Vlog 376: Steem inc. you need to be more clear if you want to restore confidence.

in exyle •  6 years ago  (edited)


Yesterday's live stream was not good enough.

"We don't know yet what we going to do", is not what I wanted to hear, even though I understand it.

I know letting go of employees and the vision for the blockchain that was being build must have been a major blow to everyone but this is not the time to cry over spilled milk.

There is a major crisis going on that needs to be addressed fast.

Confidence needs to be restored.

One of the ways to restore confidence is setting some realistic goals for the blockchain that can be achieved in this bear market.

Personally, I like the idea of RocksDB (reducing costs of nodes) because this will help everyone that wants to build on here.

Second. Find a revenue stream. Relying on STEEM is not the way. This same goes for Content Creators, App developers and as it turns out even Steem inc.

It's hopefully the biggest lesson that will come out of this whole mess for everyone.

And third, use the community to help you guys out. Utilise your Steempower for this goal. (You delegate 2 million STEEM to Oracle-D that advocate this model and then you don't use it yourself.).

There are a lot of smart people here that can help and we are all in the same boat.

I urge Steem inc. to come up with a clear plan soon of action. Restore confidence.

I talk about it more in my vlog.



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I was personally very pleased with the Live Stream @exyle since they will not be pitchforking the blockchain and estimated that they can save about $750,000 USD annually once the cost reduction improvements are made.

When the market was still bullish they were focused on speed (not cost reduction) to compete with other blockchains, but now that the market sentiment has reversed they changed their tactics and will now reduce costs.

It looks to me like @ned is guiding @steemit well and I have no complaints.

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Having no choice but to take these steps because you forgot to build a war chest in good times for bad times is not great.

Rebuilding and focus on the core of the business + revenue is key now. That's why I am advocating for a fast and clear plan of action.

I do think they build a warchest. But the price dropping from 8$ to 30 cents (instead of 1$+/-) with no way of knowing that it won't drop further, will reduce this war chest pretty fast.

That's probably why they decided to cut all costs.

That's a fair point.

I am Godsmacked at what appears to be a lack of hedging against a crypto black swan event by having a budget for the current year and upcoming year, and having those funds in fiat +10% in a bank account. The only explanation I can see for this would be naked hubris.

They still seemed kind of shocked during the last Live Interview but it seems like they are coming up with a plan now @exyle.

I encourage @ned and @steemit to continue with the Live videos and to update us with their progress and plan of action.

Hopefully they aren't counting on prices remaining flat since another sell-off is still a possibility.

  ·  6 years ago Reveal Comment

@exyle,
Yeah IDK is not works, when it's at the cooperate level! So, it's better they prepare a plan by brainstorming sessions to keep the business flowing and the price of STEEM might not effect it seriously!

Cheers~

Thank you for taking your time to comment !

I think just a banner advert at the top of the page, like CoinMarketCap has, would bring in lots of revenue. Those of us that don't want to see it can use an add blocker. Some people will say that makes steemit like Facebook but I disagree. The problem with Facebook is that they use our data and they can censor or make us see whatever they want. They don't reward their content creators in the same way steemit does. Steemit needs to be sustainable and even if its just a temporary measure, some advertising should achieve that.

I agree. Users can use another frontend if they don't like it or an add blocker. I will turn mine off, anything to help them get revenue in the short run.

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

Yes Im also supporting this idea with advertising as an additional income source.

100% agree with you. Simple and efficient

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Thank you for taking your time to comment !

Yes, Steemit, Inc needs to make a lot of things clear - especially tell us what they will not do from now on. That will guide all of us into what we should do and where we can pitch in.

I agree with all of what you said, and I want the 'Simple Tokens' ASAP so we can feel a quick win that's both good from an investors standpoint but also good for community morale - I want to see some of the awesome people who have been waiting for a loooong time to get something in return for the wait and keep them 'in', not leave.

I do want to highlight that the livestream was a great start into communicating more with the community, I liked that he wasn't putting on a mask but really got into the comments that were voted to the top of the comment section.

If we could do something similar at least twice a month we all would feel better informed and more in touch with Steemit Inc, which will help us all to step up a little more.

My question to you is: what do you feel is something you start doing today that you feel has been missing so far? (I don't even expect a full answer, I just hope everyone will answer this question the coming weeks, including myself.)

what do you feel is something you start doing today that you feel has been missing so far?

Swearing in my vlogs. lol. (@ezzy pointed this out).

I will think about your personal question in the upcoming weeks but I first like to see more questions answered by Steem inc.

I doubt banner ads are going to bring in much at all. Most people use ad blockers. Steemit inc doesn't have massive views scrolling on the page.
I think a better idea work be for the dtube users to pay to upload. I'll pay 5-10$ a month to be in some sort of DTUBE subscription. We make more than that back in upvotes.

