An Objective look at Dlive's exit

in dlive •  6 years ago  (edited)
I've had the whole night really to process the event that transpired yesterday. Without a doubt, when I first reaction to this whole thing was emotional, being someone who has invested so much time and energy to help the blockchain and it's ecosystems. But, in the interest of setting the record straight, putting everything on the table as they say. I'm going to write everything on a post and let the immutable feature of a blockchain work it's permanence.




Yes, Steem has problems


We know that, and I'm not one to defend it blindly. I know that token distribution is not optimal, I know that the best content is not pushed to the top, I know that account creation is painfully slow, I know all of it. Anyone who has ever followed this blog knows that I've been discussing these issues for a long time and that our project @helpie has been my response to it.

But at the same time, I think we need to be fair when we have these conversations. For one, I don't know of any blockchain that is perfect, I don't know of any token distribution that solved "inequality" and mind you that the word itself is tinged with socialist/communist rhetoric which to me signals it's time to pull the hand brake lever.

Without diving to heavily on this particular aspect of "the problem", let's say that ideally a healthy economy should have equality of opportunity, but never and I do mean never, equality of outcome.

Now, regarding some of the specifics as to why the STEEM blockchain was not ideal for Dlive. I think @taskmaster4450's posts on this is spot on, and a must read for those who want to dive in detail.

Dlive stage entrance


Even though I mentioned this in my comment already, I think it's worth mentioning again. When this project first reared it's head, it did so out of the blue. As a matter of fact, I distinctly remember @netuoso being very skeptical about it, as the idea of investing that much time and resources in a gamble sounded quite strange.



However, it was not until @ned delegated some real power to @dlive that the platform itself, took off. This event happened at the beginning of this year, and that month is very important to keep in mind as you continue reading.

Now, let's apply some logic to this, and just so that I've covered any doubts that someone might have, let me preface my opinion with one detail. I may not be a developer myself, but having worked with @therealwolf over the past couple of months, and understanding the gargantuan task of developing software for a blockchain, I have a good sense of cost in the way of man hour resources these days. But, let's continue.

When @dlive launched, meaning when it started to work, only a few days had gone by since their initial announcement. The post of course can be looked up and these dates confirmed. We could effectively say that a ton of groundwork had been done before the @anonsteem account (funny detail), made it's entrance to the left of the stage.

One would think that the @dlive team just have had already a way to secure funding for such a project. After all, it would take more than a few STEEM tokens to pay for such a platform. Without even mentioning that up until yesterday, they had never powered down to pay for their costly servers. A fact that I personally appreciated, even though right now I feel quite naive. This to me further proves that funding at least the core of it, was somewhat secure for the insider team. Unless somebody can show me developers of this caliber that believe in such levels of idealistic altruism.

The Warning signs we missed


And this to me is the only silver lining here. Because as individuals who understand the core principles behind decentralization, somehow we missed all the red flags, almost all of them. Maybe we got too caught up with the letter "d" at the beginning of the name, maybe.

As I previously pointed out the @dlive model was edificed with minimal interactions with the STEEM blockchain. For example, no custom jsons scripts were employed that I know of, with custom memos, to store anything pertaining the @dlive ecosystem. They had and have, their own account following, their own chat, etc, all of it of course centralized.

On top of all that, they were so independent from the STEEM blockchain itself, that I was mesmerized with the fact that when the STEEM blockchain halted, @dlive continued to work as if that had nothing to do with their app. Please take a second to think about that.

So we could conclude that this was done 100% by design and not happenstance. And let's not forget their system for storing video files, again, centralized. They host all videos on their servers, and even announced they would be taking them to LINO. On that note, if you are one of those steemians who is uninterested on participating of LINO, there is a very useful post by @patrickulrich on howto liberate your content from them.

But, let's recap the red flags: Centralized Storage, Centralized Account Ledger (running in parallel to steem), Centralized Communication (streaming and internal chat).

All this without even touching on the fact that this whole project was closed source. Again, something we must ask ourselves why we ignored nonchalantly.

Undisclosed Relationships


All this and yes, there is more. As it turns out, @wilsonwei777 the CEO of LINO is @wa7 (Kent)'s best friend. They went to college together and as you might guess studied the same field. This information is easily verifiable with some basic google knowledge.

Now, as we can clearly see on this very blockchain @wilsonwei777 was heavily involved in the development on @dlive. Proof can be found on his very blog, where he was testing the streaming features as the project was about to get it's legs. And, that's not all, other members of LINO were also part of @dlive such as @cqf and @zac2116.

If you ask @wa7 about this, he might tell you that he just needed some help to get @dlive off the ground, and that would be a valid thing to say. It would, until you find pictures of the founding members of LINO like this one:



Guess who?

LINO and it's funding


It took but a few minutes to find information about this blockchain. As it turns out, it's been in the news for a while, quite a while. As a matter of fact, one of the articles that really jumps to my eyes is this one from coindesk where it clearly shows they managed to raise 20 million dollars for their blockchain project.

The date of this article, January 2018. Remember when I mentioned that the month where @dlive received it's delegation was relevant? Yes, same month. But, let's continue.

Since the funding was somewhat secured, it was time for the @dlive team to change it's focus, to start making some noise if you will, and put the word out there: LINO is coming.



They changed their mind, you say?


I thought about that too. I thought that maybe, I was being too harsh, that maybe my gut instincts where off, I'm just human after all. But, since this is the way my brain operates I kept on digging, I kept on talking to people, to friends, to trusted allies.

Right about when I was ready to say, "Well, maybe, I'm not being fair", this little piece of information made it to my screen. Please note the outlined parts.




The date of this Medium Article, March. This means that only three months after receiving the generous delegation from @ned, @dlive/LINO (they are one in the same) felt completely comfortable with stating officially on their medium account that the experiments on steem were going quite well.

I find it fascinating that they did not list any of the problems STEEM has on that medium article, and because I don't want to sound cynical, I'll be blunt. all those problems existed back then too, right?

Delegation Abuse and User Base Farming


You could say this is mainly my biggest problem with the whole thing. I remember many months ago asking @smooth if there were some guidelines regarding @steemit's delegation practices. I don't blame @smooth for not responding to me, since I'm sure he has no clue if I am of any relevance, but the question however, is relevant, and it's relevant to absolutely everyone who has invested time and money on this place.

From my understanding, my basic understanding that is, the delegations that @steemit inc has "handed" out are there solely for the purpose of enriching STEEM's ecosystem. In other words, any project that is not for STEEM, and exclusively so even, is probably not a project @steemit would be interested in supporting and understandably so.

To those who don't understand how this works, because there are those who have left some uninformed comments on that @dlive post. The "money" sort of speak, comes from us, from you, from me, from anyone who has bought STEEM tokens. If no one buys a token, if the market does not have buyers, you could hold millions in your wallet, and it would be worth the same as numbers on an excel sheet. In other words, this whole idea that nothing was lost is so uninformed it almost pains me.

But on top of that, to me the one thing we can't fail to observe is how this bait and switch tactic was designed to literally extirpate the users from @dlive onto the LINO blockchain. A lung transplant done with a spoon and a bottle of vodka. An untested, unused blockchain with no market value, at least at the moment of me writing this.

Now, this blockchain could be amazing, it ver well could be, but as I've said before. Technology is important, but users are just as important. Having the fastest most secure blockchain in the world would mean nothing if you had the same three people posting their fortnite videos every day. The obvious conclusion is that they intended to take steemians there, and "bribe" them with 100 tokens.

For their convenience however, they are transplanting their content onto LINO. As you read that last bit, think about the concept of decentralization and try to contort logically, but please, don't hurt yourself.

Insult to Injury


Again, in very much their style @dlive decides to rebrand. They need a new logo, a new look, so they went back to the user base that has given them so much, and got even more.

When the contest was announced, it was done so with some interesting rules. I believe it's important we don't dismiss the little details.




Now, I'm also not a designer by trade, but I so happen to live with one. I remember having plenty of conversations regarding this very contest, because from a designer standpoint it made absolutely no sense. Why ninja? Why yellow? Why now?

Exploring those questions is somewhat subjective, but it might be enough to say that the way branding works, at least normally, is that you try to have elements of resemblance to the overall market you are operating in. In other words, a STEEM app, looking STEEMish (made up word, I know), makes a lot of sense.

The obvious intent to detach itself from the STEEM brand by incorporating incompatible colors(purple is the opposite to yellow), seems too intentional, it cannot be just a coincidence.

On top of that, some prizes being given away in the form of fiat, also tell a story, but I need not to continue to beat on this horse.

Conclusion


As a small entrepreneur I guess I have to give it to LINO, in the sense that they played their cards right, and as far as I know got away with everything. However, as a steemian, I'm very disappointed and to a point disgusted, if I'm to be honest.

