Topic: Alternatives to the new OzCoin 3% DGM Fee (Read 4403 times)

There's no need to keep this thread running. Its old news and we all moved on since a month ago.

That has been there as long as I can remember. A private limited corporation. That doesn't mean non-profit, doesn't mean hobby.

I understand where you are coming from; that based on a price comparison, Oczo is only middle of the pack. You can find cheaper pools. However, Ozco probably did a similar survey before setting their price, and decided on 3%. The reasons for that 3% or the previous 0% are really irrelevant to users. They gave plenty of notice of the fee, and seems to have been more than fair.

Your comments of them running at 0% or credit card companies offering teaser rates are irrelevant. If you feel so strongly against such promotions, you may chose not to partake.

understood, and I do regret a statement I made when ill and very tired under some stress and felt like I was being attacked wrongfully at 3am ish one morning
I don't claim to be anything but human
best wishes
Graeme

I know you did, I followed the whole thread (and other similar), just that it was one of those things that makes you go hmm...
Sometimes one of those little things is just enough to make up someone's mind.

I have no hard feelings against Graet, we've both had our moments here in this thread.  The fact of the matter is we are both mature individuals and realize we make mistakes and own up to them.

go back one page and see that I apologised, the OP has changed a lot too as has the topic - I'll make no judgements
you can make any you feel like

That was kinda low, I am starting to have second thoughts about all this...

dont make me come to your house! 

Those pools are not true zero fee pools. They keep transaction fees. This is like a 0.3% fee currently and after the reward halving happens (with tx fees also going up) will probably be like a 1% fee. Even though I run a real zero fee pool and think their advertisement is bullshit, I have to say that a small fee is not the end of the world if you like the pool.

I don't get the anger some people have with Graet or indeed anyone who might make a buck in the Bitcoin community. If everything was free we wouldn't need money, would we? Then what is the point of Bitcoin.

Do you get angry when you think about that he might not just break even but could get profits close to minimum wage for his and others' work on the pool?

If you go into a McDonald's and buy a hamburger do you get angry at the employees because they are paid so much money and inflate the price of your burger?

in June last year Ozcoin opened as a 2%fee pool, within 2 weeks it was obvious that being among a swarm of new pools we would need to drop the fee to get anywhere. The longer term miners might remember some of those pools, only a couple remain.I have some theories on this. but its not today's subject.

when we opened DGM with yourbtc.com frontend there was a default 2% donation setting - we missed when setting up, we were quickly told by users we were trying to "trick " them into donating, so we removed it - just cant win either way by the look.

I have always encouraged and thanked donors, unfortunately even after that post the donations maxed at 0.6% still well under 1.5% (the difference for those months added up)
I don't make a big thing of it but I regularly donate to different BTC projects that I get value from - to me its just a respect thing. I guess my biggest mistake was hoping the majority of miners on the pool showed the same sort of respect to me. once again thanks to those that do

when I made the post quoting 1.5% we had 1/2 as many servers and about 1/3 the hashrate, ASICs werent on the horizon etc etc etc, stuff changes fast in Bitcoinworld.  since I announced fees my costs have changed, AU host has informed me that my traffic costs for next month have gone up $250.

apart from that I have posted the same stuff over and over, no point repeating it again.

I know its no excuse,
but I announced fees,
got the flu,
got abusive emails,
got 4 hours sleep,
got ddossed
more abusive emails
found out the pool didnt cope with the ddos and wanted to pay out 4 x each on 9 blocks
had a stinking headache
got 4 hours sleep
tried to placate unpaid miners
did what I could to get problem resolved
tried to explain my reasoning for fees to miners
got 1/2 of the payout problem fixed
got 4 hours sleep
was awake when payout problem fixed to top up wallet so miners would get backpay asap
continued trying to explain to miners my reasoning for a fee
had 1/2 an interesting conversation with a guy in irc (unfortunately I was a bit busy with fixing my wife's business mobile to stop and pay full attention)
came to forum found FUD thread
had 5 hours sleep
woke up to find FUD thread tile and OP changed
still have the flu
In between I have helped my wife with her busy dog walking business, cared for our 2 children, fixed a mates PC, had one 4 card mining rig crash and not had time to troubleshoot, and more

so if I seem to have been a bit grumpy....
all I can do is apologise

Just one question, would you have been so angry if I had closed the pool and paid out miners, cloned the software and opened up the next day as a 3% fee pool?

That change may be an attempt by BTCMine to regain some of the hashrate they lost over the last 12 months. I think it's more like a last ditch effort to get new miners on board.