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I am no expert in blockchain or nodes, yet I read that Minnowbooster is running its own nodes and is even willing to lease them out. Here is the direct quote " BuildTeam is aware of this responsibility and thus, Minnowbooster as well as our other BuildTeam services (The Delegation Leasing market, Steemvoter, GINAbot, Quicksteem) have been running for a long time using our own private RPC node cluster in a self sufficient and community responsible manner; which means that even in the case of a catastrophic failure of Steemit Inc's infrastructure, our services will continue to run.

Up until just a few months ago we even offered nodes for the general public which we had to decommission due to the increased cost involved with running it and lack of delegation from whales who chose to delegate to other bot services that are not as conscientious." and link https://steemit.com/minnowbooster/@minnowbooster/minnowbooster-the-only-promotion-bot-running-its-own-infrastructure
Is it possible to take some weight of Steem inc.'s back by running more independent nodes? So if all the bots were to run their own infastructure, would that help the blockchain?
My hat is off to Minnowbooster.

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I personally felt a little relieved after watching the live stream. I think they already know that the answer is to focus solely on the blockchain and not on things like marketing and improving the appearance of steemit.com. I think they realized that they need to be more decentralized in order to survive so they won't need to incur as many costs.

I too am not buying anymore Steem right now until I see what happens in the future. Time to put my energy/resources somewhere else in Steem.

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After watching that live video from Ned the other day my hopes of steemit.com are rather low as well as the steem blockchain. Reducing your staff by that much and not having a plan on what to do leads me to believe you just wasted a year worth of work with nothing to show for it.

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Great breakdown of the current situation and excellent suggestions of how to deal with the future challenges @exyle. Thanks for that!

Appreciated and resteemed

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Well thinking about steem in long term is of no use now they first need to fix the basic things .... overall it was quite disappointment for sure

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Major fuckup.
Indeed

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I hope more details are forthcoming. You are bang on as in relying on steem as a revenue stream is not the way forward, in fact it puts constant downward pressure on price

in fact it puts constant downward pressure on price

Yes, and also this!

I agree on most of this, yes. I will say though that it is 100% clear to me that total culture change is needed at Steemit Inc. regarding the topics you raised here. We apparently long ago passed the point where community willingness to code and support the project exceeded the willingness on the part of the Steem team to even communicate with the community on the issue.. And so little has moved in that regard. Without going into the motivations for that, the outcome is the same - Decentralisation needs to occur more than it has done previously. I will be communicating more with C++ coders here to negotiate possible paths onward - it would be great if Steemit inc. participated too.

I agree, I want them to use the community more as well.

We have a bit of a thread on this topic here

Everything just happened so I can understand why Steem Inc was still unsure about a lot of things on the stream. At least they've committed to focus on RocksDB, that's pretty much what we wanted, for them to put in effort into one thing. Not run around unsure what's going to happen. They gave an estimate of 3 months for RocksDB to be done, that's plenty of time to figure out what needs doing after.

However, after all this I can't bring myself to count on Steem inc to deliver what they say they're going to deliver. I'm concerned about Steem inc's future, but not worried about the blockchain itself. There are too many awesome people in this community for it to fail. I'm still going to continue buying Steem whenever I can just as I always have.

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Yeah, ofc. If I have something to say then I say it. :)

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

I have been to many townhalls after layoffs , when compared with past experiences , @ned 's communication came off as :
Unprepared , lacking in details and not grounded in time bound goals for new scope.

SMTs also need to face a newer challange of ICO ban by SEC , that doesn't seem to have been ( even still ) part of planning by STINC.

I don't think SMTs would fall under the purview of the SEC. SMTs would not be a coin offering for sale, they would be a tradeable asset against steem. Earned and distributed via the community they were offered against.

From what I have heard it would work very similar to ico tokens on top of eth..

Not all is lost, though. I've never before in my life had more "I fucking told you so" pent up inside of me, yet someway, somehow, I've found the restraint needed to be mature enough to not go there.

It's a personal victory.

I hope you don't go down with the ship, you'd just hate to see yourself become "Proof of Bagholding".

Funny. It's almost as if Steemit was doing better when it was content-focused, with more positivity and buzz surrounding it. It's almost as if things really started going downhill when the focus shifted to "Proof of Brain".

Anyways, I'll continue to be over at Scorum. A community that rewards my content. I'm sure you find it simply disgusting. But the price has been mostly green even in this tough market. See ya, guys!

I never understand people that feel the need to say 'I told you so'.

But anyway enjoy the personal victory.

I'll stay here for a while longer.

I wish you all the best over at Scorum, I hope you do well there.

I don't enjoy seeing someone like you, who never powered down, take the hit. The people who did the most damage to STEEM also walked away with the biggest benefits. That's what bugs me.