But there is a huge lesson for us here, and at least we can say that is the silver lining of this whole debacle. The community should require more transparency from now on. I don't think It's unreasonable to ask for a clear understanding of how the "backdoor deals" work, and how a delegated STAKE is supposed to be used.

A minimum set of rules should exist, as the responsibility of millions of dollars cannot fall on the decision of one person's bias. I say this respectfully but also firmly, because I want what's best for STEEM and if I have to pick between being too careful or speaking my truth, I pick the latter.

As I was getting ready to publish this post, I saw this come across my feed written by @tcpolymath. This tells me I'm not alone on these sentiments, and that requesting some clarifications is nothing anyone should feel shocked about.

At any rate, I don't want anyone to leave this post thinking that I'm signaling the end of the titanic's journey, not even close. To me this whole experience, as bitter as it may be is a huge lesson for all of us. And believe or not, at least about that, I'm grateful.

Steem on my friends.


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The naivety drools from this post. DLive was SF based. The valley works faster generally.

I’m sorry, @meno but you’re not going to tell me that if you could validate your concept and possibly grow a starter base already for a year, rather than having to wait until [unknown] you wouldn’t have done it. That’s BS.

The announcement post was timed, yes. It’s always pitch season in SF. That they used anonsteem for account creation? Are you blaming a team for doing their homework and circumventing a weakness in the system?

I was mesmerized with the fact that when the STEEM blockchain halted, @dlive continued to work as if that had nothing to do with their app. Please take a second to think about that.

Yes, please think a second about that. Their system was designed to operate almost independently and have an almost safe failover. Every developer should work that way, that’s a benchmark right there. That oozed only good architecture. Especially given that steem doesn’t host video.

While it seems they acted with a vision, a vision which doesn’t suit Steem but yet a vision which shows they were an ultra-focused team, we can opt for two things:

  1. Admire their vision and target
  2. Choose to see malice in it as if the Steem community is the holy grail

It is known that stealth never works well and from the response they certainly have learned from that.

But the only stone we can truly throw them I see is specwork, a much loathed upon method. Yet, specwork only works if there’s a community rabid enough to also contribute to said contest. And, of course, that they didn’t reject rewards for their final post.

All the rest is kneejerk butthurt. Butthurt for not being kneeled for. I’ve never used DLive but I've always admired their focus and what they contributed to the platform all without taking one percent beneficiary. That they always were targeted and seemed professional in their dev is nothing I will hold agains themselves. That they validated their concept and an initial userbase on Steem... well done, guys. That will most definitely contribute to your funding/valuation - if you still need any.

There’s too much hate being spewed for never guaranteed upvotes lost.

I won’t follow them, I thank them for the distribution they have done, and for showing what can be done on the Steem blockchain. Hopefully the 500lbs gorilla leaving results not only in the vacuum being filled by multiple alternative solutions but also in more innovation. This is healthy for the steem ecosystem and for the community. I Doubt that the community will resist the call of the next specwork.

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

I understand your words my friend, and because I'm well aware of the temptation that such situation would represent for absolutely any mortal, sincerely understand exactly what you mean with your first lines.

However, in a world of hypotheticals, I could be a super early adopter of BTC that acts like a bully too and that would not change a single fact regarding the events transpired.

All this to say, point taken. And that I appreciate your need to bring some balance to the emotionally charged conversation and the archetypal pitchforking everyone is partaking of. You are what I would call a chaotic neutral character.

I won't follow them either, I also expressed my gratitude for the lesson learnt, but unlike you and I do mean this with much respect, having spent fiat on this platform I'm invested in more ways than most of its users. But again, point taken...

Thanks for your understanding.

As someone who follows startups closely, they did the right thing. Despite my interest in startups, and thus also the Valley, that doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with the common Valley MO.

But given common practices, I can not fault them for what they did and investors will be very tempted by their ultra sharp focus and super validated already product. That is a reality.

I remember telling @acidyo about their first post (I accidentally spotted it when it was below $3) and I told him the timing was interesting as the announcement post could serve as “concept validation” for the then upcoming Y Combinator pitch season. The fact that they were razor sharp in focus and had a vision they pursued IMHO should be admired.

They have contributed to the ecosystem. “Thanks for the fish and sorry that the door hit you in the back on the way out but you deserved that”, comes to mind. Even if solely for a specwork contest, irrespectively of timing even. Other than that I hope the grass is indeed greener for them on the other side. But we all know how that, and stealth, often goes and LINO will also be tested in all its pores by maximizers too and it will make them cringe too.

Yet, investors (in teams - not tokens) will value their work. Big time.

For us, who are vested in this platform, the side to see should be: thanks for leaving after showing us, and the world, what can be done. Hopefully the successor candidates have learned from their rather solid platform and will build on that. Both build and innovate.

This is positive for $TEEM. It paves the way for innovative competition rather than having a niche pretty much locked out already. Steem is an open ecosystem and I myself am happy they are gone. The 500lbs half-hearted gorilla left the house. Midterm that’s absolutely positive for our ecosystem. We can only celebrate that.

PS: Please make no calls about which degree people may be vested in the platform. It is entirely possible that I could be more vested than you but I understand the feeling. And we better brace ourselves for more of the same, especially with the expected low cost for SMT creation.

Great discussion @fknmayhem and @meno, you have represented both sides of my thinking on the matter better than I could have put it so there goes the need for me to put that together in a post!

Fkn I'm kinda surprised you're the only one I've seen saying that this is just cut throat business led practices. I know the guy doesn't get much love around here (get ready to be triggered) but as George Soros said, the market is amoral. That is the reality of how people operate in business and crying about it is pointless.

I'm also baffled why people are not saying that DLive did actually contribute a lot to Steem. So it can all be boiled down to a broken promise that was never made: DLive is here for the long haul.

However @menos has convinced me that the level of ninja operations is counter to the spirit of Steem. That they didn't integrate more with the blockchain is a red flag. We definitely want to encourage any and every company to use Steem as a payments layer, but only those who integrate well in the full ecosystem should even be considered for Stinc delegation. Hands down.

I think people need to calm down and sit back to reflect on the assumptions they had which have been exposed as a result of the DLive exit. In what way did they not do what was required of them? Why did we think it was a requirement?

There are sharks out there and it's foolish to blame a shark for chowing down. What we need to be skeptical, rigorous and honest. DLive made no promises that have been broken - to the best of my knowledge. If it turns out there were promises broken in private conversation with @ned and co that's a problem that we don't know them.

One thing I have considered in recent hours is whether the license should require apps to be opensourced. AFAIK DLive never opensourced.

Yet, AFAIK that’s not compliant with the MIT license of Steem. A license I vastly prefer over the much more restrictive nature of its obvious copyleft GNU-GPL alternative which would de facto require that for almost all. Yet even an opaque app could function within the GNU-GPL as happens for example with Akismet spam filtering for WordPress. The plugin is open sourced as required by WP’s GPL3.0 license yet not the matrix. So we wouldn’t be much further either, we would merely have a more restrictive license.

Open sourcing, or rather the lack thereof, is a red flag to me though.

That's a good suggestion, and requiring it by license inheritance a neat trick.

Except, of course, that by enforcing it you would be deliberately and aggressively limiting access to creators who want to create digital applications which might be terribly successful, and thereby increase the value (both physical and personal) of activity on the steem blockchain.

Not to mention the impossibility of enforcing that requirement. Given the general lack of governance in the context of the blockchain as is, trying to suggest policy which requires governance which has no mechanism of enforcement is like wishing in one hand and spitting in the other. I suppose at least you have some spit.

What we really need are more reasonable applications that provide actual value to someone's personal experience which just happen to use the steem blockchain.

The problem is that for most of the developers around here, the blockchain comes first – and the idea that the digital application should solve some problem will provide some value to user comes much further down the list.

Fix that first, and the rest looks after itself.

Aside from that, all of which I wholeheartedly agree with, I truly don’t think that it would be compliant with the MIT license.

And if by inheritance then only the connection layer could be required. Not anything which happens outside of the BC.

Personally, I much more prefer the more open nature of the MIT license over the restrictions of GNU-GPL3.0. Plus the MIT license is compatible with more licenses than the copyleft licenses are.

You're correct. The context under discuss here is about improving Stinc's delegation policy.

the STINC delegation did not cost any time or money. Steem gained more investors because of dlive and the delegation. End of story.

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

I'm interested on how you came to that conclusion, since steem has lost so much valuation since @dlive showed up.

Could you show me a chart that shows STEEM increasing against satoshis and cross reference it with @dlive's contribution timeline wise?

