The formula for success

[Björn Balazs]

Moin all,

I would like to tease you a bit and release a bit more of the concept (I would 
actually rather like to explain in more detail in direct meetings...)

So: Why do I think that we can achieve something, that neither polypoly nor 
dozens of other similar initiatives yet achieved?

The answer to this needs a closer look at what I call the formula for success. 
While we can hopefully easily agree that most technology needed for a de-
centralized data storage has at least been demonstrated by polypoly or other 
initiatives, we also have to summarize that none of the initiatives managed to 
get socially relevant. 

We nevertheless will build on these technological concepts. They are doing the 
right stuff.

What I think we need to do differently refers to the formula of success:


  SUCCESS = N(User) * N(Data) * Q(Data)


SUCCESS refers to the relevance / worth of the total database of all users. 
The higher this value the more likely it will be that an initiative will be 
relevant.

N(User) is the total Number of participating users

N(Data) is the average number data points per user

Q(Data) is the average quality / worth of a data point


The basic questions hence are:
- How do we get users?
- How do we get data of good quality?

Now polypoly and other try it more or less this way: The marketing focusses on 
the big players on the market. The intention is, that users will get 
interested into the data these players have and will download their data and 
import it into whatever system.

Lets translate this approach into the formula for success:

N(User): You need to convince every user individually with this strategy. Each 
user needs to trust the initiative. The initial data importing experience is 
difficult and requires a lot of manual effort. My expectation is that a system 
like this will need a lot of luck to grow beyond the scene of the really 
interested. I expect a very high effort to acquire each user.

N(Data): The data pool is potentially huge seeing what data the big players 
gather. 

Q(Data): The quality of this data is not good. People do not trust all 
platforms and might not always tell the truth. Do you always use the right 
date of birth? Now what happens, when there are two different dates of birth 
in the database? The data needs cleaning up. And even worse. As the data 
relies on data dumps, users will have to regularly update their data dump to 
keep it up-to-data. And last but not least: As we rely on the data of others, 
they have any option to make our life of getting a good data set hard, if not 
even impossible e.g. by constantly changing the files they deliver.

So, I am convinced that a focus on a data-importer plan leads any project to a 
situation where you will end up with lots of not so good data from a few 
people. And hence stay irrelevant. No matter how good the technology developed 
actually is.

To change things on a large scale, we need a better plan. 

If you are interested how this plan could look like: Join one of our get-to-
know / introduction calls. 

Here is the link:

  https://nuudel.digitalcourage.de/kO71i3YCjx9Omiec

Everyone makes a difference, because - revealing just a tiny bit more - this 
can only be done as a true civil movement.

Have a good start into the week and see you in a call soon,
Björn
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 488 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/privacy-reloaded/attachments/20230717/0da736b5/attachment.sig>