BTCMine used to be a significant proportion of the network hashrate but the 'c' value they use for their score method is too low so miners get too much variance. And the pool is still hoppable.

Fair enough response

Interestingly enough, I've actually watched one of the smaller pools http://btcmine.com/ go from fee based backwards to donation only.  That was my first pool getting into BTC, so it has some sentimental value to me

Oh and by the way, I love how they operate, check out this post: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1064554


Now... how come this didn't / wouldn't have worked for OzCoin (with the exception of making the default 3%)?  Did they just not consider it or think of this before going mandatory, or have they tried setting a default already and had it not work for them?  

Situations change, and larger pools need more management. Arsbitcoin failed. MtRed has had more downtime as they've increased in hashrate.

It's clear that Graet was at a point where he'd have to end Ozcoin as we know it, or he'd need help from all miners to make it a full time proposition. I don't think any pool op maintains a pool as a hobby. And would you want a hobbyist as a pool op? Honestly, would you mine somewhere that could disappear with your unpaid shares tomorrow?

I think you'll find that many smaller pools that are donation only now will become fee only pools in future as they obtain more hashrate and workload for the pool op increases. They might also not want to add a fee, and I'm sure Graet didn't want to either.

p2pool seems to be an alright pool if you don't mind a bit more variance than you've had at ozcoin/emc(it's pplns not dgm). It can also be 0% fee if you want..

Read his most recent post on the ozcoin thread.  There's a lot of money involved in running ozcoin.  I doubt he's making much profit.  However, it is a business, as he pointed out on his post.

M

I see where you're coming from too.  Finally someone that understands me heh.. Decent wording to convey my thoughts into something others could clearly underatand and make sense of was never one of my stronger attributes heh. 

Regarding his "salary" however, being that he opened the pool as zero fee, I had just assumed that this was his hobby and his time was his contribution to his hobby.  He might consider stating to his clients that this is no longer the case and he's now running a strictly "for profit" business here.  Or has he already and I'm just unaware?

OK, I think I see where you're coming from. But keep in mind "operating costs" don't include time. If you want someone available to manage a pool for at least 8 hours a day then you need to offer a salary on top of operating costs.

Regarding the freeloaders.. I was once among one of them, and I believe now that its likely the majority of them simply don't understand the importance of making voluntary contributions and the consequences should that not happen.

But yes, I do think going from 0% to 3% when it was clearly stated operating costs were 1.5% is a bit over the top in my opinion.  I would have preferred mandatory 1.5% to cover his costs and then open up the donations beyond that like he's doing now.  But its not my pool or decision to make I understand this

OK, so can you see the point of a fee then?

As someone who donates, would you be happy to know there are a bunch of freeloaders relying on your donation keeping the pool going and still reaping the benefits? Many of these freeloaders would contribute nothing to the pool other than shares through proxies.

Or are we just haggling about the percentage the fee should be?

I agree with you wholeheartedly.  Knowing what I've learned over the past days or so of the importance of donations I would have definitely been donating more all along.  I'm starting off on the right foot with eclipse by donating from the get-go and I encourage any of you reading this to consider donating as well.

Well, you do seem to think that he shouldn't be paid for his work, right? You're implying that his work on Ozcoin isn't worth being paid. You want to reduce your mining variance for free. Graet has put a huge amount of unpaid personal time into Ozcoin and you're saying it's not worth being paid for. I can see why he'd be pissed at you.

Try solo mining for a while and you'll see why many miners don't mind a small fee in exchange for variance reduction and charging a fee means that donators aren't subsiding miners like you. So you'll move to EMC? Great pool, and Inaba is an excellent pool op. But you moving there does bugger all to help him, and his fulltime miners will be subsidising you.

Put yourself in a pool operators shoes: if you had to spend a portion of every day running a pool, would you be happy working two jobs - one to feed your family and one for free? Would your wife and kids be happy never seeing you? Would you be confident you could handle any emergency any time?

I rolled back to oz momentarily when eclipse was down for those few hours but don't you worry I made sure you got your 3% in that round..  I'll set up my client to roll back to deepbit instead next time.

You know, for having such a wonderful reputation in the community you sure arent impressing me much on a personal level.

You might need some, you can buy it with the 2.5% you've been saving

http://www.amazon.com/Harold-Imports-2-Ounce-Size-Cream/dp/B001732FVG

evanesce why you have shares in current round?
I thought you had left
cheers

oh
I couldn't find you on this list
https://ozcoin.net/content/hall-fame-donations-bitcoin
maybe something is broken?