I mean no offense when I ask, I'm simply putting this out there, because it seems that many investors don't understand that inflation is a "tax" on people who bought tokens with BTC.

But please, explain your point.

(edit)

I'm not blaming @dlive for the valuation drop. I'm simply stating how you say it brought more investors and how you draw that conclusion.

I would not have invested much in to steem if dlive had not existed. I know many people on the same boat.

If your argument is that the inflation created through dlive's curation outweighed that of investors they created, that is possible. To be fair we have been in a bear market for 8 months.

That could be anecdotal, and the conversation to be productive must be looked at in macro. But I don't dismiss you words, because this is your personal truth and as such is valid for you and your positions.

In order for this to make more sense, or at least for you and I to talk with the same information as a foundation. Look at the price of STEEM against BTC since the launch.

The inflation has always pushed STEEM down, it's a downtrend overall.

"We definitely want to encourage any and every company to use Steem as a payments layer, but only those who integrate well in the full ecosystem should even be considered for Stinc delegation."

I completely agree with your entire comment, but this in particular strikes me as relevant going forward.

Thanks!

Interesting, take. It may have been a good showing what is possible. But it is sad that they seem to be planning from the start to move on to lino.

We should brace ourselves for more of the same come SMT, that mostly due to the expected low cost of entry to start a SMT.

I totally understand the feelings about they ‘always planned’ and from a personal perspective, it isn’t anything I would ever be comfortable with. Yet, that’s their right to do so but also, from a tech angle we need to raise the question whether LINO was actually already a viable future or merely a planned thing at that point.

Looking at LINO’s code on Github the initial commit is merely 8 months old. DLive joined Steem long before that. What had happened if LINO hadn’t raised such vast amounts?

But, once more, this is healthy for the Steem ecosystem. :)

lino_dlivaXXXXXXXXXX.png

ryanli code23523532.png

These are from their public testing livestreams, removed by them after images being publicized.

checkout these images, zoom in... they can't deny a thing!

But the only stone we can truly throw them I see is specwork

I don't actually mind the specwork, but I can throw a couple of other stones.

  1. They flat-out lied about why they're leaving Steem. However legitimate the criticisms of the system in their post may be, they have nothing to do with dLive's decision to leave Steem because that decision was made before they ever came to Steem. Pointlessly trashing your incubator on the way out is not something that's likely to be appealing to future investors.

  2. They encouraged their users to commit to holding their funds for thirteen weeks and then gave four days' notice that those funds would become useless in a dLive context, when they could easily have done otherwise. I know shitting all over your userbase whenever it's convenient is part of a particular segment of the cutthroat SV environment, but it's still bad business nevertheless.

You will need a jury for 1, not a rabid pitchforking mob.

The timeline connects dot so based on assumptions, territotialism can not change my opinion here. I will need concrete evidence beyond refutable level.

I’m so sorry. The reasons brought up dont add up sufficiently to unilaterally condemn and pitchfork them. What’s happening is mobbing.

And I think, looking at the responses they received it’s time for Steem the I had hold some introspection because they may very well validate one of their given reasons.

PS: Test platform and incubator are two entirely different things.

You will need a jury for 1, not a rabid pitchforking mob.

Quite the opposite, in fact. Lying to us about why they're leaving is not illegal; the appropriate consequence of the lie is the anger of the people lied to.

PS: Test platform and incubator are two entirely different things.

Yes, but not in a way that helps your argument. Steemit Inc. provided dLive with funding; some of that funding was used to compensate their staff for developing their project. That's an incubator, not a test platform.

I did say techbros are brutal. I did say the Valley has a MO I don’t necessarily approve of.

But:

  1. Lino’s first commit to Github was 8 months ago. As I said in another reply... what if LINO didn’t raise. Or didn’t reach Testnet stage or turned out to technically not be a match? And DLive had decided on those factors to stay
  2. Steemit offered a not requested nor pitched for delegation. That wasn’t funding, there was no contract nor actual handover either, a delegation is a sharing process but without actual handover of funds or any promise. As such there was no incubation. That is the reality.
    The rest is trying to spin it to fit the rabid mob born from territorial “we are the holy grail”.

Facts:
A. They may be friends and may fully have coded on each other’s platforms. That does not constitute of a crime nor does it automatically imply malicious intent.
B. I have had my mugshot in launch photos wearing a startups’ shirts without having an actual commitment with them and yet I may have helped them more than other’s I have actually had a commitment with. That is entirely possible and thus you will need more to reach beyond refutable doubt level in this whole $hitstorm in a tea glass where no Code is Law was violated.

Yet, I admire their focus. I think they have set a decent benchmark for devs to aspire to. And, at this point I’m happy they’re gone and I hope that we will see more and hopefully more innovative entrants in the streaming niche.

And, also, I am totally prepared for more of the same come SMT. The Steem blockchain is an open ecosystem which requires no commitment and as personz said maybe it was a promise never made [which is now held against them].

I have spent enough time on this topic, I think my neutral and hopefully rather objective position is all over it. I will not waste one more word at this.

That is entirely possible and thus you will need more to reach beyond refutable doubt level

I don't, though, because I am not taking this to court. Preponderance of evidence is plenty for me to dislike and speak out against a corporation. I'm sorry that you don't seem to recognize my right to do that, and everyone else's, but it exists nevertheless.

Steemit offered a not requested nor pitched for delegation. That wasn’t funding, there was no contract nor actual handover either,

None of this is in evidence, and I have a hard time believing that you are the one person on Steem who is privy to how these delegations work, especially given this bit:

a delegation is a sharing process but without actual handover of funds

This is completely false. The cash flow is actual handover of funds, and would be considered so in any court. If this does end up litigated I have no doubt that will be confirmed. Of course whether Steemit. Inc. gave themselves standing to litigate over this is something none of us know.

As a mod at Steemhunt I can confirm that the delegation to Steemhunt was made to happen without any prior request, pitch and also without any conditions or terms. That’s how misterdelegation’s delegations happen. “Boom... that just happened”, is the reality of receiving a delegation from Steemit Inc. so far.

There is no cashflow involved in the case of the delegation. You mean the curation rewards, yet that is a result of using the voluntarily offered stake. That is not a handover. Remember that we are a Code is Law based platform, only that decides beyond very few arbitration possibilities, which were never triggered.

Until Steemit Inc says that anything was violated nothing was violated. We have a healthy justice system, thank you.

And, of course, you have the right to express your dislike, even I did such. Just like I have the right not to buy into to your argumentation and respond to your replies. That right is implicitly and expressively expressed merely the fact that I actually respond. At which point, you benefit the right to both accept or disagree with my answer. Isn’t such a beautiful life and world, a life and world without needing to resort to implicit passive aggressive claims such as ‘I’m sorry that you don’t seem to recognize my right to do that...’ since disagreement does not mean I don’t listen nor don’t allow you to express your sentiment. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Dlive did contribute lots to the ecosystem and public awareness of the Steem blockchain. They are one of very few who achieved mainstream media mentions. All which brought more eyeballs to the existence of this beautiful platform.

Anyway... time to move on, move on to the next $hitstorm. And it will require more for me to take a condemning position. Now and then. Connecting dots is not a position I am in, that’s for courts to decide or for our governance when arbitration. Until then... code is law.

Well said. Steemians are bit too naive in these things. Next time when delegating so much SP maybe have something on paper too. There are fundamental flaws with this blockchain and i feel like there is no proper discussion about it.

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thank you for these links Eric... i found the medium article too... but no the steemit experiment.

:)

@meno the calculations made my head hurt... Perhaps someone that can understand it can clarify? I think that was the experiment.


You've done an amazing job researching this and writing it down based on rational and logical thinking, @meno.

Seems like @wa7 knew exactly what he was doing. Which from a business standpoint was a very smart move, but obviously morally wrong.

thank you my friend... exactly as you said... smart move, but morally wrong.

I think i love you....

you forgot to say #nohomo

Lol

hahahahahahah

I blame Ned/STINC for their willy-nilly manner of gifting massive amounts of stake to unknown “projects” and users. Remember Ned’s 500K delegations to individual users? Remember Dmania and the self-voting they were doing? This stuff with Dlive isn’t anything unexpected...and that’s the sad part.

Every new free delegation like that crowds out the existing invested users. It’s dilution of our influence over reward allocation and, so far, we have pretty much nothing to show for it.

Why should users/investors continue buying and powering up STEEM when so much influence is freely given to people with no stake of their own and with no real interest to build quality, lasting apps on the Steem blockchain?

This delegation nonsense sabotages lots of real growth, real project development, and real communities - and it undermines the entire proof-of-STAKE concept.

At what point will Ned/STINC realize this? Or do they simply not care? (Seeing as how this happens a lot and is continually pointed out to them, I lean towards the latter.)

