Tonhub as an open source project does not put users first and foremost

There is such open and vehement hostility towards TonSafe from other wallets, in particular Tonhub, so it is worth pointing out a few things openly, even if for now just on this very limited non-promoted personal blog.

• I personally offered both Tonhub and Tonkeeper my services free of charge early in the year to assist them to recognize several UI and UX flaws in their wallets
• My offers of assistance were rejected, at worst very rudely and aggressively, and at best, in a very off-hand and disrespectful manner, they did not want any help
• I mused over what to do: if TON has a future it will be going viral, and the only way it can go viral, is with good wallet UI/UX and a safe experience for newbies
• I therefore mustered my own resources and brought together a project team to create a much better first user experience with TON
• Thus, TonSafe was born.

The response has been open hostility, such as unwarranted claims that TonSafe is a carbon copy of Tonhub, when this is clearly not the case. This issue has been addressed in more detail elsewhere. Tonhub API is open source and helpful and it is used for a number of important functions, it's security has been evaluated by TON Foundation, so it makes sense to use the API rather than construct one from scratch.

But why do I say Tonhub ("Whales") are not putting users rights and interests first?

There are several evidences of this. One, is too long to cover here, and is really a very nasty and dirty litany of appalling abuse of their community of miners over payments.

Others are less obvious: for example, if you look at the Tonhub repo, you'll see that they whitelist certain 'friendly addresses' including their own, to avoid the SPAM filter. This may be acceptable depending on which way you look at it, but when they first introduced their spam filter, they also censored the actual comments (messages) on the transactions, not just marking them as SPAM. That is a very paternalistic and centralized way of handling users, taking away from them all control.

They did however address this in a later update, but it just goes to show their attitude towards users is to treat them like sheep.

Others, include their dishonest implementation of a "Delete" button. You cannot delete a wallet from TON blockchain, and to let users think so, is deception — Tonkeeper is equally guilty of this, although Tonhub also by default have whatever balance is in the "deleted" wallet go to their own Whales account.

Such things won't go unnoticed by users in the longer term, and the track record of Whales will be besmirched by such cavalier attitude toward their users.

It would be safe to say that the "Support" offered by Whales, deliberately made difficult at best, usually very rude and condescending at best, is just because there is no way to get your app listed in the Stores if there is no Support contact.

So, they provided a contact, but that is really all it is. Steve Korshakov himself said to me many months ago (I'd have to dig up the record, but words to the effect of):

"WTF?! Support? This is free open source FFS. Why would we provide support?"

And yet, of course, there is a support button, emails that never get answered, and a group hidden away where little to know support is offered, and when it is mostly very rude and threatening: "If we receive further complaints we won't process payments!"

These are all reasons why TonSafe should receive good support from all those who truly care about building an ecosystem around TON and not an egosystem. But realistically I believe that is wishful thinking.

The mission still remains the same: bring in new users to TON, give them a good experience, protect them as much as possible from scams and losses, provide support and good educational materials, and don't think of profiting in the short term.

Where are our longer term benefits? Naturally it costs a lot of money to develop and maintain such projects, thus far we're already over $200k out of pocket. But our priorities on our roadmap are basically as follows:

1. Produce a great and stable bug free safe professional TON wallet
2. Provide a great user experience
3. Build and grow community toward a TonSafe ecosystem

Only then can we think of subsidizing the project with income from commissions, for example, TonSafe PRO membership, and a TonSafe Premium via in-app purchases.

For now all our focus, having achieve the first point above, and continuing to provide the second, is the third: growing the community. This is the next task for TonSafe.

As we do so, we could do what Pavel Durov does with Whatsapp: point out the flaws of the opposition and why Telegram is so much better. What do you think? Any ideas?

Should I continue to poke fun at the "opposition" and hope that some of it may trickle into TonSafe marketing? Or should I stop researching and ignore them completely?