Quote from: mikeywith on August 23, 2023, 03:26:23 PM

Quote from: n0nce on August 23, 2023, 12:35:43 PM

I was suspicious due to various reasons, especially with the whole 12% APR stuff. That immediately sounds fishy to me, after experiencing sooo many 'staking platform' ponzis coming and going (exit scamming) over the years.

So if not for the 12% APR you wouldn't be suspicious? and what are the other various reasons you had? anything that doesn't apply to every single service that is currently running?

Regarding 'suspiciousness', it was probably mostly the staking thing with 12% returns which I found quite high.

As for the rest, you're right that the correct term would probably be 'wariness' / 'skepticism' / 'caution'. This was the main reason not to apply for a signature with them since I actually didn't have any concrete suspicion of malevolence.
Main reasons for this initial caution were (as written before): basically it being a new custodial service, that was paying a lot of money on advertising right off the bat. That seems risky and unsustainable for the starting phase of a business and I'm personally more comfortable with a service that has a long track record of being stable and reliable.
I've seen legitimately good sounding services come and go by the dozens over the years, so even without 'suspicious activity', there were some aspects I did not fully like and needed some time to see how / if the platform holds up.

Quote from: mikeywith on August 23, 2023, 03:26:23 PM

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I did not want to risk something like this happening and having my name attached to it.

See this is the point of disagreement here, you think your name is attached to the service you advertise as if you are holding yourself responsible for the outcome

Agree to disagree! Grin

For me, it is only logical that a company basically pays for my signature space in the hope of making more money through new customers clicking on it. Otherwise it makes no economic sense.

You might argue that someone can have a signature with a product they absolutely hate and wouldn't recommend anyone using, and you have every right to think so, it's just that I think differently..

I believe that people usually (e.g. on other forums) put stuff in signatures that they like and are associated with, like their system specs, a quote they like, links to their website and so on. So that is why I do think there is an inherent association between a forum user and their signature.

But it's possible that Bitcointalk is so used to using this space for advertisements that everyone knows signatures are not endorsements..

Quote from: mikeywith on August 23, 2023, 03:26:23 PM

I don't mind people disagreeing with what I say, in fact, I get that more often than not, but I had three clear points as follows:

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1- You didn't know it would turn out to be this.
2- You had no way of knowing.
3- You were not a part of the scam, but rather a victim.

You said exactly this:

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I don't fully agree, especially with points 1 and 2

So you are saying that

1- We did know it would turn out to be a scam.
2- We had ways of knowing.

I would say that:
1 - We did not know but could have been wary / cautious about a new service, especially when custodial, and even more so when starting to motivate people to leave their funds on the platform with unusually high returns.
2 - We had no way of knowing for certain but could have identified that it was at the time still early to recommend this service (see point 1) and it became even more risky to advertise for them once 'staking' started, due to repeating pattern with previous crypto staking experiences.

Quote from: LoyceV on August 23, 2023, 04:38:45 PM

Quote from: mikeywith on August 23, 2023, 03:26:23 PM

Advertising != endorsement.

That's the tricky part: even though I agree, many people don't think that way. Just like they think Merit is an endorsement.

Maybe it's because of what they've been used to from other forums, where signature space has no monetary value and people therefore basically only put stuff in there that they personally like and endorse?

Quote from: mikeywith on August 23, 2023, 06:57:48 PM

It makes no sense to say "I am better than you because I am advertising this service which I so happen not to guarantee".

If you're referring to me, that's not what I was trying to say, even though I see how it can be interpreted as such. I am sorry if that offended anyone.
The key takeaway was to show that other campaigns do exist on the forum (even though sometimes paying a bit less) for services that we have actually been using for years anyway (therefore eliminating the 'promoting-something-we-don't-actually-endorse' issue) such as used to be the case for me when I joined both ChipMixer and AgoraDesk.

For me, I only fully realized today that the majority here seems to agree that it is indeed usual to advertise something one might not actually use, recommend or endorse themselves, and that's simply something I need to accept and keep in mind when trusted members carry the signature of services I personally don't like, for instance.