Anyway...as invested users, we’re being diluted and undermined by the very people pretending to be our “leaders” on Steem. How long are witnesses, larger stakeholders, and the rest of the user base going to continue with the charade?

You don't mince your words and sometimes get dismissed (regrettably so) because of it, but when your logic is sound, it's sound.

I can't disagree with you, I would be dishonest myself... Now, how we actually have this dialogue with steemit inc and get "heard" is part of the equation I've not yet figured out.

At times I feel that if witnesses that have been here for far longer than I've even been a member struggle to set foot inside that circle, I stand no chance. But, here I am willing to keep on trying.

But again, you are spot on.

I can relate very much to feeling not heard, but unexpectedly found that I was not shouting into a void long after I had given up hope of response.

Being heard doesn't necessarily equate to be responded to directly, in fact.

I believe Stinc has ears on the ground, and listens quite closely to the community. Responding directly, not so much, as that would be far too time consuming, and productive of fractious debate of no benefit whatsoever.

Take heart!

Ned went to other projects.So my guess is he don't care much about it.

Yep, the unthoughtful delegation is definitely the root cause for all the drama.

Very fair points, @ats-david.

I like how there are some of those very people crying in the thread trying to virtue signal rofl.

Totally with you!

Thanks for taking the time to put all this together for us, @meno!

I guess from a strictly rational point of view, we can't blame a business for doing business. But when it comes to the moral part, apparently the DLive team has clearly failed. The fact that they didn't even inform Steemit, Inc before publishing their official announcement is a zero in business ethics.

As a little compensation for our personal suffering (and I fully comprehend your disgust), this behavior will perhaps ruin their future career in the crypto space. Nobody will ever be able to fully trust them. That is the worst basis for an entrepreneur or a team of entrepreneurs.

Yet, that is not where our energy should go now.
We can't turn back time, but we can build our future. So I fully agree on what you said about the need for more transparency. That doesn't only apply for business agreements (e.g. delegations) which are dealt and closed on a higher level, but also for a better education of the community. We can't label an application as a dApp if it effectively is a centralized app.

Do we want businesses to use the influence of the Steem community, our creativity, time, ideas, etc. while they're operating in a closed circle, not committing themselves to our blockchain solutions?

THAT is something we should talk about.
Which are the requirements for businesses to become part of the Steem network?
What does someone has to offer the network in order to get a delegation? Where's the win-win?

Establishing a certain set of rules and requirements will make us become even more professional and attractive to new investors and businesses.

Let's embrace the lesson learned. We can only become better after such an incident.

lessons.png

Quite a lucid comment.

" We can't label an application as a dApp if it effectively is a centralized app."

This^^

Thanks!

If a project refuses to make their code open source we shouldn't be delegating to them. Simple as that. Open source code and blockchain/decentralization go hand in hand.

I was never impressed with Dlive and I've spoken many times of the false promises of decentralization. Not just with Dlive, but for most projects in general.

If a project refuses to make their code open source we shouldn't be delegating to them. Simple as that. Open source code and blockchain/decentralization go hand in hand.

You know, that doesn't sit well with many people, but its hard to argue against that logic.

And that is totally understandable, because people have been living under the shadow of artificial scarcity and competition their whole lives.

The idea of making our projects open source is frightening... because how can we make sure our ideas don't get stolen and we get paid? If we were living in abundance we wouldn't have to worry about such trifles.

Alot of good facts about it. Great post!

#fuckdlive #vimmIsTheFuture

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

It wasn't exactly a nice way of doing business, and their leaving could have been quite a bit more graceful, and I don't trust the reasons they give, or, in other words, they are a bunch of greedy, ingrate pricks, and good riddance, but:

As far as I know, they broke law nor contract, and that could be the main problem right there: why doesn't this behaviour break a contract or agreement, when so much Steem was delegated to them? Are such amounts of Steem delegated on good faith alone?

Parties doing business in shady and untrustworthy ways do exist, and while I understand and share the moral outrage, isn't the real thing that went wrong the giving of a huge delegation by Steemit, Inc. without an enforcable agreement or even openness about the deal?

they broke law nor contract, and that could be the main problem right there: why doesn't this behaviour break a contract or agreement, when so much Steem was delegated to them? Are such amounts of Steem delegated on good faith alone?

That is why I think it's reasonable to ask for transparency for delegations, and I would even go as far as a democratic system for it.

I confess my spine crawled at the very thought of democratic approval for delegations by independently held stakes.

While I do expect the delegations to be informed by this particular result, and due diligence to be more in evidence hereafter, and further, have called for whales to delegate to users they think will be 'good' for Steem and Steemit, I'm not, and have never been, interested in determining for them whom to delegate to.

I'll be happy to see them tend to their knitting.

As far as I know, they broke law nor contract, and that could be the main problem right there: why doesn't this behaviour break a contract or agreement, when so much Steem was delegated to them?

I like your way of thinking.

That's the wake-up call and big lesson to be learned here.

Exactly

" why doesn't this behaviour break a contract or agreement, when so much Steem was delegated to them?"

I note that the delegated funds were never at risk. That's a beautiful thing about delegations, and that thing changes a lot about how businesses can operate. While I do agree that due diligence regarding delegations is good, clearly it's not risking the principal and can be done on blind faith.

I actually see that as a vast improvement in potential business operandi. It is an example of my thesis that technological advance increases mutual felicity and beneficence, and I'd be sore if some kind of code or program made it harder to delegate to folks you have faith in.

Even if it only makes it harder for Stinc to delegate, I'd be sore about it. The present delegation mechanism falsifies the old saw 'Nothing ventured, nothing gained.'

Stinc, and we all, can gain from delegations that work out, while delegations that don't simply return the principal to the stakeholder.

Beautiful!

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

There are still these little things called opportunity cost and yield. The delegation could have been used more fruitfully elsewhere, even if they didn't risk the principal. Blind faith is never a good way of allocating resources, in any way or form, because there are always alternatives to delegate to that don't require blind faith but do give some guarantees. This applies to delegations just as much as to investments.

While I'm not claiming that blind faith is the best means of exercising due diligence, I am trying to point out that even nothing better than blind faith is able to preserve the principal delegated by Stinc, and that the devs and management of Stinc are the best arbiters of the effort they effect to craft the future of Steem, even if mistakes are made.

Certainly better due diligence and specific guarantees could be undertaken for large delegations, but given the lean team extant, I suspect that there is a point at which cost/benefit is attained which is far lower than is traditionally possible.

I do reckon better due diligence, and some kind of expressed expectations and performance is undertaken hereafter, given the manner in which dlive burned the community. However, I am not convinced much greater benefit might have been attained were even far more restrictive and costly impositions undertaken.

The opportunity cost of delegation is pretty damn low, and the potential yield may not have been much greater in actuality than was achieved.

Dunno, but the preservation of principal, and the cost to dlive of it's poor ethics may serve to lower the cost/benefit break point to practically blind faith. I'm not sitting in that seat that @ned is, and can't really second guess him or the rest of the Stinc team.

I don't doubt they're giving this event a lot of consideration, and that they will endeavor to best spend their efforts going forward.

meno, i am proud to be a part of @helpie and also to hear your thoughts. thanks for digging and finding these very clear points. i never "took" to dlive, but this move is BEYOND FISHY... it's exploitive and nasty. appreciating you....STEEM on!

Great research, my friend. But what is this DLive? Never heard about it. Was it relevant?

dliverip.jpg

what is this dlive? perfect....

damn, who made this cartoon?

The illustrator is @kayrex. He has created all my toons and puppets (except my first one, Steemy) for me so far. I love his work. He is doing more of these Mushroom Monsters for me. But he lives in Venezuela and suffers from tons of electric outagous and other stuff related to the political situation there. So he can't create around the clock.

MushroomMonster1transparenttinified.png

Who knew this would be so appropriate one day right? perfect for the situation.

Steem monster? :)

Not yet but makes sense, doesn't it?

Mushroom-Monster-Card-1.png

You can totally buy your way into it being a real card via the Steem Monsters Kickstarter.
It looks like it belongs there.

Upvoted and Resteemed! great write up @meno much better than mine!
The Truth Exposed I do wish you would go comment on the other social media outlets @meno you explain things very well and diplomatically.

thank you @dynamicrypto , I actually slapped it on twitter... I'll ask for some retweets from friends.

outstanding!

Whats your take on Lino heavily promoting Peculium? It seems both were created at the same time and Peculium has partnered with Google it seems...

Anything with LINO scent to me reeks of "stay the f away". The mentality of these people, their moral compass is something I want nothing to do with.

I was saying looking further into lino they seem partnered in a weird way with a blockchain that incorporates Ai and is sponsored by google, from what I can tell for cloud computing.

