Synopsis:
- Grass is a network of people running individual nodes, which Companies and AI labs can use this to scrape the public web
- As soon as the network has enough unique IP addresses, we can launch
- An app is about to be released that will potentially multiply the number of users and IP addresses
- Your referrals don’t just bring us closer to the launch date, they multiply your earnings
- Apple users stay tuned - the app will be launching on iPhone next
You heard right. Grass will soon be available on mobile, meaning you can download and earn on your smartphone just like you do with the web extension. This is actually a bigger deal than it might seem, so we thought we’d take a few minutes to underscore its significance. We think the app will mark a big turning point in the evolution of Grass, ultimately bringing us closer than ever to the fateful day when the network - and rewards - finally go live.
To explain how, let’s go back a bit.
About six weeks ago, we filled you in on the process of bringing the network to launch.
To boil it down, we’re building a network for scraping AI data from the web, and it needs a certain number of IPs before it can go live. The second we get enough users, the whole thing goes live.
Sounds easy enough, but how are things going?
Well, if you look back to the day the roadmap was first published, we were celebrating 80,000 individual downloads and over 1,000,000 unique IP addresses. Not bad at all.
Today, however - November 29th, 2023 - things are looking even better. We’re currently sitting at 103,000 downloads and 1,450,000 unique IP addresses! For transparency’s sake, it’s worth noting that even we are pretty surprised people have piled in this fast. Things are moving at a great clip, but we’ve still got a road ahead of us before the finish line.
Now we have an upcoming catalyst that we think could kick this into hyperdrive, and that catalyst is the Android mobile app.
The Android Effect
The Android app will have a lot of things going for it. For one, it will feature new pages to show your earning statistics. It’ll be even easier to refer your friends, and you’ll be able to track the commission you make from referring them. These things are cool enough, but that can’t be it, right?
Let’s not kid ourselves. The mobile app has one massive feature that puts it above and beyond anything we’ve done before, that will completely change the math for growing the network. That feature is 24/7 UPTIME.
Just think: the web extension only works when your computer is turned on and connected to the internet. Close your laptop and the node shuts off, not earning anything until you log on again. The mobile app, on the other hand, will always be on in the background as long as your phone is on. That means that instead of earning four hours per day, or six hours per day, you will literally be stacking rewards at all times. Passively, effortlessly, forever.
On top of this, your phone and computer have different IP addresses. That means you can download Grass on both of them and literally double the amount you earn! It’s like running two nodes at once.
So earnings will obviously go up, but that’s not even the best part.
The Case for Network Growth
The single most important metric for deciding when the network launches is the number of concurrent active nodes. That refers to the number of unique IPs that a buyer can route their web traffic through at any given time. There could be 100,000 downloads, but only 20,000 of them will be using their computer at any moment - we’re spread out all over the world, and people have to sleep, you know.
Here’s the kicker: with 24/7 uptime, your phone will still be running a node while you sleep. That’s great for earning you points, but it’s even better for the network. If everyone who ever downloaded Grass was online right now, the number of active nodes would go from 20,000 to 100,000 instantaneously. And that is the kind of gasoline we need to pour on this fire.
Android Makes Referrals Go Nuclear
So we’re going to end on one note, and it’s the most important thing in this entire post.
The growth of the network depends on referrals. All of the downloads we’ve seen are because you told your friends, you spread the word to your family members, and you brought in over 100,000 people who want to earn rewards with the bandwidth they pay the internet company for every single month.
So we’ve got to keep the referrals coming in, and with that in mind, we’ve got great news. This is the perfect time to turn people on to Grass, because the Android app is going to make a big difference in your referral rewards.
The way the points system is set up, you earn a commission for everyone you refer. Not just a one time reward, but an ongoing stream of payments based on the uptime of the people to whom you spread the word.
That means that when the earnings go up for people you’ve referred, your earnings go up too. So what happens when Android goes live? The same way that 24/7 uptime increases the points you earn on your own, it will also increase earnings for your friends, giving you higher commission rewards just for having been the one who turned them on to Grass.
Pretty soon, we’ll be revamping the points system and adding a few new features, including a tiered system of rewards based on your number of referrals. We’ll explain that in an upcoming post, but suffice it to say that commissions will also be going up in direct proportion to the number of referrals you’ve made. Just our way of saying thanks and introducing some new incentives to drive this thing home.
We’re really thrilled with how fast the network has grown already, and we want to launch as soon as possible. As some of our earliest supporters, thanks for sticking with us from the beginning. We’ll be there before you know it, and the Android app is going to give us a huge boost, so get ready for that. And remember: when you go out to touch grass, consider inviting a friend to touch it with you ;)