I've never mined with eclipse, but there are 2 huge factors of why Ozcoin rocks:

Stability - With multiple servers at physically different locations, it's hard to get to a point where I can't mine. My first 3 failover pools are Ozcoin backup servers, so it ensures I'm always mining. (of course, solo mining is failover #4  )

Integrity - From what I've seen, Graet has been nothing but upstanding and honest with his miners, especially if any problems arise (down servers, payout not working, and the recent ddos). This to me makes it worth it.

quite a few people disagree, some have been quite abusive some have just moved on.
one made a forum thread full of fud.
then started aplogising.

OH ROFL JUST LOOKED AT 1ST POST - CHANGED SIGNIFICANTLY WHILE A WAS ASLEEP

I was going to write a big long post but honestly cbf

no-one is required to mine at Ozcoin - as always miners that would like to mine at Ozcoin are welcome.

Inaba is a good guy - go mine on EMC if you don't like fees or one of the many other 0fee pools

I made a business decision about Ozcoins future - If this is the only time in your life you have been dissapointed by a businesses decision you are either very lucky or very young.

i'll concede the point about diff locations

eclipsemc used to have some EU servers, but now they're all located in US (all through wholesale internet).  so when wholesale internet messes up (which I think was probably the case this time), it takes the whole operation down

but, you could just use eclipsemc and have maxbtc (or visa versa) as backup server.  i mined on maxbtc for about a month straight & it probably had about 12hrs of downtime in that period

I know you don't want to hear this but...

Stability.

Since I joined OzCoin I haven't seen my miner directing any significant traffic at any of my backup pools. And this isn't because the servers haven't gone down. Rather, it's a mix of OzCoin's servers being in different locations (allowing for easy failover and no single point of failure) and the sysadmins being very proactive in their approach (pointing DNS entries at other servers when they go down, whether for maintenance or otherwise).

You can't discount the quality of service.

it isn't worth 3% because there are pools like eclipseMC and maxBTC that one can switch to, that don't have fees

what exactly does ozcoin have that makes it better than eclipsemc?   i'm honestly curious

and pls no comments about how it's down atm.   extended down time has happened... twice in the last two months?

My Apologies for labeling some miners "lazy".  Obviously we're a much smarter bunch than the average consumer.  However, I'm starting to run out of apologies heh...  

I do like how passionate we all are about this currency.  Positive or negative, this sort of passion should fuel this economy for years to come.

I can't see how anyone could be expected to run a 0% pool.  There's no such thing as a free lunch, the money HAS to come from somewhere.  You've got some nerve to refer the miners there as lazy that won't switch when you expect it to stay free.  As of right now, the average user there has 3.4g/h.  That hash power isn't free, and I doubt any of them appreciate you referring to them as lazy.  I'm sure they know what they are doing.

You're free to go where ever you want.  I personally am on p2poolright now  because I like the concept, and recently it's been coming ahead of 0% pools, let alone the 3% or 5% pools.  But ozcoin is my backup, and if p2pool goes south, I'll be back even with 3%.  3% is more than fair IMHO, and anyone who expects it be free needs to examine themselves and consider where their greedy selfish motives are coming from.

M

P.S.  I was on BTCGuild when they were free.   Then they changed to 5%.  They are STILL one of the biggest pools out there, ahead of Ozcoin.  These miners, myself included, know what we're doing, contrary to your opinion.

Clearly Oz is a ponzi.

I can understand that a fee increase hurts but it seems to be within reason.  If he had no fee then went (suddenly) to a 5% or 10% fee without warning it would feel like a bait and switch.   3% with notice is not unfair. 

I appreciate your post, and for sharing your knowledge of the situation. 

It's possible that just maybe my ways of thinking and views in general are different from the norm more than I had anticipated, but I feel it's appropriate to at least voice my opinion about the whole subject and get some nice intelligent responses in return (most of them were nice anyways heh).

Graet, I mean no disrespect to what you have done for the coin community, and I apologize if anything was taken that way.  I still strongly disagree with the 3% increase, though it appears that I may be the only one to date

I am very sorry that you feel the services OZCOIN is not worth 3%. We all wish you luck in the future on finding a pool you will be happy with.

However, insulting one of the most honest people that runs a pool (Graet) isnt the smartest thing to do. In fact he has paid out of his own pocket when its come to extra payouts because of database screw ups. Hell did you know that OZCOIN just paid out double on multiple blocks recently? Who eats this? Graet.