Just a weird rabbit hole really

Need to post a deep investigation with google in the title, ruin their lil party if google pulls out

I am struck by the fact that birds of a feather flock together, and that turnabout is fair play. Given the example of business ethics Lino and dlive have just provided, what could be their expectation of faithfulness from their partners?

This is, to me, why principle is often more important that principal.

Thanks!

Cue dramatic look.

We all wondered, why would you put yellow in the logo.

There you go. Makes sense now.

Thank you Meno. I was shocked to read that about "our experimental simulation on Steem blockchain"... pffff I don't like that. Even we all know Steem is an experiment, I would say the delegation they had was not experimental, but some real trust.
Time will tell if DLive move goes well for them or not.. In general, people usually forget moral matters and go where they receive more money, or where they receive better services. DLive has always been very independent, with their own followers database, more ways to login (not only steem)... independent chat, centralized servers (not real Dapp). So I guess it is better they stay away from Steem.

that line also hit me in the gut...

Great article! :)

This read like a simple story with great wordsmithing but was laced with great research and linked information. I think you are bang on with your honesty and it is respectfully-stated severe disappointment.

You win or you learn. Seems we did the learning and the Dlive folks did the winning. I have a feeling they are about to switch into learning mode in their next steps of the endeavour.

Much appreciated. Resteemed.

Appreciate the kind comment and the resteem Zeke... cheers mate

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Great article, much research, greatly appreciated, and enjoyed your honesty. As the old saying goes f--k me once, shame on you. F--k me twice shame on me. We all need to stay informed and efforts of this nature will keep us posted and more aware in the future. Again, thanks for all your time that this project had to consume!

At the end of the day it is down to a business decision with no morals or ethics. I think Steemit let itself down for not guaranteeing something to prevent this. If you found so much information then why didn't someone with clout at Steemit poke their nose around a little more. From now on you are Detective Meno.

Detective MeanO just to be safe... hahahha

Man, you did an incredible job of writing a professional article that was researched well and although tinged with emotion, it was still objective. You were able to draw the conclusions while keeping an even temper.

It's a sad day when you find out that people have just been using you for their own personal gain and never had any intention of sticking around to be part of this. There's nothing to do, but move on and (as you said) try to set up new systems so that something like this doesn't happen again.

With enough articles like this blanketing Steemit, hopefully people will be aware of what happened and they'll choose not to migrate with dLive.

let's say that ideally a healthy economy should have equality of opportunity, but never and I do mean never, equality of outcome.

Who are you trying to bullshit. "equality of opportunity"?...is that what you mean when they delegated them two million dollars? Is that what you mean when they delegate people huge sums because they have some sort of name recognition on on FB, UTube? You should seriously look at some of those accounts...they really haven't brought in more people nor do they interact with the people or up vote people who comment on their stuff. Then to add insult to injury they can afford to buy votes to make hundreds while others struggle with some 1/8 of 1/10 of a penny bullshit while everyone else is off agreeing with everything a whale says hoping for a dime. If it's true that after the hard folk that people who don't have 120 to 140 sp their votes will be totally meaningless well I just don't know how you expect to get more people onto the platform. My guess is that most people by now have heard of steemit, the words out, I just don't see how the platform can grow or survive, there's huge calls for people to form into communities to support each other...that's a death call, they know what's happening, they aren't blind, your just can't ignore the statement those guys made before exiting:![tweet.JPG]
() That was a huge wake up call.

Not to take away from your other points, but are you implying that you and I don't have the equal opportunity to craft a dapp and get a multimillion Steem delegation?

I confess I am not chasing such. I am aware of folks that are working to develop apps, and I am sure they are doing so with the intention of gaining emoluments, delegated or otherwise. I haven't seen any effort towards that end from you either, and I don't see that as not having an opportunity.

I see that as having other interests, and acting accordingly.

No I wasn't talking about people who are skilled who can do things to make the platform actually develop, but I do feel that people like Adam Kokesh, Dan Dicks and others who have been given delegation just because they have been successful on other platforms shouldn't have a advantage over others. They haven't brought their monies worth back into the platform in the way of new followers, most who comment on their stuff are regulars here that had no affiliation with them prior to them coming here and they don't spend time interacting with people here they take the money and run, especially Dan. If people are well know out there they shouldn't need any further additional advantage.

Skill is learned. Every skill, including how to grow your audience, is a learned thing. While you and I agree on the wisdom of delegating to Kokesh, for example (I think we agree that he isn't entirely forthright in his rhetoric, and that delegation would be better placed elsewhere), our skills depend on us to learn.

Stinc delegates based on their skillsets, and I don't see that some barrier exists that deprives either of us from learning how to benefit from delegations.

Any such barrier I can see is self-imposed by ourselves. I simply note that I am not sufficiently driven to surmount such barriers, as I have other interests.

That's on me.

You may ask how a delegation is supposed to be used but we all know how giving works: you give and don't expect. Anything else is basically employer and employee.

I certainly understand your depth of feeling in this matter, given your incessant, demonstrable, and heartfelt devotion and engagement with Steemers.

I must note, however, that the sooner malign parties reveal themselves and make their move, the better off their victims are. Dlive has been here for a while, but could have continued to milk us all for a lot longer. That the community has been duped, and at unknown cost, is bad. That Steemit and @ned have is worse, and I hope it's a useful wake up call for those interested in Stinc's corporate accountability.

It's all too easy to be easily wooed, and the easier the wooing the harsher the breakup when the real dance card is read. I doubt Stinc and @ned aren't deeply introspecting on how they could have better performed due diligence. I think it's fortunate that Steem potentiates the delegation model that has precluded actual larceny, as I suspect the dlive team might not have much hesitated to take money lent them via traditional means.

I may be being unnecessarily harsh to them, but the manner of their seduction and departure does suggest significant ethical lapses are not foreign to them. From your exposition of their relationships and publications, they were intentionally duplicitous, and that does not make me feel all free and easy regarding their ethical standards.

Lastly, in addition to this being a watershed event regarding due diligence and Steem delegations, I don't think it's going to hurt Steem in the long run. Folks that have focused on using dlive might suffer a quick segue to another streaming platform, but I see Vimm is already in use by some, and hope it is every bit as useful technically, and far preferable ethically.

The observers watching this event will see some important information come to light about Steem, Steemers, and the resilience of this blockchain. I think in the end they'll be impressed with all the aforementioned, and a few other things, such as the open and giving nature of the devs and Stinc, how the price of Steem rose, rather than fell, when this 'partnership' broke, and how the community and the technology never even hiccuped or lost any functionality at all while transitioning to a new streaming provider(s).

'By their fruits you shall know them.' Lino and dlive have shown all the world the fruit they bear in partnerships. Steem and Steemers have too, and we shine. We gave support to folks that claimed to support us in turn, and when they turned on us, we didn't even twitch, but immediately produced rising prices and improved services.

I am confident Lino and dlive will not.

That's my takeaway from this debacle.

Thanks!

As always, brilliantly spoken my friend.

This really isn't an "objective" look as there are several statements that simply ooze subjectivity and perspective throughout the post. While I get where you are coming from, it is sometimes very hard to removes one's own narrative from a more unbiased picture.

There are words highlighted that seem to imply that an action that DLive took is less than ideal or unfitting within some ideal moral structure that appears to come from a subjective point of view rather than an objective one. I'm not condoning their behavior by any means, but I fail to see a significant enough argument to indicate that they did anything "objectively" wrong.

Granted you do support your arguments which is more than most users have done in addressing this issue, that doesn't mean that the overall point that you are trying to make is "objective". The post seems to suggest underneath that projects on the blockchain should behave in a certain way and that others should also use their stake accordingly in a certain way. While I can agree with the sentiment, you never really make an "objective" argument in support of this implicit desired behavior and social contract that Steemians should abide by.

That is not to say that this post was well-written or well-researched. But the slant of the post is apparent and to call this perspective "objective" is rather disingenuous.

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  ·  6 years ago (edited)

It is fuckin outrageous tbh...

As you said...everything was there but we didn't see the signs. What bothers me most is not that they played us but the fact that they funded their project with Steemit. Inc's delegation.

They should power down as they do and send every last fuckin steem back to Steemit inc. And then they can well gtfo...

No need to mention that this is an exceptional post If there is something that should be on trending...there it is.

How about bot owners to skip a voting round and send that post where it belongs so that everyone is well informed? Just saying...

we are gonna be just fine, and that is what truly matters.. the value is in the people, not a blockchain, at least not on its own.

It seems they played a careful game to get the most out of Steem, but I wonder if they can carry over much community. I think a lot of the Steem users will not go with them. I just put a few vlogs on there, so it's nothing of much value. I'll look into the other options.

