
n00bkid said:
Will the code be open-source and usable by other merchants with potentially different setups? If so, I'll vote yes. If not, no way.
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It's integration. What you're asking may not even apply to the situation. The customer may not want to expose proprietary interfaces, to say it generically. You may as well demand free waffles for life, and that Donald Trump gives you all his money or you're not voting for him... There could well be privacy concerns, exclusivity concerns and NDAs involved. Demanding that the customer broach this is a great way to never have anyone deal with DASH ever again.

I had several lined up back in January, this is exactly the kind of clueless, demanding attitude than ran them off. Too many MN operators simply do not have a grasp on reality. Even with a majority, that kind of ignorance scares serious people; they know the definition of "danger to themselves and others." The crypto thing is already hard enough to explain to them. Even those that agree are very skeptical, and they don't understand that the "team" they'll be working with are not the same people doing the voting. When you behave like a bunch of fucking idiots, it scares them off. They're used to dealing with a force that is finely-tuned, all on the same page, and acting in concert to offer them exactly what they need. Not off-the wall demands for shit that makes no sense, and no sane person would ever agree to do... Why don't you open source your bank account? Oh, you refuse, well, screw you then! Who does business like that? Even if it's jsut a troll here and there, you gotta get the stupid under control.

I'll put it in left-fringe SJW terms; No dealer is going to sell to you if you can't keep your mouth shut.

There's no carrot you can dangle that will get businesses to involve themselves with people who are scary stupid and only double-down on their demands instead of admitting that they are wrong and don't understand. And then, admitting that you don't understand how to support them means they're not going to trust you...

Business: "I'm a business and I want to accept payments!"
DASH: "We have no idea how to do that!"
Business: "That's not very reassuring..."
DASH: "We demand that you expose your inner workings to the world!"
Business: "Uh, no...!"
DASH: "HOW DARE YOU! I'M OFFENDED!"
Business: [already ran, not walked, away]
DASH: "I demand that you give me free stuff!"
Stranger Walking By: "With whom are you speaking?"
DASH: "STOP RAPING ME!"
Everyone ever born: "Lolwut?"
DASH: [trigglypuff]
Everyone ever born: [to each other] "Lets make sure we never deal with these freaks again!"
DASH: [smears red pain on it's face and screams] How dare you hold us back! Patriarchy! Racism!
 
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I haven't voted on anything for a while, but I like what I see here. I have a few questions.

Substantial Merchant? As in, a chain retail establishment? Can you tell us the category of business? Convenience store? Restaurant? Electronics? Groceries? Is it a nerdy place that is already familiar with crypto? Or is this a new thing for them?

Groceries are a good target, but a tough nut to crack. They make a lot of money, but on very thin margins for most of their volume. In a good chunk, say, 40 to 60 percent of what they sell, cutting 2.5% fees out of it nearly doubles their profit. But, because of that narrow margin, they really, really do not like disruptions... They want to KNOW that it's going to go smoothly... One little fuckup bones them for a year.

"The merchant is a category-leading privacy-centric service with over one million users."

This leads me to believe that it's another online crypto-echo-chamber entity that won't make any real difference. Another VPN provider? Really? This doesn't help... You need to get outside the echo-chamber and do something real.
 
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was this proposal for protonmail? i had forgotten about it till i saw it bumped.
did we integrate with protonmail? i thought we did but i forgot, seems like there was an announcement but i'm drawing a blank.
if this was not for protonmail what was it for?
 
mastermined said:
was this proposal for protonmail? i had forgotten about it till i saw it bumped.
did we integrate with protonmail? i thought we did but i forgot, seems like there was an announcement but i'm drawing a blank.
if this was not for protonmail what was it for?
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protonmail and that "other" integration are still in process and being active developed !
no update as there is nothing to tell tbh , the usual little delays but everything is worked on :rolleyes:
 
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