But then again. I doubt we've seen the last crypto pump. We may have, but I just doubt it, personally. And whenever there is a pump, it'll take STEEM with it. Maybe not to its previous heights, but higher than the current prices, still.

You and I disagree on things, but I hope things work out for you, man. I still consider you a friend.

It's all good man, I hope they do E-sports over there so you can continue your Megaman World Record endeavour.

You always have my 100% attention. And, your follow-up to the livestream yesterday is no different. I see that you are puzzled at the way the Steem Inc team is managing this situation and the feeling of being enraged that is bubbling up. It seems that the community is going to have to take this whole thing into their hands. Since transparency was not delivered and the team is being so vague about all of this. Is it even possible for this to happen? Is the blockchain decentralized enough for that already? I sense there's bigger stuff going on here and that 'big brother' may be pressuring those in charge here. It is a complex world we live in. Can the community take this bull by the horns while it is sleeping? To become the change that is desperately needed now?

They have an extremely good dev team. I was happy with the way things were going. SMT's were around the corner.

Just relying on STEEM as your sole income stream was an epic mistake. That's just it. Money runs out and this the result.

I don't do all this big brother stuff.

I believe we need to work together more. Steem inc. and the community.

I appreciate your sound level headed nature in this intense situation Taskmaster has said this to but it seems to be a 'full node' situation. The cost is too high not sure if you've seen this?

https://steemit.com/steem/@apshamilton/decentralisation-of-full-nodes-essential-for-steem-s-success

Very good points. I guess I really hadn't realized that there were so many large players that are not so happy with Ned lately. Digging into what you have talked about and some other posts I have seen, I am understanding a little more what is going on. At what point can Ned and Steem inc just be a figurehead and the Witnesses are the ones that are actually running the show? We vote for them anyway.

Steem inc. develops the blockchain. It's a very crucial roll. I don't know if anyone can take over. I doubt it on the short run. I was happy to hear all the core developers are still there. I hope they can refocus.

Witnesses just verify the code and changes before they go live and run their servers.

Ah, okay, that makes sense. Are there witnesses that would be willing to step into some of those roles? Just a thought. It seems like the witnesses are very active and involved in the health and well being of the blockchain. They would have a vested interest to make sure it succeeds if they had the skills to do a little work in their free time.

The unpreparedness for the stream also reflected the same behavior for their unpreparedness for the decline in prices and lack of priorities when executing the roadmap. While I agree that they cannot and should not be the everything of this blockchain, this message should have been the primary discussion around the future. However, when on the brink of extinction is when some take action to improve and given the commitment of the community to survive, it will be figured out. There still may be some pain to come, but it can lead to a better foundatyfor the future.

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Thank you for taking your time to comment !

I can feel your frustration and anger toward this way of managing the blockchain. I was believing in SMT and give all my faith in the last couple of months about it. Now I know it is something that is on the shelf.

We spend so much time on this blockchain and as a community we want it to succeed.

We all want it to succeed, believe me. Tough times, but we can pull through.

We all want it to
Succeed, believe me. Tough times,
But we can pull through.

                 - exyle


I'm a bot. I detect haiku.

I do agree that the news came quite abruptly after thinking things are going well. I do believe though that everything is going to work out, just perhaps not as soon as we would like. Where do you stand on increasing your SP in light of this situation? Will you continue to power up and even use fiat to invest in more Steem?

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Right now I'm just holding. Not adding until more becomes clear.

I’m sure from your point of view, @exyle, these VLOGs are therapeutic and an opportunity to vent, but like a few foundational Steemians, its these daily affirmations that really do make you a community leader. It’s 5:30a.m. here and I’m restlessly laying here in bed, stressed over all the things you mentioned in this blog. I feel deeply for the Steemit team members, like you said, right before Christmas, and I myself am having to come to terms that this holiday isn’t going to look anything like what I pictured even three months ago [...which at the time I thought HAD to be the bottom]. There’s a lot of anger and resentment to go around. We’re feeling this as a community and as individuals. Most the time, I have a pretty clear head but during the emotional moments, I admit I too, look for leadership. Sadly, right now, that’s scarce as well. Your contributions and thoughts go a long way.

Thank you. I was restless as well, believe me. I think many are. The bear market is indeed hitting hard and is probably far from over. Stay strong, man.

It's not enough, but i guesss it is something. Steeemit has never been good at communicating. But it seems practical ideas are coming out and more people are talking sense, just a few that are still behaving like 3rd graders, but i guess that is life. ty

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Bitcoin will bottom at 3k, then bounce back and start a new Bull market.
So in 2019 everything will be fine.

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This is a huge oops uh oh

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My sentiments exactly. Amateur business practices come to mind. As you are well aware of running a business you keep an eye on all costs. When steem was doing ok price wise obviously this was neglected and should have been rectified then. If they have any business sense they will start litening to the community now and move forward as one.