A lot of the DLive members... To put it bluntly, dont care about steem except the rewards.

I am not saying that to dog on steem but as a member that has been on DLive from the beginning I am confident in my beliefs about the demographics of the users.

Most were there because of DLive... Not JUST because of steemit.

I feel @jonny-clearwater can back up the fact that most users didnt even know what a witness was.

I know that some people that came over only for DLive will stick with the blockchain and others will follow it. I dont know of any (not saying they dont exist) that was on steemit before DLive that is abandoning it now.

For what it is worth.

That may well be. I don't like that so many of the 'dapps' don't even make it clear that they run on Steem. We want users to be aware of the greater ecosystem. I only had peripheral usage of DLive, so missed out on seeing what the dedicated community was like. Still, those who mainly used Steemit will probably not follow them to Lino, so they lost a lot of potential users.

A lot of Steemit users don't really know/care about witnesses, but that's another issue.

@steevc, sorry I missed this yesterday! I feel you are spot on with everything you said.

I'm not a streamer, nor a vlogger, so I never posted on dlive. I only ever went there because folks I followed used it, and now they don't, so I never will again.

It's just a streaming service.

Steem is technological advance, and that matters. Were dlive actually decentralized as it's name implied, it'd be censorship resistant, and that would be a technological advance, and I'd care more.

Since it's not, I don't care.

I think that is what a lot of people will do honestly.

From what I have seen:
If you were vested in steem before dlive, most will stay.

If you were not and heavily vested in dlive, most will go.

If you like steem and like dlive, most will dual stream.

A lot of them will probably just leave. If they don't care about anything but rewards they're not likely to move to Lino, which is untraded.

Probably just leave... What? Just trying to clarify what you say.

If I had to guess I would say most people that were on steemit before dlive will stay with steemit and try dtube or vimm and may dual stream to dlive.

Of the people that only have a steem account because of dlive they will likely move with them or try to dual stream.

Of the people that rely on steem rewards to eat they will probably stick with platforms on steem until they realize they wont make the money they did with dlive.

This isnt entire speculation, I was heavily involved with dlive for 8 months and created @dlive24hour and have been talking to many people about their plans.

One more thing I would like to say is the rabid flagging to people stating their opinion on the matter only pushes people AWAY from steem, especially the ones that were not that vested in steem in the first place.

Rather than an attitude of resentment towards the USERS of the platform I hope they can find something positive and attempt to be welcoming to the displaced streamers.

Probably just leave... What? Just trying to clarify what you say.

Many dLive users will probably stop using both dLive and Steem. They'll probably move back to Twitch, which works reliably and rewards them at least as much as Lino will.

the rabid flagging to people stating their opinion on the matter only pushes people AWAY from steem

Well, I haven't flagged anybody and am not planning to.

@tcpolymath: How many people on dlive came from twitch? The answer is not many.

Of the ones that did only did so because they couldnt get traction there so they went to a smaller pond.

This is sort of a frustrating point right now for me as many people are assuming things and they were not even a member of the community.

Only a small handful of streamers came to dlive from other platforms. Most are first time streamers and most were not monetized on other platforms anyways.

All I am saying is that I have been talking to members of the community involved in the process and I stick with my thoughts on what people are going to do.

And as far as the flagging, that was more of a general statement, not directed at you I apologize for not being more clear.

I agree. They will need to pretty much start over.

Well not really. They basically used the Steem community to test their product for free, didnt disclose anything what they intended to do, and are basically jumping ship leaving everyone hanging.
"Your Steem wallets... who cares. Youre a part of the community here? Who cares."

free, you mean they got paid to test it, built their project off Steemit... real scum bags

Sure they did all that but will need to build their user base from almost the ground up at this point.

Well yeah. But on the technical side they arent really starting from nothing. They made 70k STEEM (after SMTs launch who knows how much that will be worth)
and used the community as guinea pigs to test everything there is to test on a video streaming service like that. Not really starting from scratch.

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

There are so many video streaming services, but do you know what most of them are missing?

People.

And with this stunt I just can't see Dlive getting many people on their new platform.

Sincerely,
@Mysteor

Sometimes we just don't know who to trust... If it was their plan all along or it just unfolded that way I do not know but as you state there's some sketchy shit going on here and they might indeed have used steem to their own advantage.

anyways we have much bigger concerns that have to be solved. dlive can be replaced(already is it seems lol)

Posted using Partiko Android

insane. it’s crazy how they took the entire blockchain for a ride and are getting say with it.

i feel like an absolute idiot for supporting them and promoting them to my customers and social media networks for months now.

just foolish. but i agree. with that much delegation especially as it comes from the steem community itself let’s hope there is much more research done on all projects getting that much sp.

what a crazy 24 hours.

Posted using Partiko iOS

Don't feel bad brother... we all made a mistake, we all did... we are gonna be alright.

Thanks, @meno. I've been tired and busy these last few days, and was flabbergasted to just discover that dLive has left the Steem eco-system, but in no time at all, your article has caught me up on everything I need to know.

Which is that, on the face of it, these guys appear to have misled, and possibly defrauded, @ned into transferring that valuable delegation to them.

One can infer that their goal all along in accepting @ned's delegation was not to build the Steem eco-system, but to steal Steemians away from it.

If they committed fraud, that would be a criminal act, and certainly one @ned could sue them for. I say "if," because only they and @ned know the terms of their dealings. Either way, their actions do them no credit, and dLive has apparently built it's future on the sandiest and shadiest of foundations. :(

Thanks for the info, @meno.

Very well written, this has been a detective drama reading experience for me. As someone who wanna try out the streaming or hosting-video-on-Steem, dlive and dtube was my obvious choice back to few months ago. The latter always has performance issue due to its IPFS structure and even though I know dlive was much better at it due to its centralised video storage, I still kinda post more video on dlive nonetheless.

I guess most of the average users just don't prioritize the decentralization when it comes to the cost of performance. I would say this was their nice trick to get the heart of most users.

Also, I really wonder would they gain the same active streamers or video makers over their new blockchain without having strong user base like Steem ecosystem does? It would certainly surprise me if things work out better for them from now on.

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

Excellent post explanatory @meno ... I must admit that without knowing the subject in depth I thought a lot like what you wrote.
The question would be now: if you are working on a platform to link to steemit, would not you have to think twice now?...
It would have to be asked, and some mentioned in their comments, if after this there will still be good delegations for projects...
I think that steemitinc will think too much before returning to give delegations like the one they had dlive...what do you think? Should work on projects and link them with steemit? or better to look for other horizons?

by the way today I receive this mail

Hey DLivers,
In light of recent feedback provided by the Community, the DLive Team has decided not to migrate all user data by default. This includes live stream replays and video uploads. If you would like your data migrated to the New DLive, you will need to notify us before 10:00 am PDT on Monday, September 24th.

We have created an article with the steps required to have your data migrated and it can be found, here.

As a reminder DLive will be down for 24 hours starting at 10:00 am PDT on Monday, September 24th to 10:00 am PDT on Tuesday, September 25th during the migration. All live streaming and video services will be back up and running on Tuesday and we can't wait to see everyone there.

If you have any questions, concerns or feedback our team is accessible 24 hours a day through the brand new Community Hub, Discord or DLive Fanbase. Please don't hesitate to contact us.

Best Regards,
The DLive Team

This article allowed me to think about several things:

  1. Steemians live in their own bubble and don't seem to be aware what was happening right under our noses. Maybe we should diversify our attention?
  2. @dlive was scummy, but the team was pretty smart.
  3. STINC might want to seek a more contractual agreement with developers in the future when it comes to large delegations.
  4. Was @ned paid under the table at any point during this ongoing charade?

I’m hearing of this the first time now. Im stunned to learn of this. I had planned to use dlive since first visiting some steem videos on there and seeing how much more quickly they loaded and smoothly they played than dtube. I never managed to get the software working I needed to stream, but still intended to buckle down and get it done at some point. I guess I was protected!

It never even occurred to me that the way they managed that speed and streaming consistency was by not using a blockchain. I’m sure their new project is FOS also.

Posted using Partiko iOS

Good to hear your thoughts on the matter. It's an interesting scenario to learn from. I'm currently working on my own dApp project, and am largely coming into it kinda blind (not a developer by trade... I just like plugging away at this stuff as it relates to my hobbies).

I have some thoughts on how to be as open, honest and transparent as possible -- which I think will be more front and centre with a lot of projects as they move forward.

Hopefully this event serves as a bit of a lesson for the no doubt many untrustworthy projects that will inevitably follow if STEEM continues to grow as much as everyone hopes it will.

The red flags I noticed before that bugged me were the total lack of open source and the logo contest. And one other thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet which was I always seemed to have inflated viewer numbers.

