From a purely idealistic standpoint, I would agree with you. However, I'm very disappointed with the organic growth STEEM and steemit has had since the summer. We are approaching 1 million accounts created, which is a very low number considering that the blockchain is as revolutionary as it is and provides opportunities to people that are really unheard of elsewhere. My expectations were at least 5 times the current numbers with or without HF20.
While I agree that steemit inc should not themselves run a referral program for the reasons that you stated, I think it is good if Dapps and alternative STEEM front-ends tries this out. While you may very well be right in how it may result in adverse selection of people and thus declining quality, you might also be wrong. Having some different branches of the STEEM ecosystem try out something new for the rest to observe and take notes is something that I am all for, even when I am not convinced 100% of the idea.
in this interview
Watch @ned @sneak and @pkattera talk about the future of Steemit at the Austin meetup - video by Ruwan Perera
@pkattera hinted (8:40) that the onboarding processing will be more automated soon. I think it's near completion and needs just a bit patience.
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Too bad they give us "soon" instead of clear timeframe.
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I think that's a pretty big deal. People tend very strongly towards inaction, and anything that can smooth it out and make people wait less or do less is a great change.
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I just heard about someone in Africa that spent since JAN waiting?
YES, this need to get fixed sooner than later and has been in waiting FAR TOO LONG, and I have made many posts about this fact as well, and will START TO DO SO AGAIN.
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Good Best Great and Woooooooooooow
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the question is... how many people are waiting for account activation. From my experience, a lot! This is what slows our growth.
I totally understand that. That's why I decided to also share my ideas for alternative approaches. Actually we can test multiple things at the same time.
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Less than 5 million. I wish we were at 10-20m.
This is exactly why I believe so strongly in STEEM and similar blockchain projects, the opportunity to have both benefit from decentralization that enables and allows open innovation which only occurs when many small agents are allowed to create what they think is the best solution, while at the same time having a "central" standard for data that is the blockchain which all apps relate to. But that's also why I felt the urge to write in support of them trying out this approach. While I agree with your points that the best on-boarding is those that are done organically by people being excited to share STEEM with others, I still see room for both. After all, PayPal used to literally pay their first new users and did aggressive marketing saying "sign up now and get 20$ worth of credits for free!" and look where they've gotten. Similarly, many successful StartUps that managed to ScaleUp, as well as list builders, did so by clever referral programs.
Let's both allow dapps to try different ways of obtaining new users while we at the core can foster and encourage what we see as a best-practice for onboarding.
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Scale-by-Pay is a VERY dangerous move.
Also it brings even more toxic traffic than referrals.
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I agreed with your comment
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Agreed, although I don't think referrals will help all that much. The number 1 gameplan atm should be to make the sign-up and onboarding as quick and good as possible..
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It is certainly true that while the existing bottle-neck exists, any referral program will be less effective. So yeah, that must be done first.
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completely agreed! however once this is solved referrals will definitely be the way forward.
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best comment @kevinwong
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Excuse me, but I don’t get the point you want to say. Maybe it’s lack of my understanding or maybe a vague and paradox in your comment. I tend to the former probability ( lack of my understanding) 😊
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