Ohh did you know that OZCOIN was hacked one time and lost all the coins in the wallet? Graet took it out of his own pocket to make sure people got paid. However, the community even donated to the pool to help offset the loss.

Its a lot of work to keep this pool going. Making sure things get fixed so it does'nt happen again. Graet has always looked out for everyone in the Bitcoin community even if they dont mine on his pool.

So before you start slinging false information and talk shit about how Graet is now moving over to a fee base to keep the pool open. Look at yourself and ask. "What have I done for bitcoin lately".

That is frankly your opinion that it is one of the best pools around.  So for you, it flies.. That's good, however not the case with me.  And the other comment above?  I wasn't telling anyone anything, merely a suggestion

Yes, because all of us that continue to mine at ozco.in are just too ignorant to get off our lazy asses and switch pools because you tell us to.


I don't see how being one of the best pools around isn't enough to warrant a 3% fee that not only covers the 1.5% running costs, but also extra costs for future developments.

Excellent post.  Thank you for helping me to understand.  

Given your post, the only point I have left to make... is that me, myself, personally... don't feel the 3% fee is justified, seeing as I recall someone saying they only needed about 1.5% (reference needed, i'm researching) to break even, when they were pointing out that donations were only averaging 0.6% or something (again, reference needed, i'll look around.. all I know is it was well under 3%).

All in all, Ozcoin is welcome to do whatever they wish, it's a free world, or so I hope.. lol

Edit: http://www.ozcoin.net/content/covering-costs has the statistics I was looking for:

Ok let me try again since sarcasm clearly doesnt reflect well on here.

Ozcoin ran at a low hashrate at 0% fee since only a month or two ago, they kept paying over and over out of their own pockets and with few recent double payouts they also did the same.

Now do you think they deserve to get paid for their work ? That is totally up to you to decide however claiming they are out of deliberately cheat you out of bitcoins and thus trying to tar them as scum is just psychotic and void of any reasoning.

Please provide different examples, creditcard rates and google products have nothing to do with the pool service and you know it.

A year at 0% fees is a great way to build up the nice hashrate Graet enjoys today to get his hefty sized 3% in upcoming fees, this way he can literally feed off the lazy people that don't bother to switch pools once this happens.

This happens all the time though, 0% interest first year on credit cards, then jack up to 21% with a 50$ annual fee, just one example....  How about google voice, free calls till "who knows when"... then what will the fees be?

Well obviously Graet is terrible at bait and switch tactics considering it took him over a year to work out this long con. 

I came up with that number so that ozcoin would have sustained a competitive advantage to the other major pools out there charging an average of 3% as I see it.  Obviously you don't agree, so why not move along yourself?

lol

2.5% would have still been a bait and switch tactic, but it would have been one I would have personally accepted.

yet you came into IRC and said 2.5% was acceptable but 3% is a bait and switch tactic

actually I'm finding this rather amusing, in our time we haven't had one of these threads
I guess we have reached the bigtime, our first DDOS and our first fud forum thread all in the same week

you know if I wanted to be dodgy I would have charged a fee and then told miners, or one of many other things.

Do go on, I'll have a sleep and come back for a laugh in the morning
Thanks
Graeme

I disagree about comparing apples to oranges.  It's more like granny smith apples to red delicious apples.  

For all intents and purposes the DGM parameter difference is minimal and does not offset a 3% fee that was recently introduced.

wow
Ozcoin miners know - we sent email today
people that read the forum have had warning for days

I wont repeat myself again, just finished
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1093306

hope you find a good pool

You should use the existing thread: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/annozcoin-to-introduce-fees-99300

Did you ever compared DGM parameters set on ozcoin and other dgm pools? Then you would realize that you compared apples to oranges.

3% fee is more than reasonable for a pool with such an server infrastructure and the fact DGM on ozcoin parameters decrease miners variance (which can be considered as a financial risk for the pool operator).

[Edit: I've edited this post to allow this thread to become a little more to the point I was originally trying to make]

I have recently become aware that OzCoin will start to charge a 3% DGM Fee.  While OzCoin is free to do anything they like, I wanted to suggest another mining pool that also offers DGM while they are still in the "donation stages". 

I personally felt I was bait and switched over at Oz, and while the merits of my reasoning are up for discussion, still that's how I felt.

Here's my recommended alternative to OzCoin DGM: https://eclipsemc.com

0% DGM fees there, let's bring their hashrate up...  https://eclipsemc.com/graphs/rate_last_hour.php

And please, please throw them a bone and donate a little, so they don't end up like OzCoin!