When I steam on twitch "Factorio" which is a nice indie game (in beta) but it's not popular like PUBG or Fortnight or LoL are. I get maybe 3 viewers (usually just 1 or 2 or even 0). However if I do have a couple viewers they almost always will chat. When I streamed on DLive I'd always have 10 to 20 viewers, but no one ever said a thing. It was like they weren't really people there. I'm convinced now that they weren't. It was just inflated numbers to make me feel better and stay around, since it is all closed source who knows how they were coming up with those stats.

It's what you say @meno, this is just a great lesson for everyone. I like to see the Steem blockchain as a project in the very, very long term. The emotional and economic loss we have suffered with this event may represent a couple of million dollars nothing more. However, with a $ 10 Steem, or $ 50 or $ 100, the pain and consequences would have been much greater. It happened what had to happen, I feel a bit of frustration with myself for not having seen it coming, the theme of the ninja and the yellow in the logo seemed very strange, but I never thought that behind was a move like this.

Anyway, I think that like the bug of 09/17, this event allowed us to see that maybe we have our difference as a community, but we all keep the same tokken in our wallets and, when they mess with it, we join as kind of brotherhood to get ahead with our dreams and desires.

From all this experience, I feel that it is the most important thing to rescue and not forget.

DLIVE are just scumbags :)

What's Dlive?

It's a dapp for colonoscopies

Some app.

Wow! Great job of historical research. That really helps put the whole thing in perspective.

Bait and switch indeed...!

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the new platform is already operational, before you know it, we will be well on our way... but lesson learnt...

he is deep state..

Great write up Meno! You obviously put a lot of work into this post and all the facts behind it.

Thank you for doing the ground work. This is an interesting development.

I have never gotten into dlive myself, I just am not a big video fan, but I know this impacts a lot of people I follow a great deal!!

This is an excellent analogy.. I had some of the similar opinions I see here. I am now working on recovering my own content to protect my own interests! I am a business owner as well and felt like I was tossed to the side like a piece of trash. The term community in this case does not seem to have your back and supporting you. Thank you for for being frank with your comments and sharing this post!

Great investigation and appreciate sharing this with us as I would imagine thatbsome are tempted by their promises of transitioning. However, I believe the value they have created is completely reliant on an asset they do no and cannot control, the Steem community not only the content creators but also the consumers of them which have generally been the source of the rewards achieved. Given what you have uncovered, I doubt that many will move as there is truly no benefit for them in my opinion. Thanks for proving why you are a great witness for this community to have as you defend the best interest of the community and not one sector in particular.

Sure, we're all smart enough not to continue with D-evil, but I wonder how much of their $20,000,000 they intend to utilize in marketing to the gullible public... They know that marketing is Steem's Achilles Heel — expect an onslaught from these shameless parasites...

I think their fame will reflect on their token valuation. I might even show up to troll over there.

It's hard to imagine you being a troll (but I fully second your feelings)...:-)

you are right Marly... not my style. Sometimes I wish, but its not in me.

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

I have to say that I enjoy streaming, and I'm grateful to dlive as they helped me with my first pushes in on steemit... and certainly will miss a streamming app here... I have been away this week and I've barely heard of it, I was intending to resume the concerts (I only halted streaming on dlive because of health and a hiatus/break) and right now I don't know what to think... should I continue streaming on Lino... but I used dlive because It was linked to steem. I have not the time for more and new places, migrations and the sorts... not at the moment... but I agree there may have been warning signs.

In all honestly I found strange and I told them openly that the chat went from steem to off-chain and followers as independent as well... I stated that it was sad, that now after having interacted the steem posts were deserted of comments, didn't make sense to me, but as it all happened mostly while I was on hiatus I didn't stated much loudly. Now I'm not even sure if I want the dlive videos now on the profile or if I should delete them, will linked hosted content from previous steemit entries continue to be available? or will they now link to non existent media... are they migrating our content to a new platform so we should we review how to remove them in case we want to (and not meaning I won't use dlive or Lino in the future) just VERY confused right now and kind of understanding many people is upset. They backed, let´s face it on steem resources, both users/creators and delegation... so why so sudden?

not throwing stones... dlive staff was always very kind to me and not ungrateful...
but I don't understand anything... and sorry but as grateful and as much fun as I've had with dlive, truth is that they have built up on steemian's content and delegation. So please more time? why sooo sooo sudden? I'm gonna give a vote of trust for proper explanations. But this is a bit shady even for enthusiasts.

They should make users accept or decline new policies and make easy a way out if users wish to, I guess...

I have a concert tomorrow and I'm just grabbing all the infos now... but I'll worry afterwards. STill not much afterwards, I dunno if I can check this on Sunday as I work too, but on Monday it's done... like there is no time span for me to make a decision about things if I have to make any. After all they are migrating my content to a place I still dunno the conditions/policies or haven't agreed upon yet...

I have to say that at least I can trust they will respond to my claim if I have to because they have always been rather quick regarding user support, so hope that's not a problem.

but in brief...
I don´t know still what's happening and for me it's all "on hold" until next week

Sadly I was preparing my curation posts for dlive... but I'll find a temporary fix... what about a helpie show until my delegation runs out, we´ll talk. On audio discord :)

I would not let you leave anyways Pris!! <3

Aww, I am not much around this week (so you will excuse I sink in the league. I have a small event tomorrow and had been hosting friends too so it has been pretty crazy hectic)

After this one I need to do about 50 replies to get the characters for the curation league.

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

oh my, I'm not even around this days.... don't worry I'm gonna sink on that list next week :) trying to catch up in the little breaks but I am hosting friends and have a performance tomorrow so a bit off the loop :). Still I think best for the league is NOT to think about it at all :) Just post and support as you are able to.

Pris, I was teasing you. We call it pulling your leg.

hahaha I see :) I'm so tired... it's been such an exhausting week, and performance tomorrow, off to print some autographs. I feel pretty brainless hahaha. LOL

Really good post thank you for sharing this information, thank you for taking time to research and write this.

giphy.gif

Spot on! And you have the facts to back your claims. It is unfortunate that the steem blockchain has been robbed this way. Going forward, this will serve as a lesson to steem inc. There is need for more transparency in their dealings.

If you ask me, the warning signs were there, we were just blinded by what we may term as not seeing the other side of their intentions because "the other intent" they brought to the table, overshadowed their plan all along, it's something they planned from the very beginning, we need to be weary of dapps like this

very true... but lesson learnt, lets move on!

You are deep state?

are you part of the shillary kabal?

(Fake laughs)

first of all that was a really detailed post and i saw a bit of your comment to dlive's one and i can it's the most accurate post with accurate arguments i have ever seen regarding that matter. Thankfully i never liked dlive from day one, just a hunch!

What really annoys me except the fact that all of these people are literally abusing and taking advantage of the platform and therefore us without giving a shit about anything only about their own benefit. I am astonished about well thought and executed their plan was!

Also it's really really tiresome and bothersome when a lot of us try to earn a decent amount by just making quality posts, making meaningful comments and overall not abusing the system for a long time (i am 1.5+ years here) and earning a couple of cents maybe a few bucks tops while others using methods like these earn thousand-millions and leave an "unhealthy" impact to the community!

I don't know why i haven't followed you but now i will. I remember i had made a comment in one of your posts a couple of months ago and what i may said back then too is that i like the part that you reply in every comment and you show respect and true interest in people! I am gonna check @helpie the following days cause i was completely unaware and i am really interested now!

Ohhh helpie is just an idea... a philosophy that people >>>> money

and somehow somewhat that translates to money going to the right people, but only once they get it...

people >>>>>>>>>> money

It's just business with no moral facet into it.

Ya. The damage is done. Hopefully the trash taking itself out.

Ok so they used STEEM as a proving grounds, makes sense. I think it was still worth the delegation from ned etc.. even if STEEM was only ever going to be a temporary home. Steemians do have every right to be upset by the lack of transparency from DLive, that is justified.

This research and summary, with details is something I truly admire. Thank you for the effort involved to produce it.

Not only upvoted, but re-steemed to my 4300+ followers. I found this 2 days late... but I value it the same.

The point here should not be to point fingers at who is to blame, or who is guilty for what... A lot of lessons can be learned....

I'm the type of person who tries to "investigate everything". Crypto is like that... Life is like that...

Don't blindly trust and hope for human goodwill and morality to just show up... because it rarely does, unfortunately.

At the minimum, it would be nice for DLive to publicly thank steem and steemit... and explain why they felt it necessary to do what they did...

I hope there is a follow up article about this same subject in the future... A "look back" maybe in a few months from now. Please consider doing it...