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How much steem do they sell each month to cover the costs?

If now they sell less, I look at it as a good thing.

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Amen !

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It was a small comment :) But I totally agree and join the statement of Exyle. He is just pointing out the right words !

I have high respect for @exyle !

You’re following the right person:)

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Why Ram hardware for blockchain? Will we loose the blockchain if we dont have dedicated specific RAM
hardware?

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May I know why you thanked me instead of explaining answers? I wish to know, why blockchain cannot securely store contents within itself without specific RAM or some hardwares. And I wish to know why d.tube videos are not existing in blockchain after a period of time.

I believed that blockchain has the capability to securely hold any quantity of data within itself without the need of specific hardwares like google or youtube does ...

My contact details
Telegram @nathanmars
WhatsApp +447901003594
Twitter @nathanmars7

I truly appreciate the fact that @Ned is taking the time to do these live streams. However I feel like the community is still waiting for a clear message from S inc.

I haven't got that much useful information in the live streams so far but let's hope this series help restore proper communication.

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If some of those delegations came out of the mix we might have users that find this game worth their time.

The pool is a commons, if ned gives it all to his favorites why would the rest of us play?

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I watched the live stream yesterday, it's very sad to hear that SMTs will probably be delayed at a couple of months from the testing phase. I hope they wil release a simplified version as someone suggested so that dapps can further prosper like we've seen year to date, find new marketing strategies and revenue streams like steemmonsters did that bring value to their SMT, hence to Steem.

Steemit Inc should just focus on blockchain development while leaving the community build things on top of it, making the entire ecosystem grow.

Even in a bull run though, you can't just rely on the speculative value of Steem to grow a business, secondary sources of income are mandatory imho, you still need to be attached to the old online marketing systems at this young stage of the industry (like BTC still needs a fiat pairing e.g.), ads wouldn't be that much of a problem for me, as Steemit is not selling nor manipulating user data like other social networks do anyway.

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I have been thinking 🤔 hardly about this decision.
It is not like Steemit is out of steem token.
I feel like it’s a wake up call.
Steem is decentralized so let’sall part of steem dapp do the same.
Worst case scenario is stop the fight.
We have too many bright mind in here
Developers
Businessman and women.
Let’s encounter this issue with a failsafe.
30 cents steem should freak us that much.
Let’s incentive what should be incentive.
Let’s put more honey on the table so we can attract more bees.
Keep on postin

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I think next year we see what moves we get ... just now I can say what @ned did is smart move ... and it can give lot time to get are feet dry . Because the storm has been strong... and we need strong legs to stand up to see where is the island, and when we see the island then we will direct this ship new direction.


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You are welcome :)

Hi @exile , what caused this big crisis to occur ???

Then whose fault is that? Is Steemit.inc wrong?

Is this probema also caused by steemit witnesses who are not optimal at work?

Is this solution only triggered on Steemit.inc?
Or is there something else that must be solved at #blockchain based on #Steem ?

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Yups, no prablem mr. @nathanmars, I'm used to this.

do you think this is a rubbish comment? Then why does @exile not respond?

No comment is rubbish as long as is coming from a human:)

Good Mr. @nathanmars , I agree with you ... 😎👍

They can't be beta forever, it was all planned to build up the tension before the new wave.
And then after restructuring the whole shit together, they will throw a huge bomb with SMT's in March.
Don't worry, everything will be fine.

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I dont want to be " the bad guy" but for me they really crashed it, do they have some "controlling guy" or at least someone who has some ideas of finance? , A few months ago the market cap was 1 billion ! come on how they can run out of cashflow 1 semster of each econemy university- instead of saying how great steem blockchain is they need to step up the game quickly.

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Potential revenue stream...
Still might be a few holes in that plan but it's coming together nicely.

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I always found that the barrier to entry for a new user was too steep. Many content creators may have heard of bitcoin, but don't have a working understanding of crypto. Then as a new steem user they have to juggle Posting, Active, Owner, Memo (public, private) keys. It may be a little too much for a 60+ year old baking content creator (for example) or just anyone who is used to simply shooting their content and uploading to youtube.

In addition when reading steemit posts on a desktop, the content is centered while there are large gaps on both sides. Perhaps its just my widescreen monitor, if it isn't perhaps something can be done with this unused screen real esate. Just my two cents, over all I think platforms such as steemit are the future especially when big companies are censoring and filtering their content to be ad-friendly.

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Sorry I saw your post just now. I was missing a post because you post twice a day normally. I refreshed several times but maybe there was a blockchain hickup. I begun to worry about you with your dog and this your investment and as a developer. The video was clear to me what road steem inc is gonna take. He also said there is enough cashflow to go on when he takes this bumping sideroad.. it may take a bit longer but I believe that the blockchain is not in danger. It is possible that another company is taking over the role of implementing smt's? Keep your head up exyle.

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