A look of how things progressed in the coming months for DLive, Steem, and Lino... would be an interesting sequel to this post if you end up doing a part 2..

Thanks again.

I'm sure there will be... i tend to not know when to shutup hahaha

thank you for reading brother.

Highly rEsteemed!

I feel probably Steemit Inc need to put a clearly laid out details on how they are considering the dapps for delegation, and even do some kind of transparent process ( possibly even with voting from people who are knowledgeable as well as witnesses) to prevent such abuse in future.

I keep seeing people say DLive is stealing steemians, when I know for a fact a lot of streamers have come for the DLive platform first with anything steem a firm second. I don't have the official figures to verify but DLive's CEO said 80% of users don't come from steem, always worth bearing that in mind.

Fantastic piece of journalism here, well done!

Was there not a story late last year about a 20 million dollar investment in steem? and is it possible the two are related?

very possible... but that's a stretch and a half to call it a 20 million dollar investment in steem...

Great research and blog will resteem keep up the great job

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Gran investigación @meno. Tal parece que desde un inicio tenían pensado hacía donde iban a dirigirse y eso está bien, pero lo que no me parece correcto es la manera como lo han hecho.
Y ciertamente, los encargados de delegar a estos proyectos que se supone que van a beneficiar a la cadena de bloques de Steem, deberían poner más atención a quien lo hacen. Recuerdo que algo similar ocurrió con Dmania y creo que hasta prohibieron utilizar esa etiqueta.

Now I'm really glad I have only been using d.tube all this time. I always supported d.tube because I liked the communication and integration with steemit, and the innovation. When dlive came along they basically did the same thing, only with live streams. Since I could rarely watch dlive videos that weren't live on my smartphone, I never used it to host my own content. With that little red flag, I guess I dodged a bullet there.

speaking of transparency, which project in steem eco system has transparency. We got 100s of bid bots,where is all the money going? How is it being distributed? could it be a ponzi scheme?

well, yes... i mean no disrespect, but all the bidbot information is 100% transparent.

Thank you, atleast that answer is assuring !!!!

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

I think Steemit Inc. (and others) had an idea that something isn't quite right with Dlive for a while now.

I remarked in a blog post from steemitblog, I think, where a list of DApps were mentioned, DTube was mentioned, DLive not. That triggered some warning signs for me at the time.

Also the fact that DTube decided to enter the live streaming niche is another tell sign in my opinion, thinking in retrospect.

I remember the logo "competition", and was also surprised at the requirements of "yellow" and "ninja". It made absolutely no sense and didn't seem to reflect anything about any of the stuff on their platform. I didn't know that they were so centralised, but then again, I guess that makes sense for a group of self-styled elites.

Great job in finding this out man.

Wow! Just wow!


Blissful blessings and smiles

in joy

Nathan

NK

Hi @meno!

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Wow. Dlive sure sounds like a wolf in sheep's clothing. I am most concerned that ned would give delegation without apparent due diligence. There are so many other Dapps deserving of help for what they are doing for Steem.

You've made the Steemit Minute for today! Congrats!

Check out the Video Here: https://steemit.com/news/@reseller/hs9udzxh

Before getting back “out on the curation trail,” @meno, I wanted to write a separate reply from my main reply to your post here. Why?

To specifically reinforce your “shout out” to @netuoso. There is an old, even ancient, concept of “elders at the gate” as sentinels keeping their watch. Watch for what? What does this mean? What was their purpose?

A common feature of the ancient world, in response to the need of the “common folks” for protection from their deadly enemies, were fortified, walled cities. Great. But, the need to still come “in” and go “out” resulted in a glaring weakness – a gate through the wall.

In support, before finishing, again a variant of a quote familiar to most of us:

”Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few.”

Source: Famous Quotes

“At the gate,” who bore the responsibility for “eternal vigilance?” The elders. Why? Their experience base in life and the (hopefully, if “learning opportunities” were not missed …) resulting wisdom gave them the ability to see what the junior members of their community, under their care, could not.

*”I hope all my fears are just me being cynical.”

No, @netuoso! Your experience base in life and “in here” led you to properly question what was really going on … In hindsight (there’s that word again …), it would appear our Community would have been well advised to pay closer attention to your “early warning” alert.

With that, off into the future we go, hopefully all having learned something and working together for a better tomorrow …

Does seem a bit naughty. Well once burned twice shy. You did a good job with this post though- impressive bit of work.

I never used DLive. Not even once. I did look at their sign up process and something about didn't sit right with me. Can't remember exactly what it was.

Ich bleibe treu bei Steemit

sehr wahr, überhaupt nicht besorgt

genau!!
Steemit No.1

Congratulations @meno!
Your post was mentioned in the Steemit Hit Parade in the following category:

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In hindsight, we should have paid a bit more attention to the questionable things, and someone should have researched into their background and figured out it was a bit fishy...but this will teach us a lot when future projects come here.

I personally think that it's fully possible that a lawsuit could be brought against them. They sought a delegation under false premises. While it's not exactly money, it has extreme value. They also mislead all of their users, and now plan on copying their content using an opt-out method onto another blockchain entirely. I am fairly certain that they are in a legally precarious position. But is anyone going to sue them? Dunno. Even if they did, considering it's international law, I don't know if anything could come about from it.

I don't really see anyone making a credible case against them. What is a delegation anyways in terms of legal proceedings? Delegation is a temporary bond created out of trust that incurs no monetary cost on the individual giving the delegation away. Sure, you might lose a small amount of value removing the delegation and waiting for that to come back, but who is really at fault for that? The entity taking advantage of the system or the person trusting that entity to behave correctly sans contract?

It's hard to explain it really in traditional terms, but it has real value. They were given a portion of Steemit's stake in the platform for use in their project, based on a clearly false representation of their intent. They paid employees for work by using that delegation. That seems an aweful lot like theft to me. If it's not a crime, does that mean that anyone can just lie about their intent on here, get a delegation worth possibly millions, and there's no recourse?

It means that a system needs to be implemented where contracts are put in place so that individuals are obligated to behave in accordance with them. Because right now, delegations are 100% trust based.

Also, we as individuals need to be more careful and do research on determining what type of projects that we should delegate to and the prerequisites that should be met in order to obtain a base level of trust that delegations start to be given in the first place.

Yeah, they probably should have had them digitally sign a contract. Though maybe they did communicate with them and there was a bit more than we necessarily know...

I don't think that they couldn't necessarily sue them if they wanted to. There was a clear misrepresentation of what they were doing.

Ironically, I think they actually could have been completely honest and still gotten support here. If they had said that they were doing a proof of concept with the Steem blockchain and developing a site on it, they probably would have still gotten a lot of users, though perhaps not a delegation. There's also no real reason that they have to leave Steem. They could allow users to use either blockchain and perhaps just put an @ steem at the end of Steem user's nicknames.

But they wanted that delegation. They wanted to use it to pay people to help develop their site that they planned on picking up and moving to another site. I know that if I were them, I would at least be talking to a lawyer about it.

It's so dumb that they did it this way. Now they're going to start out their site with a negative image in the crypto world.

Good Congratulations friend

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

Thank you for a very detailed post about this current topic @memo, hats off to you! I am going to resteem it if you don't mind. :)

Sincerely,
@Mysteor

Freedom is the beauty of the blockchain, The point they have highlighted is use of too much bots, real human engagement, and self up voting of content , i am agree with them , these are the flaws that steemit has to fix in future development.

It seems like that rather than solving these issue they quit it, it seems like that they use steemit to grow, now they are well known, i mean baby got young and now argue with parents. Yes it is true, steemit is not perfect there are defects but nothing in this world is perfect, you have to make it perfect over and over further development.

Dlive was having identity because of steemit it, Steemit does not require Dlive for for its existence.

Those guys look cooler than our CEO @Ned for sure! lmao !
Should we need a new fresh CEO !!???

They are worse than Youtube.

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Dlive was awful... I uploaded a few videos and could never find them

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don't let them off the hook so easily.

Very devious and deceitful.

Poopoo on them then. Their loss. We will gain something better. We are now aware and we will be more vigilant.

https://steemit.com/dlive/@tidylive/re-tidylive-9339a484-bc0c-11e8-8f16-0242ac110003-20180920t132036894z

Objective you need to take a look about actions like these.... Sry but i feel a bit robbed by em

Excellent Research, its intriguing to learn how they didt that!

I don't always agree with what you have to say, but I gotta be honest, I truly appreciate the "cold shower" (french expression) i just received...
Dude...
I had no idea what was going on, I've been using Dlive a lot up until recently, and nope, I don't intend on go checking out Lino, I can't believe I defended their "professional" curation team countless times...
If this is typical behavior in the valley no thanks, not interested...

Simply amazing.

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